Page 122 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“Put the arseholes through,” I say, bracing my elbows on my desk and pushing my fingertips against my forehead.
The call eats into my afternoon, necessitating a new conference call with the council, someone from the boarding school, and for some unknown reason, a concerned citizen who wants to lodge a complaint about the proposed walking path that will loop behind her garden. By the time I’ve finished, the afternoon has edged into evening, Shahil has gone home along with the rest of the office, and my head hurts worse than ever.
I hang up the phone and realize my eyes are leaking with the hot but effortless tears that come from physical pain. I could kiss away a sub’s tears forever, but I hate crying myself, it feels like an indulgence, a waste of energy when I could be carrying on with whatever needs done. But my head hurts so badly and I’m fuming about this Wiltshire problem and I’m still confused by my father and the person he’s becoming and how it isn’t fair that he gets to change after he’s already made me who I am—
My phone rings, and I’m about to ignore it. I can’t right now. I’m crying and my head hurts and I can’t.
Except that I see it’s my mother calling, and the only thing heavier than my headache is guilt.
Sticky, unfiltered daughter guilt.
I have to answer.
It’s a video call, so I hurriedly wipe at my face so she can’t see I was crying. I don’t have the energy to fend off her questions right now. I don’t think I can pretend to be okay.
But it turns out I needn’t have bothered, because when I answer, the first thing I see is my mother crying herself.
“Oh Ma,” I say.
“Becky,” she says through her tears. “I told your father I would agree to his divorce.”
His divorce. This does not bode
well.
“And what will I say to everyone?” she cries. “How will I tell them?”
It feels like all the hair is being ripped out of my scalp all at once, and it takes everything I have not to snap at her that she’s worried about the wrong things, that if she’s more worried about perception than reality, she should’ve been divorced years ago. But I don’t say that, I don’t know how, and my mother keeps going before I can speak anyway.
She’s angry, she’s fearful, she’s guilty. She should have come up to London; she should have put her foot down and insisted Daddy and I move back home. What will happen to her now—but also I shouldn’t worry about her, she’ll be fine—but also why am I not more worried about her? Why do I always take his side? But also I should make sure to comfort him now that he’ll be divorced, I should make sure he’s well-fed and that he’s going to church, because who else will? Not some professor across the ocean, that’s for sure.
At some point, the headache gets too much and I tell Ma I’m still listening but need to rest my head on my desk for a moment. And so we stay like that for I don’t know how long—me with my head on my arms, sorely wishing I’d taken Shahil up on his offer of ibuprofen, tears leaking onto a stack of international lacrosse field comps I’d had an intern collate for me—and my mother cataloging how lonely she’ll be, how widespread and pernicious the gossip will be, what Ima will say.
“Ima didn’t want me to marry him at all, you know,” Ma says as I lift my head just in time to see a text from Delphine pop on the screen.
I’m worried, Bex. Let me know if you’re okay. xx
I look out the window to where the world has gone the gold-orange of mid-evening. I’ve been at the office for nearly twelve hours at this point.
I tap out a quick: I’m fine, as Ma asks, “Becky, are you listening? I don’t want to bother you if you’re busy.”
Anger and guilt combine to make a noxious slurry in my blood.
Anger because I know I don’t want to bother you is Mother-Speak for I know everything else in your life is more important to you than me, and you’ll never appreciate me as much as I deserve.
And the guilt because it still works. It still fucking works.
“No, Ma, I’m listening, it’s just a notification—”
A double screen appears on my phone. One is my mother—tearful, watchful—and the other is a laughing girl holding a lit sparkler, dark green Thornchapel trees all around her. She had me take the picture for her Instagram, and I remember being irritated at the time because it interrupted the email I was composing on the terrace while she and Poe played with the sparklers. But now whenever I see it, my heart stutters.
It’s beautiful and happy and summery and bright and a little bit sexy and a little bit silly and it’s her. It’s just her. Pretty and playful and sweet.
And she’s calling me. Right now.
“Maybe I should move up to London,” Ma says, heaving a dramatic breath. “Maybe it’s time. I’ll be alone, of course, unless I move in with my daughter.”
Static crackles in my mind as I imagine trying to live with my mother in a loft that has no walls.
