Ollie holds open his arms to Ashlee.
‘Nia’s mummy and daddy too?’ Ashlee asks Mum, not going to Ollie. He doesn’t seem to mind, dropping his hands and continuing to smile.
‘Absolutely,’ Mum says.
Ashlee grins and tickles Nia’s tummy, making the whole room laugh, along with her baby sister.
Chapter 19 Now
‘Talk to him, please,’ I implore Mum before going upstairs to say goodnight to Emilie.
George has just pulled up in his truck. We’re off out to a pub near Masham for dinner. Mum will read Emilie a bedtime story after I’ve gone, but first I want her to speak to George about payment for the work he’s been doing.
I hear her let him into the kitchen as I enter Emilie’s bedroom.
‘Night, night,’ I say softly. She’s lying in bed, watching her revolving bird-themed nightlight go around and around in circles.
I stay with her for a while, chatting about her day, until Mum comes to take over.
‘Any luck?’ I ask after giving my daughter one last kiss.
She shakes her head and shrugs as if to say, ‘What can I do? I tried!’
I huff with annoyance and stomp downstairs, glaring at George.
He gives me a funny look. ‘All right?’
‘You cannot work for free,’ I hiss as we go outside.
He groans. ‘I’ve had all this from your mam! I want to help.’
‘Why?’
He opens his truck’s passenger door for me and goes around to the driver’s side.
‘Seriously, why?’ I persist as he climbs in. ‘You don’t owe us anything, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Actually, I do,’ he says firmly, buckling up and putting the truck in gear.
‘It was my parents’ job to look after you. You don’t owe them for that. Looked after children don’t owe any adult anything.’
He glances at me as he drives down the farm lane. ‘Do you know what your dad said to me when I first came to your place?’
‘What?’
‘Before she left, my social worker warned me to be good. Your dad turned to me and whispered, “No, son, we’ll take you as you are.” Do you know how much that meant to me?’ he asks. ‘I’d come from three places where no one gave a shit and then your dad said that. At first, I dismissed it, convinced myself that it was just something he said to everyone. But he meant it, Leah. He meant it.’
‘Of course he did.’
‘And I threw it back in his face by running away without so much as leaving a note. He and your mam must’ve been worried sick. I know they were. They told me.’
‘You were only trying to do what you thought was right.’
‘No, I knew it was wrong. But I was so inside my own head at the time that I didn’t care who I hurt. I didn’t even call later when things had settled, I just buried it and tried to forget all about you.’
I stare out of the window, feeling faintly sick. ‘Well, you’ve more than paid them back with all the work you’ve done in the last few weeks. I think you should let it go now.’
‘No,’ he states firmly. ‘I want to do this for your mam. In your dad’s absence, it’s the least I can do.’
I look at him. ‘But when will it stop? When your guilt subsides?’
Is that when he’ll go back to Devon? When he feels he’s paid his penance?
‘I don’t know. Please, though, leave it for me to decide.’
I return to staring out of my window at the fields cast in sunshine.
Is this the loose end he was talking about tying up?
Or is there more to his ‘unfinished business’ than that?
* * *
It’s a gorgeous summer’s evening, balmy and still: perfect weather for sitting outside a pub by the river.
George goes to the bar while I find us a table at the water’s edge. He returns with a gin and tonic for me and a pint of what looks like lemonade for himself.
‘Are you not drinking?’ I ask.
‘I never drink when I’m driving.’
‘Not even one?’
‘No.’ His reply is curt.
I’m tense as I lift my glass. ‘You must be furious with Theo.’ I can’t help but say it.
‘It’s not my place to be angry,’ he mutters.
‘I’m angry.’
‘I know you are.’
‘It’s okay if you’re angry too.’
He stares into his pint glass.
‘I wrote to him, like you suggested.’
He lifts his gaze. ‘Yeah?’
‘Two letters and counting.’
I wrote again to him today, had an absurd urge to tell him about Emilie’s potty training and the silly things she sings to herself when she’s doing a Number Two.
Our daughter is random.
‘How did it feel?’ he asks.
‘To get it all out?’
He nods.
‘Kind of good.’ I shift on my seat. ‘I haven’t told him about you yet, though.’
‘No?’
I shake my head.
‘Why not?’
I shrug and reach for my drink.
The sun has come out from behind a low-lying cloud, basking George’s face in golden light. His brown eyes have become more caramel-hued. He’s still staring across the table at me.
‘How mad was he at me for leaving?’ he asks.
‘He was more upset than mad. He cared a lot about you, and he knew I did too. It made it even harder for him to be away.’
‘Away?’
‘In Italy.’
He cocks his head to one side, puzzled.
‘Theo’s dad sent him to Italy to live with his aunt. He went to boarding school there. Becky didn’t have any of this on her Facebook page?’
‘No.’ George looks knocked for six.
‘He came to tell us, but you’d already left. We tried so hard to find you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, dragging his hand across his mouth. ‘I had no idea.’
‘He left the same day you did.’
Chapter 20 Then
It’s half term, and even though we have no school for the next week, there’s so much to do on the farm. The herd has now been shorn, but the alpaca ‘blankets’ still have to be sent away to be processed. First they have to be skirted, which means all of the ‘vegetable’ matter has to be removed. In other words, the pooey bits and other impurities have to be picked out. We have twenty-six animals, so that’s a lot of fleece to get through.
Mum has her hands full with the little ones, Jamie has his A levels coming up, so he’s got loads of revision to do, and Joanne point-blank refuses to do the ‘dirty stuff’. It was hard enough to get George to learn how to knit, so I’m not expecting much help from him either.
On Monday morning, I head downstairs, preparing to get stuck in, when I hear Dad on the phone in the study. He sounds cross, which is so rare for him, that it causes me to eavesdrop.
‘This is completely unacceptable,’ he says. ‘No, she was supposed to call me herself first thing, and now you’re telling me she’s on holiday?’