Page 102 of One Last Thing
‘Yeah, that’s what Dad called it in his letter to you,’ she says, putting her hands on her hips. ‘I thought it was a weird thing to call it, but actually a quest technically means a long, difficult search for something, right? And in the car here, I realised that I think Dad has a point. Weweresearching for something the past few days, even though we didn’t know it. Like, maybe we were searching for the truth or whatever. Or maybe we were going after something that you and I have lost at some point along the way. You know?’
I stare at her open-mouthed, my eyes filling with tears.
‘I’m not talking very eloquently,’ she admits, correctly. ‘My point is, you’re not done here yet. As in, I would like that, if you weren’t done yet. I would like you to stay for a bit longer. We need to talk about . . . stuff. A lot of stuff. And I want you to be there with me when I scatter Dad’s ashes. That’s why we came here.’ She sighs. ‘People make mistakes. I do. You do. Nico does—’
‘No, I’m perfect,’ Nico quips behind her.
She shoots him a look and he retreats.
‘My point is, I think I need you,’ she concludes.
I’m not sure I trust myself to speak. A lump too big has risen up my throat.
Megan can tell. She glances over at me. ‘You okay there, Mum?’
I nod slowly. ‘Yes, it’s just—’ I gesture at her‘—you ran through the airport for me.’
She glances back over her shoulder and then turns back to me, eyebrows raised. ‘It’s just one big room. It’s like the smallest airport in the—’
I throw my arms around her, almost knocking her over with my enthusiasm. Momentarily stunned, she realises what’s happening and starts hugging me back. I hold her tightly, eyes closed, tears rolling down my cheeks.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say hoarsely. ‘You ran through the airport for me.’
We stay holding each other for a little while longer until she draws back and says, ‘Come on, let’s go’. I walk by her side as we follow Nico to where he left the car, parked terribly in front of the terminal in his haste to catch me, and which has since been causing all kinds of chaos without our knowledge. Apparently, they even said something over the Tannoy but none of us heard it.
We apologise profusely as we climb into the car and the other drivers yell at us and beep their horns, and as we pull away, Nico driving, Megan with me in the backseat, we all burst into infectious giggles. I wipe tears from my eyes as I tease Megan about what she’s wearing and how funny it is that she went through the airport in Nico’s pyjamas. In response she reminds me of the time I chose to wear a wide-brimmed sunhat through Heathrow and kept knocking people in the face with it every time I turned around in Pret until a man reaching for a brie baguette snapped crossly, ‘That hat isunpardonablylarge!’ and then for the rest of the trip, the three of us quoted it whenever we could about anything we saw that was remotely big. At some point during the journey, I reach for Megan’s hand and she lets me takeit and neither of us let go until it’s time to get out the car at the chateau.
***
Sitting on my balcony later that night, Megan and I go through the grittier details of the past and I answer as truthfully as I can, even if it’s uncomfortable. She’s remarkably calm and reasonable, no raised voices, no bristling, just talking and listening as we both discuss and accept what’s passed and how best we can move on from here.
‘You know what I can’t get my head around,’ she tells me, putting her glass of wine down on the little table between us. ‘How you let me believe you were the bad guy.’
‘Your dad wasn’t the bad guy,’ I remind her.
‘But he was the one who had the affair. You let me blame you for leaving me.’
‘Because I did leave you, Megan.’ I shift in my seat. ‘Look, your dad made a mistake. He broke my heart and I was distraught that he could betray our marriage like that. But still, I was the one who chose to leave you and didn’t work hard enough to repair our relationship. When things got tough between me and you, I backed off. I thought that was for the best and it was what you wanted, but I’d convinced myself of that so I had someone else to blame.’
Megan lowers her eyes.
‘I should have fought for you, Megan,’ I sum up. ‘That’s what a good mother should have done.’
‘I don’t know. You were doing what you thought you had to in order to protect Dad and to protect me. Sounds like a good mum to me,’ she reasons.
I smile gratefully at her.
‘You were wrong, though. Both of you,’ she adds sternly. ‘You should have told me the truth. I could have handled it.’
‘You think that’s why he didn’t tell you?’ I raise my eyebrows. ‘Your dad knew you well, Megan, he knew you could handle anything. It wasn’t about that.’ I tilt my head, looking out across the vines in the orange glow of the sunset. ‘He was never ready to tell anyone. That’s the real sadness of it all. We’ll never understand the pressures he felt or the fear he could never shake, fear of rejection or judgement –but he knew that would never come from us. I do wish things had been different for him.’
She frowns, her hands clasped resting in her lap. ‘Do you think he was unhappy?’
I consider her question. ‘I know that he loved his life because he had you and he had me and he had so many other wonderful people in his world. I like to think he had a dating life that he didn’t tell me about and that he felt acceptance and love and passion.’
She sighs. ‘I hope he did, too.’
‘He was loyal to a family and certain old friends who lacked understanding. We’ll never know if they would have come round to it, because Henry made a choice not to take that risk. I may not have agreed with that decision, you may not either, but at the end of the day, it was his choice to make. I battled with that a long time.’ I shrug, smiling over at her. ‘But it feels important that you know now. That makes things brighter somehow.’
