Page 95 of Broken Beyond Repair
She’d received a severe talking to from a fifteen-year-old, and he was right. It was time to write her narrative. The truth this time. Lying and hiding were exhausting, and they had cost her the best thing to ever happen to her after Alex. Here he was, encouraging her to be herself when he was the one she’d been protecting from herself. If a fifteen-year-old could stand up to the world, couldn’t she? She had enough money saved if it turned sour. She could happily live the rest of her life as a recluse at Highwood if Sydney was beside her. Was it time for her to finally face who she was, to put the important things first and sod the rest?
There was a knock at the door and another young woman popped her head around the door. “Miss Russell? It’s time.” The woman turned to Alex. “I’ll show you back to your seat.”
“Thank you.” Alex turned before he left the room. “Mum, Syd said something to me when I last saw her. You can only be one thing in life, and that’s you. Now, I’m saying it to you.”
Beatrice kissed her child’s forehead. “I’ll see you back here after the show.”
CHAPTER35
Sydney leant against the railing overlooking the harbour as a salty, wet wind hurled itself at her. A morning walk in weather like this couldn’t be beaten; it was guaranteed to wake you up. Pulling her hood up over her head, she zipped up her coat against the freezing mist surrounding her. The hottest of summers often led to the harshest of winters.
The waves crashed below against the harbour wall as the hum of the ocean deafened her ears. It was the exact spot she’d stood in as she watched the coastguard and lifeboat crew coming and going during the days and nights following her dad’s accident. Sometimes she’d spent hours there, waiting, hoping — for any sign, any change.
As the days went on, she even hoped for a body to give her some closure to the gut-wrenching pain she was experiencing from not knowing. It would be a signal for her own body to move on to the next stage, grief. But it would never come. She was forever wedged in this limbo of hope that one day he might return, all the while knowing the chances were now zero.
Her eyes ran along the harbour wall where her dad would chase her younger self to his fishing vessel. Her mum would walk a few paces behind them, worried that she’d trip on the cobblestone path. It was a well-trodden path for them as they waved him off to sea, never quite sure when he would return.
When she was at school, her mum would see him off alone. At noon, she would come to the school to help with the children’s lunches and give Sydney a nod that he’d gone. It was a job she’d only taken on to help Sydney adjust to her new school after they moved back to Scotland. She’d loved it so much that she ended up staying until she received the devastating cancer diagnosis many years later.
Following her mum’s diagnosis, Sydney had done everything she could to help, taking on all her household work and becoming her carer whilst her dad was out for days at a time fishing. It was a distraction from having to make decisions about what she wanted to do with her life now that she’d left her old one behind.
Although she’d enjoyed university and garnered useful skills within her creative writing degree, she’d also enjoyed the following years with Sam, building up the business and assisting him with fixing the boats. When she returned to Scotland, fleeing the dark cloud over their relationship only to immerse herself in yet another problematic situation, one shining light remained within her — the desire to be on the ocean again.
Once her mum received the all-clear from cancer, Sydney was desperate to get back out there and work. With nowhere else to be, and with jobs scarce in the small fishing town, Sydney badgered her dad into letting her resume her old summer job and work alongside him.
As a teenager, he’d allowed her to accompany him on some of his trips during the summer holidays. She had worked belowdecks, where it was safer. With a team of six men to feed and clean up after, it was a full-time job. He’d eventually relented to her pressure, though, and taught her to steer and navigate the boat. It turned out she was a natural.
Her mum put up a fight against her returning; she couldn’t bear to have them both risking their lives in the wild, unpredictable North Sea. It was only since surviving cancer that she’d objected; life became that little bit more precious to her after that. But with more skills learned from her time living with Sam, piloting boats around the harbour, Sydney was finally allowed to be in the captain’s chair.
They’d worked together on the boat for over a year when the worst moment of her life occurred. The storm that hit them was stronger than expected. They’d hoped to be on their way back to the harbour before the worst of it hit. A caught net delayed them, and fierce winds fought against them. The men tried to persuade her dad to come inside; the deck was a death trap with twenty-foot waves crashing over it. There was one last net to pull in, though, and he wasn’t going to leave it behind. That’s where she got her discipline from, the need to complete things, to tick the box. It was the last tick he’d try to make.
The sea was a volatile workplace. The wind would change and with it your luck — or in this case, her life. She’d gone outside herself to plead with him to come in, only for him to shout back, “Last one.” She could still hear his voice in her head and see the smile on his face. He didn’t see the freak wave that crashed over him a second later.
Sydney did.
She watched it hover above him, suspended in time. At least that was her memory of it. The wall of water crashed down over him, throwing him off his feet just as the boat listed into the depression the wave left. She’d clamped herself to a handle on the wheelhouse, only able to watch as he fell backwards overboard, his smile replaced by panic and fear as he took a last look at his daughter.
He was gone. Absorbed into a body of water he so loved.
She’d never told her mum that it was she who witnessed him fall overboard, that she was the last one he’d looked at with that panic in his eyes. It would haunt her for the rest of her life; she didn’t want it to haunt her mum too.
The wind was picking up, and she’d have her mum worried if she didn’t head back. Sydney turned her back on the sea just like she’d done that day. She couldn’t step back on the boat without her dad there, so she’d left the job of carrying on to her uncle.
As she approached the road, she stopped on the spot where the police car had pulled up. She’d opened the door to help her mum out, only for the fragile woman to fall to her knees, overwhelmed by what was happening. The news she lived in fear of had finally come for her like the Grim Reaper.
Sydney put aside her own fears and feelings to pick her mum up off the ground and guide her to the harbour; to hug her, wipe the tears from her face, and reassure her that they would find him, knowing she needed to cling on to that hope herself as long as she could. They both knew well enough from similar incidents that there was no hope in these situations, yet all they could do was cling to it. The alternative was too horrific to consider.
In the following days they would sit in silence, their faces sullen, exhausted from crying, jumping every time the phone rang or the doorbell chimed. Each time they allowed themselves a little hope of good news, only to have to shoo away a well-wisher or journalist. People from the community would bring them food, though neither of them had an appetite. As the search wound up and everyone else lost interest, Sydney and her mum were still sitting there, waiting.
Sydney grew so angry that no one was doing more that she decided she couldn’t sit back and wait any longer; she was going to look for him herself. She got up, hugged her mum, and promised she was going to bring him home. It was a promise she could never fulfil, but without making it, she might have given up searching a long time ago, and then she might have missed his face in a crowd. She needed to keep herself accountable.
She wiped a tear from her eye as she made her way down the road. She hadn’t shed a tear for a few years over her dad. The pain didn’t live on the surface anymore; she kept it somewhere deeper. This tear she knew was for someone else she’d lost, a pain that did sit on the surface.
Beatrice.
At least she was still alive, merrily living her closeted existence without her. Not that Sydney had been stalking her, but she had created a social media account and made a point of checking it regularly to catch any news of her. It had been reported that Beatrice had been spotted heading into a medical clinic. Although it was likely to be a check-up on her leg, it didn’t stop her worrying.
Taking a lungful of salty air, she pushed it back out as hard as she could, and then climbed the hill to her mum’s house. Beatrice was out of her life forever; her medical status was none of her business.
