Always Alchemy: The Ever After Book (Alchemy #6)

17. Bonds and Boundaries

17

BONDS AND BOUNDARIES

BELLE

H yde Park feels like the right place to do this. The sun is shining, it’s a mild enough May day that Rosalie is bare-headed, and it’s Dad’s favourite place to hang with his granddaughter.

Of all the accusations that can be laid at Benedict Scott’s door, lack of devotion to his granddaughter is not one of them. The man is enraptured—just as enraptured, Mum tells me, as he was with me when I was the ripe old age of seventeen months.

Catholics love babies. That much is well known. They love babies unconditionally. They prioritise new life at all times, regardless of the mother’s circumstances.

So tell me this: why the fuck can’t my dad prioritise Dex’s unborn baby son?

After that rough conversation with Mum and Dex at Daphne’s, I’ve been biding my time. I knew what I had to do right then. I knew I couldn’t in all good conscience allow my daughter to grow up knowing the unconditional love of her maternal grandfather when her cousin would never even know the man.

However I cut it, however much I stewed and agonised and cried on my husband’s very broad shoulder, I couldn’t find a way around it.

Obviously, I couldn’t pile on while Mum was in the process of serving Dad with divorce papers. There’s taking affirmative action and there’s being downright cruel.

But I’m piling on now, and the knowledge of that fact has my empty stomach rolling and cramping like nobody’s business as I push Rosalie’s stroller into the almost empty toddler pavement hidden away from the Serpentine lake.

Rafe offered to come with me, obviously. But this is something I have to do myself. I owe it to my dad to have this conversation one on one. If Rafe was here, Dad would get even more defensive. My loyalties will always lie with my husband and daughter, but I don’t want to hurt or humiliate Dad even more than I need to.

I’m strolling around the perimeter of the playground, Rosalie bundled up in my arms, both of us oohing and ahhing over the prettiness of the pink cherry blossoms flanking the play area, when I spot him. He gives us a cheery wave as he unlatches the kid-proof gate and lets himself in, and my stomach drops.

He looks so happy to see us, in an uncomplicated way that couldn’t be more at odds with the complexity of my feelings towards this man and towards the awful, inhumane wrong I have to do by him. He’s in a lightweight jacket, one of his pale yellow V-neck sweaters visible underneath it. He rushes over, arms outstretched.

‘Look, Rosalie,’ I whisper to her, turning my body so she can see him. ‘It’s Grandpa! ’

She babbles happily, stretching out her own arms, opening and closing her chubby little hands. In another future, the toddler version of herself would find that Grandpa was always good for an ice cream in the park. Her five-year-old self would have the delight of Grandpa “finding” chocolate coins hiding behind her ears more often than not. And her ten-year-old self would know that only Grandpa would stick with a game of Monopoly right through to the end.

I swallow as he approaches, my heart in my stomach. I cannot believe I’m doing this.

To both of them.

‘Hi, darling,’ he says to me, kissing me on the cheek before immediately grabbing Rosalie from me and throwing her up in the air. She giggles. As soon as he’s got her down, he dips his head and plants a huge, wet, noisy raspberry on the side of her neck.

I smile, and she shrieks. ‘I think that means again ,’ I say drily.

‘Look at you!’ he exclaims when he’s finished with the raspberries. He takes her hand, and she wraps her fingers around it. ‘Such a pretty girl. Just like her mummy. She’s so like you at that age,’ he says to me. ‘Apart from the eyes, it’s almost uncanny. You were so blonde.’

He’s mentioned this many, many times over the past year and a half, but it’s never hurt like it does now. Rosalie has Rafe’s beautiful dark eyes, but her hair is still white blonde. It’s a striking, and gorgeous, combination.

‘Let’s get you in the swing, shall we?’ he asks her, trotting briskly over to the baby swings. He lowers her in, feeding her legs through the gaps and encouraging her to grip the plastic bar at the front before pulling the swing gently towards him and letting it go with a dramatic whoosh sound. Rosalie squeaks with delight.

I study him as he swings her. He looks in pretty good shape, even if he’s clearly lost weight. While Mum and he had what I would call a Nineteen Fifties relationship, they’re affluent enough to have had a lot of help. So Dad hasn’t been left as that clichéd man of a certain age who can barely microwave his dinner and has no idea how to operate a washing machine. He’s well looked after.

His original reaction to Mum serving him with divorce papers will have surprised no one who knows him, least of all us and Mum. He was a coldly seething mass of righteous fury, I suspect in equal parts because he finds the idea of dissolving a sacred union to be a terrible sin and because he has been put in a situation over which he has no control.

Things have calmed down somewhat since then. From what I’ve heard, he spoke to a few friends in both religious and financial circles who basically told him he had no choice but to go along with Mum’s wishes. Dad will always see himself as married to Mum in the eyes of God, a view he’s entitled to, because it has absolutely no bearing on Mum’s ability to move on and even remarry, if she ever wanted to.

I’m shipping her and Charles Hunter very hard.

The good, if slightly weird, thing is that I don’t think Dad’s daily life has actually changed that much since Mum moved out. Work and church are still his entire life. He’s got a few years to go till full retirement, thank goodness, and he goes to Mass every bloody day. So while he’s lost his life partner, he’s retained the trappings of his life.

Even if he’s about to lose another of his absolute favourites things in it.

I know this is such an awful thing to say, but sometimes Dad’s faith feels like dementia. I don’t say that to diminish the validity of his beliefs or to suggest that they’re in any way delusional, only to observe that, like dementia, his faith is a rabbit hole down which he tends to disappear, leaving all of his loved ones behind.

It’s a place in which none of us can reach him.

And, like dementia (from what I understand of it, anyway), it gives us cruelly perfect glimpses of the person he was, the person we loved, before this affliction ravaged him and made him often incomprehensible and sometimes unrecognisable.

Since that awful day that Dad walked in on Rafe stark bollock naked in his (Dad’s) kitchen and he and I had to sit down and have a really big, really scary talk, I’ve had a pretty straightforward and intentionally strict approach to my relationship with him:

Meet him where he is.

Understand what he is and is not capable of giving me as a father.

Erect firm boundaries to protect myself and, now, my family.

That’s it.

It’s made for a superficial, politely strained relationship—until Rosalie came along and dazzled us all and built some bridges, forged some common ground, between us, at least. But I’ve been okay with that. I chose it, and I made peace with the sacrifices it involved, because it was an imperfectly harmless compromise.

I’ve even allowed myself to grieve for the relationship we will never have.

I don’t know if it’s Rosalie that’s ramped my mama bear tendencies up to ninety, but when I am complicit in a relationship from which my brother and now his unborn son are excluded, I cannot fucking stand for it any longer.

Watching how sweet, how adoring, he is with Rosalie, hurts in so many ways.

It hurts because, to use my dementia analogy again, this feels like a lucid moment, a snapshot of the father I idolised when I was a little girl.

It hurts because holding space for that conflict between Dad’s profound flaws and his equally profound capacity for love and tenderness is as exhausting as it is agonising.

It hurts because I know that the action I have to take will cause him more heartache than possibly anything else I could do.

Finally, it hurts because I can already imagine how beautiful, how innocent and perfect and magical, my nephew will be, and I can’t fathom how Dad could deny him what he gives so freely to Rosalie.

I don’t bring up anything heavy until Dad and Rosalie have finished their session on the swings and he and I are sitting on a bench watching her potter. She falls over a couple of times, but the rubber flooring means she’s back up again, smiling and laughing, in moments.

My daughter’s very innocence—her sense of wonder, her readiness to laugh at all manner of things—is the most enchanting thing in my life. Maybe in my father’s, too. Their relationship is so beautiful. So uncomplicated.

But it makes me wonder if what looks like unconditional love is actually contingent on a very rigid set of conditions. He loved me like that once, and he loves me still, but he doesn’t approve of me. Perhaps the free pass to my dad’s love is only eligible until you’re old enough to start having opinions of your own.

Exhibit A: me.

Exhibit B: Dex.

I start small.

‘How are you getting on?’ I ask innocuously.

‘I’m fine,’ he answers. His tone is just shy of curt, with a defensive edge.

‘You look well.’

‘I am. I’m in training—I’ve been doing a fifteen-mile walk twice a week. There’s a pilgrimage to Walsingham at the end of the month.’

I raise my eyebrows. ‘Impressive.’ That explains the weight loss. Walsingham is a millennium-old Catholic shrine to Our Lady, and it’s got to be a good hundred miles from London.

‘It should be a wonderful occasion.’ He leans forward and claps as Rosalie gets herself unsteadily up from another fall and totters towards us, beaming toothily. ‘Brava! Brava young lady!’

I hand her a baby cheese puff thingy and clear my throat. ‘So you’re doing okay without Mum?’

He gets his stern, unimpressed look. It’s a very standard look for my father. ‘Your mother is a lost sheep at the moment, and I’m praying hard for her. But I know I have to leave her to find her way back to the light. I miss her terribly, but I’m offering it up.’

Of course he is. It’s hard to argue with moral superiority and even harder to argue with that belief that suffering is worthy, is something that can be exchanged at the gates of Heaven for redemption.

‘Got it,’ is all I say.

‘But it’s hard to be glum when this little angel is smiling like that,’ he says, face softening, eyes fixed on my little girl, drinking her in.

‘It certainly is.’ I clear my throat. Again. ‘Which is why I can’t understand how you can be so cruel about rejecting Dex’s little baby before he’s even come into the world. He’s just a baby! How can you possibly say no to more of the kind of happiness Rosalie brings you? I honestly don’t get it.’

After all we’ve been through, I honestly think it still surprises Dad when I stand up to him. To be fair, I don’t bawl him out often. That’s not my style. I communicate more through my actions. But given the message I have to impart imminently, I’m damn well going to try this avenue first.

His face closes up immediately, and he shakes his head. ‘No. No. It’s not about the baby. I wish the baby no ill, of course.’

Well, have a fucking Nobel Peace Prize, you pious git, I think. I push on.

‘Rafe and I are no more married in your eyes than Dex and Darcy are.’

‘There’s a difference between living in sin and living in a godless, deviant relationship with two other people. How does he even know it’s his child?’

‘DNA tests, Dad!’ I shout. ‘They did a DNA test, for Pete’s sake! It’s Dex’s baby.’ And even if it wasn’t, my brother would still love it like it was his own flesh and blood, and so should my fucking father.

‘I cannot condone,’ he says, the quiet coldness in his voice feeling like a rebuke for my emotional outburst, ‘debauchery like that. It’s wicked, and it’s so, so far from what Christianity can even begin to tolerate or forgive that I have no choice but to stand with my faith and pray hard that your brother can come back from this darkness. I fear he can’t, but I don’t give up hope.’

I am absolutely not about to enter into a theological debate about sexuality, because Dad will quote Old Testament bullshit at me until I’m screaming and tearing my hair out in rage. Besides, this conversation is far from new in our family.

Instead, I say, ‘Dex is still the same person. He’s still the same incredible human being, and I can’t begin to understand a religion that would tell you to turn your back on your own son because you don’t agree with his lifestyle choices.’ My voice is trembling. I’m sick with fear and horror. After years and years of having no voice, no right to an opinion, no right to challenge him in our household, having showdowns with my Dad is still my worst nightmare.

‘I’ve told you, I pray for him every day,’ Dad says. His voice sounds unsteady too. ‘It’s all I can do. I really don’t know where I went wrong with him. For him to have chosen such a wicked, unnatural path for himself…’

I can’t sit here and listen to this bullshit. ‘My God, you didn’t go wrong with him! He’s literally perfect! He’s one of the most wonderful human beings I know, and if you can’t see that then I’m devastated for you.

‘We’ve talked about this before,’ I continue. ‘You’re entitled to your view—however sad and messed up I think it is, and so am I, and so are Mum and Dex. Just because your opinion is that something is wicked, that doesn’t make it so.’

‘But I’m entitled not to tolerate that kind of behaviour in my home and in my family,’ he insists, and my shaky little spine grows steelier. I sit up straight. Rosalie has wandered to the grassy edge of the playground and is picking up fallen cherry blossom wonderingly.

‘You are entitled not to engage with it,’ I clarify. ‘But actions have consequences, Dad. I know you think you’re making these noble sacrifices for the sake of your beliefs, and I know nothing about this situation makes you happy, but you’ve torn your family apart. You’ve driven Mum and Dex away, and I can’t sit by and just hang out with you like nothing’s happened, because if I do nothing, then I’m basically absolving you.’

I don’t know if it’s my tone or my language of forgiveness that has him jerking his head around to look right at me.

‘What are you talking about?’ he demands.

I close my eyes for a second. God, this hurts so much. To be knowingly inflicting pain on someone I love, to be denying him access to the little person whose mere presence is a miracle is excruciating and inhumane and godawful.

But so is every single thing he’s knowingly done to Dex.

‘I love you,’ I tell him beseechingly. ‘But you have a daughter and a son and one grandchild, soon to be two. If you insist on cutting Dex and his spouses and baby out of your life, there’s no way I can let you have a relationship with Rosalie. It’s absolutely impossible to imagine that she gets to have a grandfather and Dex’s baby doesn’t. No way.’

He’s staring at me in horror, and I stare back with, I’m sure, equal horror.

‘Belina. You cannot be serious. That’s a cruel, cruel thing to even suggest.’

I press my lips together before responding. ‘I’m as serious as you are, and what you’re doing is way crueler.’

‘But she’s my granddaughter.’ He rises and picks her up under her arms, cuddling her against his body before he stands in front of me. His large palm cradles her head, covering her ear, as if what her mother is suggesting is too wicked and sinful for her to hear. ‘I have rights.’

I almost laugh then. ‘Dad, you have two grandkids—or you will do soon—and you’re proposing fighting for access to one of them while refusing to acknowledge the other? I don’t think so!’

He stares at me then, his face cold. It’s like he’s had a reminder of what I’m truly capable of.

I’m not his little baby girl anymore.

I can’t be placated with praise and kisses and chocolate coins.

I have opinions, and I have agency, and I have the means to act based on my values.

Even when he doesn’t like it.

Even when it hurts like fuck.

Even when upholding these boundaries is the hardest, most exhausting task I’ve ever faced in my life.

Unfortunately for him, I’m a mother now. And that means I will do whatever it takes to protect my family.

His face changes. ‘You wouldn’t deny me the chance to see this precious little thing grow up, would you?’ he asks, like he knows how soft I am inside, how easily I might crumble if he tightens the screws. It’s a shrewd move. Apply to the Belle he knows, the people-pleaser, the good girl who wants to do right by everyone.

‘What if she grew up to be someone you didn’t approve of?’ I ask. ‘What if she decided she was gay, and she and I were both terrified that you’d judge her when she told you. That she’d lose your respect, that you’d withhold your love.’

‘That’s preposterous!’ he blusters. ‘Of course she’s not gay!’

‘That is not your call to make.’ I stand up and cross my arms. ‘She’s perfect, however she is, and the idea that you might ever make her feel less than makes my skin crawl. But that’s not what this is about. You don’t get to pick and choose here. You accept your children for who we are, you accept the people we love, and you accept the grandchildren we give you…’ I shrug.

‘Or you reject us. But it’s a wholesale decision, Dad. In or out. It’s not too late. I mean, it’s too late with Mum. But it’s not too late for me and Dex.’

‘I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, missy,’ he says, the venom in his words at odds with the tenderness with which he’s stroking Rosalie’s hair. ‘But I’m going to get your mother to talk some sense into you.’

‘Mum knows,’ I say and watch his face fall. ‘She’s as devastated about it as I am, but she gets it. No one’s asking you to abandon your faith for us. We’d never ask you to choose. But we are asking for some Christian acceptance and compassion, and that decision is yours to make. You either get to have a wonderful relationship with however many grandkids we produce, or you don’t. It’s entirely your choice.’

He doesn’t answer, merely bows his head over Rosalie’s, pressing kisses to the top of her soft blonde head.

‘None of us want this,’ I tell him softly. ‘Dex has come to terms with what you’ve done to him, but it’s not too late to ask for his forgiveness.’

Silence.

‘I’ll let you guys have a cuddle,’ I tell him. I turn and walk slowly to where I parked the pushchair. Everything feels like lead. My head. My feet. My heart. Everything pounds and aches.

My parents reared two pretty decent humans, and we’re popping out beautiful babies. Why my father has taken what should be a golden time in his and Mum’s lives and torn our family apart with his doctrine and his intransigence and his judgement is unfathomable .

There’s only one villain in this scene, and it’s the guy who goes to Mass every fucking day.

So it shouldn’t hurt so appallingly when I catch the agony in his eyes as he gives Rosalie one last kiss, hands her over to me, and walks silently, abruptly, out of the sunny playground.