Page 48 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
‘We’re just trying to set things up for the future,’ he says. ‘For the girls.’
‘The girls couldn’t care less about the farm, so I don’t see what they’ve got to do with it.’
He sighs again. Another shake of his head. ‘Mum, what are you so upset about? As I said, I’m just planning for the future. The way you and Granddad did.’
Grace Maud has no intention of backing down; Tom just hasn’t realised it yet. But that’s because he’s never put her in this kind of position before. They’ve never really had a conversation, just the two of them, about the things that matter to them. They’ve never needed to; most families don’t, she guesses. You spend your whole life with someone and it’s either presumed you share the same values, or you infer what each other’s values are from the way each person behaves. That’s how a mother can be seventy-four years of age and find herself with a son who has no idea about what matters to her. Although she is now very clear about what matters to him.
‘It’s my home,’ she says. ‘And my parents’ home. My grandparents’ home. My brothers’ home. My sister’s home. You’re making me feel like I’ve already relinquished that home when I’m the very reason you have a right to it in the first place. Me, and my forebears. It isstill my property.’
She doesn’t expect him to understand. A person who understood would never have behaved this way in the first place. She has to say it, though. This is the only opportunity she’s likely to have.
‘I can see you’re going to need a little more time to think about it,’ Tom says. He scrapes some of his hair behind his ears and puts his hat on. He never puts his hat on inside. ‘So I’ll leave you alone for a while.’
Then he nods, and he’s gone; and although Grace Maud has never been one of those people who minds being alone, right now she feels more alone than she ever has in her life. The distance between her and all the people she has loved and lost feels as vast as a galaxy and as unbridgeable as time itself, and there is nothing for her to do but to walk out into the garden and look to the heavens and hope that somewhere up there, out there, is a place she can go one day and never have to be so heartbroken ever again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
There is nothing to be gained by sitting in the car wringing her hands, but Dorothy can’t seem to stop herself.
‘We don’t have to do this,’ Frederick says, his warm hand on her shoulder, his lips pressing against her temple. ‘We can find another way.’
‘How?’ she gasps.
She’s already worked herself into a state for no good reason. Certainly there is nothing to gain from it apart from making her short-tempered with her husband and angry at herself for allowing it to happen.
Her mother used to tell her to ‘stop those little tornado tantrums’ and she did for a while, at least while her mother was watching. They’d still happen in her bedroom. Or when she was walking down the street. Histrionics, that’s what they’re called, but they’re part of her. Frederick’s always accepted that. He knows they’re over as quickly as they arrive – except for today. This one has lasted as long as the drive to her parents’ house, and Dorothy knows she can’t go inside like this and show her mother that those tornado tantrums never really went away.
‘I can get a loan,’ Frederick says.
‘If you get a loan it will be to help the business, not for us to have a baby.’
Dorothy closes her eyes. This was a bad idea, thinking her parents would be the ones to help them. They have no idea about the miscarriages. They don’t even ask when Dorothy and Frederick are going to have a baby. At least they’re respectful like that. Or disinterested.
There’s that little thought darting in from the back of her brain: is she trying to sabotage this on purpose? Is she carrying on, acting like it’s the hardest thing in the world, because she actually doesn’t want to try to get pregnant any more? Which is different to not wanting a baby. She wants a baby. Her conversation with Patricia and Grace Maud after yoga the other night clarified that for her.
When Patricia said, ‘If it’s what you want’, it was the ‘if’ that mattered. Patricia didn’t tell her sheshouldwant a baby, that it’s the only thing that’s important for a woman. There’s Patricia without any babies: a strong, intelligent woman who seems quite content with herself. So content that she doesn’t make any judgements about Dorothy and her life.If it’s what you want.
In that moment Dorothy felt freed – and certain. It was what she wanted. Itiswhat she wants. She just doesn’t want to have to go through more blood and pain and pressure to get it. But she called the government to ask about adoption and they said it would take years. So many years that by the time the child turned up she and Frederick might be too old to be eligible for it, which seems like bureaucratic cruelty at its finest. How can you know you want a baby before you want one? How are you meant to guess that you might want one at a certain time and put your name on a list to get one? Dorothy’s still young and she’s still too old for that list.
Frederick sighs. ‘Liebling, I’ve said this before, I know, but I’ll say it again. You don’t have to do this.Wedon’t have to do this. I don’t think that you becoming this upset is good for you.’
His hand is still on her shoulder and she concentrates on it to try to calm her mind. He is here with her, she is here with him, and they can do this together.
‘I think …’ She stops. ‘I think not trying will make me more upset.’
She turns to look at him and sees how worry has changed his face. Cupping her hands around his cheeks, she kisses him. ‘You know me. I always make a drama.’
‘Only your mother says that.’ His face relaxes a little.
‘Yes, well, now she’s going to have the chance to say it again.’
They look into each other’s eyes. Dorothy doesn’t know why she trusted this man as quickly as she did, but he’s never given her cause to doubt him, and she hopes she hasn’t given him cause to doubt her. Even when she doubts herself.
‘Time to go in?’ he says, and she nods.
As they approach the front door it opens, and her parents greet them in their restrained way.
‘We saw you sitting in the car,’ her mother says. ‘We thought maybe you had changed your mind about visiting! Hello, Friedrich.’
