I nodded, finding it easier to lie without words. Of course I wasn’t okay. Nathaniel was gone, and no amount of storytelling or rewriting or even wishing in a fairy ring could change that.
He shut the door behind me once I was seated, then moved around to his own side. As his door shut, the car seemed to close in on me, a metal box with no escape, and I opened the window for some much needed air.
“What…what happened, exactly?” I asked, and Edward’s hand fell away from the ignition without starting the engine. “I couldn’t… The phone line wasn’t very clear.”
“I know,” he said. “And I didn’t want to tell you everything over the phone. It can wait, you know, until we get back to the house. You don’t need to rush this.”
“Nathaniel’s not going anywhere.” The joke came out cracked, just like my voice, and I choked back a sob.
“It was a heart attack,” he said, quietly. “Quick and sudden. Nothing anybody could have done.”
Even if I’d been there. Which I wasn’t. Because I’d run away again, even after Nathaniel told me that Rosewood was home. How could I have left? How could I have not been there when it happened?
I turned my face away from Edward and let the tears fall again.
“Let’s get you home,” he said, and turned the key. “I have to warn you, though… It’s all…a bit tense back at the house.”
“I assume it would be.” I stared out at the familiar sights of Chester running past the windows. It seemed like months I’d been away, not less than a day.
“Yes, of course.” Edward ran a hand over his thigh before changing gear, and I wondered what had him so nervous – my arrival, my family, or his continued employment.
“It’s just,” he went on, as we pulled out onto the roundabout. “It’s not necessarily the usual kind of tense. People have been reacting…oddly.”
I’d been awake for what was almost days, at this point. I was grieving. I was worried about my family. It wasn’t inexcusable for me to lose my temper, just a little. “A person’s response to grief is an individual thing,” I said. “I don’t really think it’s appropriate for you to be…”
Edward shook his head. “No. No. That’s not… Look. Never mind. You’ll see what I mean when we get there.”
That sounded ominous. I bit my lip and tried not to imagine how much worse going home to Rosewood would be this time.
The marquees were still up.
The first thing I saw, as Edward pulled up outside Rosewood, was the looming shape of the marquee tents from the Golden Wedding, still occupying the south lawn. Flower displays still bloomed outside them, waiting for a celebration. There was probably still leftover food, maybe even champagne.
It felt like Rosewood didn’t know that the celebrations, the parties, were all over, now. Like the house itself was waiting for Nathaniel to appear from his study, still in his white tie and tails, pipe in mouth, demanding more brandy. As if any moment someone would announce that it was all just a joke, a publicity stunt, a hoax, a story.
Except Nathaniel never did publicity stunts, and his stories always had more truth in them than lies.
This one more than most.
The front door to the house opened, and my Dad emerged, an apron wrapped around his waist even at seven-thirty in the morning. Comfort cooking, I knew. Whenever he didn’t know what to do, or say, Dad cooked. We ate extremely well during times of stress and turmoil, and everyone knew that a favourite dish was really Dad saying: ‘I’m here, I love you, it’ll be okay.’
I had no idea what he thought he could cook to fix this.
With a deep breath, I pulled the handle of the car door and stepped out. As I moved towards the house, I could hear Edward opening the boot, presumably retrieving my suitcase.
“Didn’t expect to see you back so soon,” Dad said, wrapping his arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Saskia.”
I sniffed against his shoulder; he smelled like bacon. “How’s everyone else?”
“Ah…a little crazy,” Dad admitted.
Edward, passing us with my suitcase in tow, gave me a small, sad smile. “Told you so,” he said.
Once Edward had disappeared into the house, I pulled away from Dad and looked him in the eye. Time to find out what was really going on. “Crazy, how?”
As it happened, I needn’t have bothered. Dad was reluctant to go into detail and, in fact, the craziness was blatantly obvious from the moment I entered the house. I began to feel mildly guilty for yelling at Edward.
“Kia, thank God you’re here,” Isabelle said, as soon as I made it through the front door. For a brief moment, my heart filled with something other than grief, just to be wanted. To be welcomed home again. Then Isabelle went on, “You can help me,” and the feeling dissipated.
“Help with what?” I shrugged off my light jacket and Dad took it from me, escaping back to the kitchen to hang it up by the back door and, coincidentally, avoid whatever it was Isabelle wanted.
“Your grandfather’s study!” Isabelle grabbed a hold of my arm and began dragging me towards the staircase. She was, I noticed as I lurched across the hallway, not looking her usual immaculate self, which I suppose was understandable, given the circumstances. Still, it was strange, seeing my perfectly groomed grandmother with unstyled hair scraped back from her face, and a blouse that didn’t quite match her shoes.
Grief takes us all in different ways, I reminded myself, and prepared to be calm and comforting in the face of craziness.
Luckily, Edward was waiting for us halfway up the stairs, and able to spare me from a morning of doing that. “Isabelle, you know you can’t go in there,” he said, and my grandmother gave out an actual, honest to God wail. The sound caught in my chest, proof positive that nothing was the same. Nathaniel wasn’t about to appear from his study, demanding to know what the commotion was about. If the inhuman noise that came from Isabelle hadn’t called him back, nothing could.
“It’s my house!” she yelled. “Who are you to tell me where I can and cannot go? What are you still doing here, anyway? In case you hadn’t noticed, your employment has been terminated. So why don’t you just get out of my house!” The last part of this was screamed at the top of her voice, and accompanied by the throwing of the papers in her hand against the wall.
Edward stood silently still on his stair, and looked at me. Time to do something, apparently.
“Okay, then, I think we could all do with some coffee.” Possibly an Irish one, if I thought it would settle her nerves, even if it was not quite eight a.m. With one arm around her shoulder, I managed to steer Isabelle back down the few stairs we’d climbed and towards the drawing room. It was only then that I discovered we’d drawn a crowd; Greg and Ellie were standing behind us, and Dad was back in the kitchen doorway, spatula in hand. Ellie was pale, but Greg’s arms were around her waist, holding her close. I looked away. Ellie deserved that co
mfort, that love, and I was glad she had it. Glad, too, that Greg had found that absolution, and his place here.
I just wished it wasn’t at the expense of my own.
As I turned, Ellie stepped forward, away from Greg and towards me. Her hand came up, as if to reach for me, and for that brief second my heart stopped. Was this it? Was this the moment she let me back into her life? I started to move towards her – until her hand dropped and she shifted back into Greg’s arms again.
I looked away. Apparently even our grief wasn’t enough to bring us back together. Ellie must be every bit as heartbroken as I was – but she had Greg to help her through it. She didn’t need me.
Even if I still needed her.
It took a little time to get Isabelle settled in the drawing room, but things moved quicker once Ellie and Greg came to help. Eventually, I was able to slip out without being noticed, two coffees in my hand, letting the door click shut behind me.
Edward was sitting on the stairs where we’d left him, hands clasped across his knees, staring at the closed front door. He didn’t even look up until I waved the coffee under his nose.
“All sorted?” he asked, taking the cup from my hand.
I settled myself onto a step a few below him and blew across the surface of my coffee to cool it. “For now. You really meant it when you said things were crazy, didn’t you.”
“I did.” He sighed, his head hanging low and his shoulders hunched. “You see what I mean, now.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.” I loved my family dearly, but they weren’t always the easiest people to live with.
Edward gave a small shrug. “All part of the job, I suppose.”
It wasn’t, though. Whatever the terms of his employment, I was pretty sure Edward could walk out whenever he wanted. He’d chosen to stay, to help my family when they needed him. Even if Isabelle didn’t appreciate that, I did.
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked, looking to distract him from Isabelle’s awfulness. How Edward would know, having only just arrived back with me, I’d no idea. But he did.