Sins

‘Yes you were. She as good as admitted it to me years ago, when she told me that she felt that the two of you shared a special bond.’

There was nothing Rose could say or do now, other than simply give in.

‘Do we know yet whether or not Ella is coming?’ Janey asked.

Drogo shook his head.

Looking at her siblings, Emerald recognised that she no longer felt like an outsider amongst them. Without it being planned or worked for, finally she had what as a child she had longed for so fiercely and rejected even more fiercely–acceptance.

In the intensive care unit Amber smiled shakily through her tears of relief and gratitude.

‘Thank you for not leaving me,’ she whispered to Jay, and she was sure that the small twitch of his lips meant that he had heard her and that he was smiling at her.

Now with the crisis over she was able to think about its effect on their shared family. Sister had told her about their arrival and their anxiety. Was Rose here? Her heart jumped with pain. She had never stopped wondering what it was that had caused Rose to become so distant towards her, and never stopped grieving for the bond that had been lost, either.

She could still see Rose now as the tiny sick baby she had been when she had first seen her and had felt those unmistakable pangs of maternal protective love for her. That love had grown with Rose–the niece who, in her heart, Amber had always thought of as a daughter.

Drogo waited until no one else could overhear them to ask Emerald, on the way to the car, ‘What was all that about the consultant saying that your mother had asked for Rose?’

‘It’s about mending fences, healing rifts and paying debts,’ Emerald told him, grimacing as she added, ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me today, Drogo, but I’ve felt dreadfully sick every time I’ve looked at a cup of tea, and now all I want to do is go to sleep, when I should be too worried about what’s going on to even think of sleeping. The last time I remember feeling like this was—’ Abruptly Emerald stopped speaking at exactly the same moment as Drogo stopped walking and turned towards her.

‘When you were first pregnant with Emma,’ he finished for her.

‘I can’t be. I mean, we haven’t even been trying, and…oh, Drogo!’

She was in his arms, trembling, as he held her close.

‘I daren’t even hope that I might be in case I’m not,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, if I was pregnant now, after all this time, it would almost be a miracle. Oh, Drogo…’

Ella was exhausted and frantic with anxiety and misery. Her flight had been diverted to Charles de Gaulle because of some problem with one of the engines, instead of landing at Heathrow, and then she had had to wait for a connecting flight to Manchester.

The plane had landed in the darkness of the early February evening in an icy wind laden with a wet sleet that was somehow far colder and wetter than even the worst of New York’s winter snowfalls, and certainly far worse than the crisp stinging cold of the skiing season in Vermont.

Her antagonism towards weather that she felt was being deliberately inhospitable made her sharply aware of how Americanised she had become and how alien her own country now felt.

Manchester wasn’t home any more; it was simply a cold damp place, the airport staffed by people whose accents, striking an unfamiliar note, jarred on her nerves.

She still had to get to the hospital. What would she find there? What if her father had had another attack? What if he wasn’t…but no, she must not think like that.

She had travelled light, with a small case as hand luggage, so there was nothing to stop her going straight through Customs and heading for the arrivals area. The long line of people several deep, straining against the barrier, waiting for those coming off the newly landed planes took her by surprise, and then had her hopefully scanning their faces, hoping she might see one that was familiar. But when she did see two familiar faces she stopped dead in her tracks in disbelief.

Oliver and Olivia. How was it possible for them to be here?

She must have asked the question, she knew, but if he had heard it Oliver wasn’t answering it. Instead he was taking her case from her, the warm gust of his breath against her face as he did so filled with the familiar smell of his favourite menthol chewing gum.

‘Mummy, we beat you to it.’

That was Olivia, dancing up and down as she beamed at her.

‘My plane was diverted.’

‘Yes, I know.’

That was Oliver, his voice grim and his face shuttered.

Ella grabbed hold of his arm. ‘What are you doing here and why have you brought Olivia?’

‘Why do you think? I’m your husband and Jay is her grandfather. Where else should we be? I might not be able to stop you from shutting me out, Ella–after all, I learned years ago how ashamed of me you are, the working-class photographer husband you never really wanted to marry–but I’m damned if I’m going to let you shut out Olivia. She has a right to be here. She’s just as much a part of your family as you are. The same blood runs in her veins as runs in yours–your sisters are her aunts, their kids are her cousins. You might not like that, you might prefer to pretend that she and I don’t exist because you’d have rather had someone like Brad father your kids, but he didn’t and I did, and I’m not having my daughter excluded from her family because her mother’s a snob who can’t bear her family knowing the man she married.’ He gave her a bitter look. ‘What exactly is it you think I’m going to do–eat peas off my knife? Or is the fact that I am what I am enough to make you ashamed of me, without me having to do anything to prove my unworthiness?’