“But why—” Claudia stopped pacing and exchanged looks with Anna. “Well, whatever the reason, it’s rough. I wish you’d told us.”
“I wish you’d told us, too, but only because we would have wanted to support you and be there for you.” Anna spoke softly. “Do you need a hug?”
It was so very Anna, that Erica almost smiled. “I don’t need a hug, but thank you.”
Claudia was still processing the information. “All these years you thought your father just walked out and never looked back. That he didn’t think about you once. But clearly the guy thought about you.”
“For as long as it took to send the card, at least.”
Claudia tapped her fingertip on her cheek. “Are you upset with your mother for not showing you the card?”
“At first, I was confused. Maybe a little angry. But then I thought about it from her point of view. The man left her when she was at her most vulnerable. She put all her trust in him. So I could hardly blame her for protecting herself when he got in touch after so long. I assume it was out of the blue.”
“I don’t think she was only protecting herself.” Anna stood up and poured a glass of water from the jug on the table. She handed it to Erica. “She was protecting you. Her baby. He hurt you both. He let you down. She couldn’t risk him doing it again. At least that’s how I’d feel if Pete had walked out when the twins were born. She was trying to be strong for you both.”
Erica felt her heart miss a beat. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
She took a sip of water. Was that what had happened? She’d tried to imagine how her mother must have felt when that card had arrived. Tried to imagine her making the decision about how to respond. She’d been twelve years old. Had her mother considered giving it to her or had she just made up her mind right away not to ever show Erica?
Anna poured water for herself and Claudia. “But how does Hattie fit into this? Did your mother know about her existence?”
“I don’t know. I assume not. There was nothing in her things to suggest she’d had any contact with him at all. That she knew anything about his circumstances.”
“I still don’t understand,” Claudia said. “You found the card two years ago. So what did you do? You tracked him down?”
“At first, I did nothing. I was missing my mother horribly. I decided that if she didn’t want me to know about the card, then I’d forget I ever saw it. I wanted to respect her wishes. Also, I was angry—thinking back about how very hard her life was back at the beginning and blaming him.” Her head started to ache. She finished her water and handed the glass back to Anna. “But I couldn’t forget it. And then a few months ago I decided to find out more so I hired someone. I wanted to know if my father was alive, and what he was doing. I didn’t have plans to get in touch or anything. I just wanted to know what happened to him. It felt like unfinished business.”
“I can’t believe you hired a private investigator.” Claudia was fascinated. “I’ve only ever seen that happen in the movies. I didn’t know people did that in real life.”
Anna was focused on Erica. “How much did you find out?”
“Quite a bit.” Erica thought of the file on her computer. “He moved to England right after he left my mother. I guess if you’re going to run, you might as well run far. He worked there for a while, then quite a few years later met a woman who he married. They had one child. Hattie. His wife died a week after giving birth. Blood clot.”
“Oh, that’s tragic.” Anna sat down hard on the edge of the bed.
“Yes. He was left with a newborn.” And the irony of that hadn’t escaped her. “I suppose if he was going to run from fatherhood a second time he would have done it then, but he didn’t. He raised the child alone. Those were the facts, but facts don’t tell you anything really. They didn’t tell me if he ever thought about his other family. They didn’t tell me if he was sorry for the way he treated my mother.”
“And you,” Anna said softly. “He didn’t just abandon your mother. He abandoned you.”
It was typical of Anna to understand the full emotional impact of any situation.
“That’s true. Those facts didn’t tell me how he reacted when his wife died. Didn’t tell if he was a good father, although he obviously stayed, so that was a start and a very definite improvement on his performance with me.”
Claudia thumped her empty glass back on the table. “We’re not ready to give him an A plus yet.”
“I had more questions than I had answers. And then we walked into this inn, I saw that photograph downstairs and the answers were right there.” There was an ache in the center of her chest. “However he felt about us, his first family, he loved his second family. He didn’t walk out on them the way he did us. This time he didn’t run from the challenge. He raised his child on his own. He was a good dad.”
“Maybe he was.” Anna swung her legs off the bed and walked across to her. “And that’s good in one way, but hard in another. It has to hurt.”
“I’m still processing.” She couldn’t make sense of her feelings, or maybe it was simply that she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to feel this much about anything. She preferred to skim along the surface of life, never dipping deeper.
“Wait—” Claudia joined them at the window. “That means Hattie is your half sister. You have a half sister.”
The ache in Erica’s chest grew more intense. “That’s right.”
The three of them absorbed the implications of that.
“Well—” Claudia swallowed. “I mean, she seems nice. Don’t you think so, Anna? Warm and caring? Also, she has great taste in boots. And a good eye for interior design if the inn is anything to go by.”
“Yes.” Anna pressed her hand to her chest. Her eyes were shining. “Erica, you do realize what this means? You have family. Actual family. And Hattie has a daughter, which means you’re an aunt.”
“Stop it. You know that word freaks me out.”
“I know. You refused to let my kids call you Aunt Erica.”
Erica tried not to recoil. “Too heavy. Too much responsibility.”
“Being an aunt freaks me out, too. Mostly because it’s expensive,” Claudia warned. “I told my sister to stop at two, but did she listen? No. Start saving now.”
“But family.” Anna emphasized the word and Erica sighed.
“Only in your world is family the equivalent of an all-weather down duvet ready to protect you from everything. Hattie and I are not family, Anna. We’re strangers.”
“But not for long. You’re going to fix that. When are you planning to tell her? Do you want us to be there when you do it? How can we support you?”
Erica rubbed her hand over her chest. She couldn’t ever remember feeling this stressed. “I’m not planning to tell her.”
There was a shocked silence.
“Wait—you’re not planning to tell her at all?” Claudia enunciated the words carefully. “Not ever?”
“That’s right.” Erica turned back to the window. Her legs were shaky and she felt a little sick.