Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 126850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“It wasn’t cancer? So they went through it for nothing?”
“No, and no, not with hindsight,” Granny said. “Because it did come back, just a couple of years later, and we both know how that ended.”
I looked down at my hands. “How do you know he still loves her? Why are you defending him? You’ve never liked him!”
“On the contrary, I used to like the little swine very much,” Granny replied. “I loved him as my son, and that didn’t change until I met Carmen and saw how she treated you after you rejected her advances to be your mother. His willingness to let his wife treat you like you weren’t a part of his family is the reason I lost a lot of my respect for him.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Also, you have to agree that you and your mother never wanted for anything. When your car broke down, he bought her a new one. Your dance lessons? School trips? New clothing and shoes? The holidays the three of us would have together? That hamster you had for three weeks before the cat ate it?”
“I still don’t know how that happened.”
“Nobody does. But he paid for it all, Gracie. Every penny. Your mother didn’t have to work or do a thing—he maintained your household as he would have if he were still a part of it.”
“I didn’t know it went that far.”
“It did. And his wife hated it. If your mum needed anything, he would jump into action. He missed Vincent’s second birthday party because you’d broken your wrist at gymnastics and were in hospital. Never mind that your mum was stuck in traffic and one of the teachers had gone with you in an ambulance—they argued for weeks about it because he’d chosen you.”
I swallowed.
“And when Harriet’s cancer came back, he was the first one to be there. Everywhere. He was like a bad damn smell,” Granny continued, wrinkling up her nose. “I walked into him in my kitchen too many times, which was unfortunate because the man can’t cook to save his life.”
That… was pretty fair.
If you wanted my dad to make you a soft-boiled egg, you had to ask for a hard-boiled egg, and vice-versa. God knows how he mixed the timings up every time.
“You were already growing apart from him at that point. You saw him with his new family and saw what the rest of the world did—he’d gotten rid of the pair of you and settled down with his new, younger wife who’d provided him a son and heir. That his new family was better than his older one.”
“It wasn’t exactly wrong,” I mumbled.
“She wanted to tell you,” Granny said. “Harriet knew she was going to die. She told me the day she found out it was back that she would lose that battle. She fought as hard as she could, but she knew somehow that she was only prolonging her life, and she did it for you. She wanted you and him to mend your relationship before she went, and she thought that telling you she was the one who forced your father into doing what he did would change things.”
“I was old enough to understand. I wasn’t a kid. Why didn’t they tell me?”
“Your father refused. It was temporarily shelved until she went on hospice.” Granny’s eyes watered, and she sniffed, blinking the tears back. “Then it came back. Your father was there all day, every day. I would take you to school and he would pick you up, then take you to see your mum. He told Carmen that you needed him. I don’t know how much you remember of those last few weeks.”
“Not a lot,” I admitted. “It’s a blur. I remember hating him for pretending he cared. I was horrible to him sometimes.”
“You knew she was dying, Gracie. We all knew that meant you’d end up with your father, even though he wouldn’t have batted an eyelid if you’d insisted on living with me if it was what made you happy. You were a teenager. You had a lot going on in your life without the storm of your family changing again. He never judged you for it.”
“No. He was always nice. He never shouted at me, even when I said horrid things. He took it all,” I said quietly. “Oh, Granny. I even blamed him once for her getting cancer.”
“I know. It’s why your mum wanted you to know the truth, but he refused. The week before she died, they had the mother of all arguments about it, and they didn’t speak to one another for five days. I’d walk into her room, and they’d be sitting there, together, not saying a word.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. He was there for twelve hours, only leaving to get you from school to visit her. They’d speak to me, but not to each other. They even spoke through me sometimes. Both of them were stubborn sods, steadfast in their belief that what they wanted was the right thing for you. In the end, they were both right, of course.”