Page 90 of The Holiday Cottage

Sara shrugged, her gaze fixed on Ava. “It’s life, isn’t it? You make the most of the parts that are right, and do what you can about the parts that aren’t so great. I suppose we got used to not having her with us for things like this. We accepted it.” She glanced at Imogen. “And that probably made things worse. No one forced her to join us, but by not joining us it just deepened the divisions. Maybe we should have tried harder.”

The others had strolled ahead, and Imogen saw Patrick lift Ava onto his shoulders so that she could get a better look at the trees.

Miles was talking to Iris, who was holding tightly to Ralph’s lead.

It was a perfect family scene, but not in a million years could she picture her mother here.

“You can’t make someone do what they don’t want to do.”

“No.” Sara smiled. “That is very true. I remind myself of that every day when I struggle to get Ava to bed.”

“The girls are close.”

“Yes. And obviously Patrick and I hope they always will be. We encourage them to look out for each other and be thoughtful, but the truth is their affection is genuine and natural.”

Imogen had always thought it would be nice to have had a sibling, but she found herself wondering how it must feel to have a sibling who wanted nothing to do with you.

Parts of her life hadn’t been easy, but that was true of Sara too. And also Dorothy.

“Would you tell me a little about your childhood?” Sara was hesitant. “I’ve lain awake at nights wondering where you were and if you were okay. Was it bad, Imogen?”

Bad.

How was she supposed to answer that? Her instinct was to lie. To put a gloss on it. She was used to disguising her past. To hiding it. To inventing a life that made her fit in and made others comfortable.

But there was no point in doing that now. This was Sara, and Sara knew Tina. There was no need for fake dogs or fake boyfriends or a fake family. Sara was her real family, and she already knew much of the truth.

“Sometimes it was difficult. Tina didn’t want to be a mother, so she wasn’t very hands-on or involved—” She was surprised how good it felt not to have to pretend or put on an act. To just tell the truth and be who she was for a change. Acknowledge her life instead of spinning a fictional version.

“I noticed yesterday that you called her Tina. Why?”

“She insisted on it. Firstly, I think it meant she could pretend she wasn’t a mother, and secondly because she liked to present herself as a young, single person with no ties.”

It was where she’d first learned that it was possible to invent a life. After all, wasn’t that what Tina had done?

Sara listened. “What happened to the guy she was with the last time we saw you?”

“Terry.” Imogen had good memories of Terry. “He was kind. He used to read to me. But they weren’t happy together. I was too young to understand the detail, but they had a lot of fights and eventually he left.” And she hadn’t blamed him. She remembered wishing that she could have left too. “They divorced. She didn’t have a long relationship after that. Men came and went.”

“Did you stay in touch with Terry?”

“He moved abroad. He sent the odd postcard, but that didn’t last long. He wasn’t really the type to write letters. And I suppose it was awkward. He built a new life, and I wasn’t part of that.”

“It must have been difficult for you.”

“Sometimes.” There was plenty she could have told Sara, but how was that going to help? Sara was trying to build a bridge between them, not probing for dark details. Maybe she’d talk about it one day, but this wasn’t the time. “It wasn’t so bad. It made me self-reliant and that’s a good thing.” She made a point of always trying to find the positive. Focus on the things she could influence. Not because she was some ridiculously naive optimist, but because it helped. If you turned the spotlight onto the good, if you were lucky the dark stuff faded into the background.

“You’ve done so well,” Sara said. “You should be proud of yourself. Do you have anyone special in your life?”

“No.” Imogen stared at the trees, at the snow and the peek of ice blue in the sky. “My fault. I’m not that good at getting close to people.” Was she even capable of it? She’d never had a relationship where she was truly herself. She showed people what she wanted them to see, and she was miserly with the information she shared. She’d learned to rely on herself from an early age and she’d spent her life protecting herself, careful not to make herself vulnerable. Was she able to lower her guard sufficiently to get close to someone?

Her gaze slid to Miles, who was listening intently to Ava.

She thought about how easily she’d talked to him the day before, and how comfortable she’d felt with him when he’d cooked her breakfast earlier. He already knew more about her than anyone else in her life.

And that made her feel nervous, as if she’d been wearing a costume that had suddenly been stripped away from her.

Sara gave her arm a squeeze and leaned closer so that only Imogen could hear her. “You can trust him.”

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