“It was never found,” Flora said, as if proving something.
“She hadn’t used it for years—not since I was a baby. It would have expired anyway.” Nan stirred the sour cream with a spoon.
“You think she’s dead, too, don’t you?” Flora said. “I bet you’ve always thought that.”
Nan looked at her, sighed, and sat opposite, placing the glass bowl on the table between them. “She wouldn’t have left without writing a letter, a note, something. She wouldn’t have done that to us. She went for a swim, got into difficulty, and drowned. It’s as simple as that.” Nan gave a small laugh, and when Flora didn’t speak, she continued, “Mothers don’t leave their children.”
“Who says so?” Flora dipped a finger into the sour cream. “Fathers leave their kids all the time and there’s barely a shrug—or maybe someone’s a bit disappointed. Why should it be so shocking when a mother does it?” She put her finger in her mouth.
“Tea, I think,” Richard said.
“It’s different for mothers,” Nan said.
“Why? Because mothers are meant to love their children more than fathers? Because it’s supposed to come naturally?”
“I see it all the time at work,” Nan said. “There’s an instant bond between the mother and her child. The father might be in the room, might even be the first to hold them, will be delighted, but it’s not the same.” She stood and picked up the bowl.
“It wasn’t like that for this family, though, was it?” Flora said. “You just don’t like to admit it. Our mother didn’t have an instant bond with us. I’m not sure she had a bond with anyone. Probably all she had was duty, expectation, and guilt. She could have left because it was all too much and still be out there.”
Nan talked over the end of Flora’s words. “I don’t know why you want her to come home if she was so terrible.”
“Being a mother didn’t come easily to her. Not like being a father does for Daddy.”
“You have no idea, do you, little sister?” Nan shook her head. Richard waited with the tea caddy in his hands.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Flora said. “He’s been a good father.” Nan took a deep breath, and Flora waited. “What?”
“The man’s dying. It’s not right to talk about this now.” Nan stirred the cream once more.
“When will it ever be right?”
“You really want to know? How about this? He was a womanizer. He slept with whoever he could get his hands on.”
Flora laughed. Richard swilled warm water around the teapot and counted three spoonfuls of leaves into it.
“When I was fourteen, fifteen,” Nan said, “every time Dad went out, Mum and I used to worry where he’d gone, who he would bring home to that damn writing room.”
“That’s ridiculous. Daddy wouldn’t do that.” Flora’s voice rose; she felt the rush of anger and expected Richard to intervene, to say something, but he was waiting for the kettle to boil.
“What did you think he was doing there? Writing?” It was Nan’s turn to laugh. “For your whole life he only managed to produce one book. And what a book that was. I’m still not sure how much of it’s true. I could never work it out.”
From the corner of her eye, Flora saw Richard look at her. “Of course it’s not true.”
“How blind have you been all these years?” Nan said. “While you and I were in our beds, he was down the garden having sex with Megan or some other girl, and Mum would leave the house and go swimming.”
Richard took the milk out of the fridge and sniffed it.
“Megan?” Flora said. “Megan who used to babysit? I don’t believe you.”
“God, none of it matters now,” Nan said. “Just forget it.”
“You can’t drop a bombshell like that and then say forget it.”
“Look, he’s been making things up his whole life. The big important writer that everybody loved, speaking to Mum on the phone, seeing her in Hadleigh. It’s all been nonsense.”
The kettle rumbled.
“Not all of it,” Flora said, almost to herself, almost hopefully.
“Oh, Flora, there are so many things you conveniently remember wrong. Sometimes I wonder if you were living in the same house as Mum and me.” The metal spoon chinked against the glass of the bowl and some cream splashed onto Nan’s chin.
“Nobody told me anything,” Flora shouted. “I had to work it out by listening at doors, overhearing snatches of conversation, and filling in the gaps. Don’t blame me if I made it up.”
“Stop complaining,” Nan said. “At least you had Dad. Who did I have watching out for me? Not even Mum when she was here. And you didn’t have to suddenly become the adult at the age of fifteen because there was no one else to do the job of a mother.”
“No one ever asked you to do it.” Flora pushed her chair out from the table.
“Who else was going to make sure there was food in the house, that there were clean clothes, that you went to school? It wasn’t going to be our father. Overnight I had to become a mother to a daughter I didn’t want.”