Page 5 of Nineteen Eighty

“No.”

She shook her head. “I expected I’d see him at Sunday dinner, at Mama’s. Why? Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know. Nicolas was spending more and more time with us, and sometimes staying a week or more at Colin’s. Charles is so wrapped in his girls he doesn’t even have time for his son anymore. But now he’s pulled back on that and insists Nicolas stay at home. He’s all over the place, as always, and Nicolas is the one who suffers. That’s nothing new, as you know, but Nicolas is older now, and he’s starting to ask questions. Ones I don’t have answers to.”

“I suspect Charles’ motivations are more complex than we give him credit for,” Colleen said, but left it at that. Nicolas didn’t deserve the treatment he’d been given by his own father, and he was better off with Augustus and Colin. But inwardly, she sighed. Yet another reason she should come home. Another family problem nagging at her from across the sea that she couldn’t even begin to help solve unless she was here. “I’ll take him, too, when I’m back. Nicolas has no shortage of family who loves him.”

“You sound fairly convinced. About coming back.”

Yes, she was. So was Noah. But she was also loathe to surrender the magic of Scotland, where she and her husband and their three babies had thrived in ways they couldn’t have done had they spent the past five years here, instead.

But everything had a season.

“I’m surprised Maureen didn’t come,” Augustus said. “Would have been good for her. For Liv. They don’t get out much anymore.”

Colleen laughed. “She used to fool around with Thomas. She’s a new woman now. I’m guessing she didn’t need the reminder.”

Augustus balked. “No way.”

“I guess we’re lucky Charles never found out about that one.”

“Don’t even joke about that, Leena,” he said, but was smiling.

“I see Connor, but where’s Lizzy?”

Augustus turned to his sister with a serious look. “You know why today is hard for her. I’m sending Connor and Elizabeth away for the summer, and I’ve encouraged Connor to elope with her, wherever they go.”

“Elope!”

“Colleen, I need your support on this. Do you want Lizzy’s special day to be clouded by horrors she can’t control?”

Colleen’s mouth flapped open, closed. She didn’t know what to say, but whatever words she had were clamped down by her better judgment. Augustus was right. Elizabeth had suffered her whole life, and she deserved this. She deserved to be happy. Her right to that happiness superseded their expectations of her. “What about you? Won’t you need help with Ana?”

Augustus turned back to where the kids played. “She’s almost five, going on fifty. Sometimes I think she’s the one raising me.”

Colleen smiled. “She’s an old soul. But if you need help, Aggie, I should be back—”

He held up a hand. “I know. But this will be good for us. For Ana and me. When Lizzy comes back married, I’m going to find a way to tell her I don’t need her help the way I used to. She needs to focus on starting her own family. I won’t be her reason for stagnating.”

“She wants to help you, you know. It’s not an obligation.”

“I know that. But I don’t want Elizabeth having any more excuses not to live, Colleen. She has a life ahead of her, and it’s time she start embracing it. The rest of us have. It’s her turn.”

Elizabeth swayed, humming along to Pink Floyd as she tidied up the living room. Connor was neater than she was. Hell, anyone was neater than she was. Elizabeth’s outside life was just as chaotic as what was inside, and now that she and Connor had a place that was just theirs, she wanted to do better. For him, but also for herself.

She couldn’t shake the feeling she’d let him down. He spent so many little moments of his day, checking on her, doing little things to make her comfortable. On days like today, Elizabeth could disappear in her never-ending sorrow of inadequacy. She could forget he loved her and wonder why he should at all. She imagined a future with him married to a woman who wasn’t constantly struggling uphill.

The door opened and closed. Atticus’ tiny paws against the wood floors echoed across the small apartment, followed by Connor’s heavier steps. A clatter of metal as he dropped his keys on the small table across from the door.

Elizabeth was suddenly nervous, and she didn’t know why.

“That was a long walk,” she commented, and then chided herself. She wasn’t that kind of girlfriend. She had nothing to suspect anyway. Not from Connor.

“Yeah,” he replied. He reached into his pocket and dropped an envelope on the table. “Go on. Open it.”

“What is it?”

“There’s a very simple, yet effective, way to find out.”

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