Spending time with Angie had made her ask herself that question. Her friend’s life had changed radically over the past few years, and that change had been forced upon her. But why did you have to wait for a crisis life event to rethink the way you lived?
And now here she was in the kitchen, preparing dinner for a man who wasn’t her husband.
Should she feel guilty? Did she feel guilty?
No. Finn had been generous to her mother. Also, she enjoyed his company.
And it wasn’t as if Sean was going to know anything about it. If it came up in conversation then she’d talk about it, but otherwise why raise it? It was all perfectly innocent.
She put the salmon back in the fridge, whisked egg whites with sugar to make meringues and slid them into the oven.
Feeling thoroughly unlike herself, she selected a track from Finn’s most recent album and danced round the kitchen.
When the track ended she stopped, breathless, thinking how embarrassed the girls would have been if they could have seen her. They thought she was too old to dance.
And she’d thought her mother was too old to do a road trip.
Behavior shouldn’t be dictated by age, she thought. If she wanted to dance, she’d dance. If her mother wanted to travel, she should travel.
And if she wanted to stay in her home, she should stay in her home.
The doors and windows were open to the garden and Liza could smell the climbing rose that clustered on the wall next to the window. An idea formed in her head, but she pushed it away. Ridiculous. She was stepping into fantasyland.
When she was satisfied that she had dinner preparation well in hand, she headed upstairs to change.
She surveyed her new wardrobe. The problem with so much choice, she thought, was actually choosing.
In the end she settled on the red dress, because she couldn’t imagine another occasion that she might be able to wear it and a dress like this wasn’t designed to live its life hanging on a rail.
Her phone rang as she was heading downstairs.
It was her mother.
“How’s the adventurer?” Liza fastened her watch. She’d started to look forward to these nightly phone calls with her mother. “How are Martha and Josh? Are your matchmaking attempts working?”
“I am hopeful. But I didn’t call to talk about them.”
“Oh?” Liza glanced at the time. She had about half an hour before Finn arrived. “Is everything all right?”
There was a pause. “Liza, I need you to do something for me.”
Her mother never asked anything of her.
Liza sat down hard on one of the kitchen chairs. “Of course.”
“It’s—difficult.”
Physically or emotionally? “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”
“Dear Liza. Always so sensible and reliable.”
Liza studied her sky-high heels. Fortunately this wasn’t a video call, or her mother would see that she’d left sensible and reliable behind in London. “What’s troubling you?”
“There are letters—”
Liza sat up straighter. “The ones in your study?”
“You know about them?”
“I found them when I was searching for the DVDs. They weren’t where you thought they were, so I checked the desk. The letters were with a ring. Which I assume is a fake diamond?”
There was a pause. “It’s not fake.”
Liza went hot and cold.
Should she mention that it was a valuable object to keep in the house? No. The ring clearly had an emotional significance that she didn’t understand. It was her mother’s business. She swallowed down her words of warning. “How can I help?” It took so long for her mother to respond that Liza glanced at her phone screen, wondering if they’d been cut off. “Hello?”
“Yes. I’m here. Before I met your father, I was engaged. His name was Adam.”
Liza stared across the kitchen.
Her mother had been engaged. To someone who wasn’t her father. Her mother had been in love.
“The man in the photo. With you and Ruth.”
“You have a good memory.”
“He broke off the engagement?” She couldn’t quite believe her mother was telling her this. Talking to her this way. She was afraid she might give the wrong response and cause her mother to retreat again.
“No, I broke it off. When I discovered that he’d had an affair with Ruth.”
Ruth. Her mother’s best friend.
“Oh no, that’s awful—” She’d had no idea. Her mother was so private, Liza hadn’t ever given much thought to what lay in her past. “Did Dad know?”
Maybe she shouldn’t have asked. She knew how hard her mother found it to talk about anything personal. “Forget it. You don’t have to talk about—”
“Your father knew. It was the reason he proposed three times. He understood how difficult I found it to make that commitment. I was never good at being close to people after that.” Her usually poised mother was hesitant and uncertain. “I preferred my relationships to be light and easy.”
“I’m not surprised.” Nor was she surprised that her mother had broken her connection with Ruth. What did surprise her was that her ultraprivate mother was finally telling her this.
“I found it hard to trust. I didn’t want to risk my heart again. I protected it carefully, you see. It was my good fortune to meet your father, and he was everything I needed. He is the only person who ever truly knew me.”
Your mother needs this.
Liza felt a sudden thud of emotion as she thought of her father, so kind and patient. That was what a perfect partnership was, wasn’t it? Knowing another person and accepting them. Allowing them to be who they were. “Are the letters from Adam or Ruth?”
“Ruth. I don’t know what they say. I made the decision not to stay in contact.”
“It must have been so hard.” Surely something like that would be impossible to forgive? It would break any friendship. “You were never tempted to open the letters?”
“Never.”
Liza glanced at the time. The last thing she wanted was for Finn to arrive in the middle of her first proper deep conversation with her mother. “Why have you changed your mind?”
“I had a funny turn. It made me realize that if something happened to me you’d open those letters. Whatever they say, I want you to know the story, Liza. And now you’re going to ask me about my dizzy spell.”