“I told you, you didn’t do anything to the website. There was a technical issue.” I wasn’t going to tell anyone the website had been hacked. Tempers were frayed enough when it came to Snowsville. “The email to customers seemed to provide a boost, and hopefully the journalists visiting today and the changes we’ve made over the last couple of days, together with the branding, will mean profits grow for the rest of this year and into next year.”
Granny shifted, lowering her foot to the floor, and picked up her cup. Seemed like she was getting better. “It’s very good news. I knew you were going to be able to help. In a way, it’s been good that I sprained my ankle.” She winked at me.
Winked a you’re-in-on-the-secret kind of wink.
“Granny.” My tone was a warning. “If you sprained your ankle, then you need to keep it elevated,” I reminded her.
“What do you mean if? You think I could have kept myself away from that green over the last few days unless I was incapacitated?”
She might have a point.
“But now we’re on the subject of you being here, how are you enjoying it?”
I didn’t want to start comparing a private pool in Barbados with Snowsly’s village green. “It’s fine,” I said.
“You think you might visit your old Granny a bit more often from now on?” A pang of regret bloomed in my chest until it was stopped in its tracks when she added, “I’m sure Celia would love to see you.”
I shook my head, making no comment. Whatever I said, she’d manage to glean from it something I didn’t mean.
But Granny wasn’t deterred. “Her last boyfriend was just awful. Was about to propose to her and then just up and left. I never liked him one bit. Wasn’t clever enough for Celia. I always think that women should marry someone smarter than they are. That way, they don’t have to dim their light to preserve a man’s ego. You, of course, can marry anyone in the country because you’re the cleverest boy I know.”
I chuckled. “I think you’re slightly biased. And I’m pretty sure Celia wouldn’t be able to dim her light even if she tried.”
A grin unfurled on Granny’s face as if she had me confessing to something I shouldn’t have. But I’d played this particular game of chess with her before. “Exactly. I think that’s why it ended. He couldn’t keep up with her and didn’t like to admit it. Anyway, I’m sure she’ll find herself a nice young man before long. She’s a beautiful girl.”
I nodded, trying to ignore the not-so-subtle dance Granny was doing.
“I’m going to invite her over to the Manor for Christmas lunch,” Granny said. “There’ll be quite the gathering. Most of the committee are coming. It would be nice to have you there.”
I see, Granny. Checkmate. Her questions had been leading here all along. She wanted me to extend my stay. “You know I have a flight booked for Christmas Eve.”
She sighed. “I do know that. I was just hoping you’d change your mind. I’ve waited so long to have you here at Christmas. Are you sure you can’t wait a couple more days before you fly off?”
I’d always thought there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Granny, but I might have just found my sticking point. The last few weeks had been more enjoyable than I could have expected. Better to leave when the going was good. The worst possible scenario would be ruining a perfectly lovely visit by overstaying. “You know I don’t celebrate Christmas,” I said. “You’ll have much more fun without me.”
She reached across and squeezed my hand. “How wrong you are, my darling boy. But I understand. The past is a painful place for you and understandably so for many reasons. But consider whether or not that’s where you want to live.”
“Have you spoken to Jocelyn?” I asked, wondering why she was bringing up the past.
She shook her head, her brow furrowed in disappointment. “Your mother calls me every week.” It shouldn’t surprise me that my mother called so often. She and Granny had always had a good relationship, which I found a little strange. Granny was so warm and loving and kind, and my mother had a hardness to her. She’d sent me to Snowsly every chance she got, after all. If I didn’t know they were related, I would have thought their closeness impossible.
“Do you remember that jewelry box she had?” I asked. “It played a piece of music—I can’t remember what it was called . . .”
“You don’t remember?” Granny looked at me as if she thought I was joking.
“Why? Do you?”
“‘Air,’ by Henry Purcell. You used to play it on the piano as a child. You honestly don’t remember?”
It had been a great number of years since my fingers had rested on piano keys. I’d given it up when I discovered girls.
“I bought that jewelry box for your mother precisely because I knew how proud she was when she listened to you play that piece of music.”
Confusion hit me in the chest like a bag of hammers. It was as if someone had pulled not just the rug, but the entire floor from underneath me. “She loved that music box.”
“She certainly did.” She sucked in a breath. “She was devastated when it was destroyed.” Throughout my parent’s acrimonious divorce, Granny never spoke a single word against my father. The expression on her face now was as close as she’d come to criticism.
“I never knew.” I’d always known my mother had been upset about the music box, but I hadn’t ever understood why. It certainly hadn’t occurred to me it was because she’d lost something sentimental that involved me. I’d always seen her frustrated or angry.
“It killed her to send you to me so often. She’d miss you so much, but she wanted to protect you from their fighting.”
She sent me to Snowsly to protect me? That was news to me. I suppose I hadn’t really thought about why she’d done it—I was too busy being grateful that she’d sent me here.
“She wanted to protect me?”
“Of course. She knew it wasn’t healthy for you to grow up with her and your father always arguing. And while she found her strength to leave him, she wanted you to be in a place you could be a child and have fun.”
So it wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted me, more that she’d wanted more for me.
“The music box was a part of you that she could keep when you were away,” Granny said. “And then when it broke . . .”
She was devastated. I knew that. I’d seen it. I just hadn’t known why. Sadness trickled through my body. Why hadn’t anyone told me before what that music box meant? Why hadn’t I understood that the reason I was sent away from my parents was to protect me, not because they didn’t want me.
“Why didn’t she or you or anyone explain?” I asked, irritation rising in my gut.
Granny laughed. “Sebastian Fox! Me and your mother have both tried to talk to you about those years countless times before. No one can tell you anything you don’t want to hear. I’m glad that seems to have changed.”
Exhaling, I tried to recall either of them saying anything about the divorce. I couldn’t bring anything specific to mind but they were right—I didn’t like to discuss what went before. I didn’t want to talk about the past because I didn’t want to remember what it was like to live it.