Snow Going Back

Chapter 45

FORTY-FIVE

Kate’s phone rang, interrupting the deep spiral of despair she’d been circling after the catastrophic mess she’d made at Coreaux Roots. She looked down at the screen. It was her mother again. Closing her eyes, Kate rubbed them tiredly. The news had gone down about as well as she’d known it would when she’d rung to tell her parents she’d ended things with Lance the day before. Eleanor’s hysterics had escalated to such a degree that, in the end, Kate hadn’t been able to make out any words at all – but not before she’d told Kate what a colossally stupid mistake she’d made. Not before demanding she find Lance and apologise for how awfully she’d treated him , and that she beg him to take her back. Not before she made the depth of her disappointment in Kate crystal clear. Kate had taken her mother’s heartbroken rant with quiet resignation, it being exactly as she’d expected.

Eventually her dad had wrestled the phone from his sobbing wife and had simply asked Kate if she was OK. That had been her undoing, and she’d promptly burst into tears. But she’d quickly got her emotions back under control and assured him she was fine, and after she’d fielded a few more questions of concern, he’d allowed her to retreat.

Eleanor had been calling her repeatedly to continue the conversation, but Kate hadn’t picked up, unable to deal with any more guilt or shame or general argument over Lance right now. With everything she had going on, Kate felt thoroughly depleted. All her emotional reserves were spent. She was tired, she was anxious, and she felt horribly and deeply alone. And she knew this was just a rocky part of her journey. It would get easier in time. But right now, she was finding it hard to figure out a way forward.

The call rang off, and Kate let out a breath of relief. A second later, a message pinged through and she glanced down, expecting it to be from her mother. This one, however, was from her dad.

Pick this next call up. Please. Trust me. Dad Xx

A few seconds later, the phone started ringing again, and she grimaced. With a deep sigh, she braced herself for the onslaught and answered the call.

‘Hi, Mum.’ She put the call on speaker and placed it on the desk, then leaned back in her chair and waited.

‘ Finally ,’ Eleanor exclaimed. ‘Katherine, I’ve been worried sick. You need to stop ignoring my calls. I’m your mother .’

‘I know, Mum. I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to worry you,’ Kate said tiredly.

There was a short silence, and when Eleanor spoke again, her voice was unexpectedly gentle. ‘You don’t need to be sorry.’ She sighed. ‘ I do.’

Kate blinked, and she squinted at the phone, sure she must have misheard. Eleanor’s apologies weren’t quite a thing of myth, but being as confident as she was that she was always right about absolutely everything, they were certainly a thing of great rarity.

‘You know how much I think of Lance,’ Eleanor continued. ‘He’s a wonderful man and one I’d have loved to see you happily married to. But there is no one in this world I’d ever want to see you unhappily married to. So I’m sorry for how I reacted when you told us.’ Eleanor’s voice grew smaller somehow, and Kate realised she felt ashamed.

‘It’s OK, Mum,’ she said.

‘No, Katherine, it’s not,’ Eleanor replied firmly. ‘All this time you’ve been with Lance, I’ve been so pleased you found someone who we liked so much that I stopped paying attention to how you felt about him. I didn’t notice how unhappy you were.’ She sounded so sad that Kate felt a lump begin to form in her throat. ‘I thought it was just wedding jitters. You’re truly awful with surprises, and that proposal was a huge one. I thought you were just feeling off centre and that deep down you’d want that future, once you’d got past that. That’s why I’ve been trying to keep you on track and why I tried to get you to go back and fix it. Not because I wanted you to marry Lance. I know it probably looked like that, but I was just terrified you’d done it for the wrong reasons and would look back with regret. The last thing any mother wants is her child to live a life of regret.’

‘I appreciate that, Mum. And I know you meant well,’ Kate replied, blinking away the mist in her eyes.

Eleanor sighed. ‘I realise I can be a bit vocal with my opinions and that there are some, very rare , occasions where I don’t get things entirely right – not that you are ever to repeat that in hearing of any of the neighbours.’ Kate shook her head with a fond smile. ‘But even when it doesn’t look like it, the most important thing in the world to me is you. It always has been and always will be, Katherine. Having you was the best thing I’ve ever done. I want you to remember that. Because I’ve realised, after a lengthy talk your father and I had today, that there are times I must have made you feel that you weren’t the priority.’

There was a pause, and Kate heard her mother struggle to hold back her tears. One fell down her own cheek at this, and she wiped it away.

‘So if you ever feel like that again, I want you to tell me. OK? Because I never want that. I want you to know you can talk to me and that I’m here for you. Like I am now. If Lance wasn’t the one, he wasn’t the one,’ Eleanor said.

Kate smiled, touched by this unusual display of openness and solidarity from her mother. ‘Thanks, Mum. That means a lot to me.’

‘And you can just ignore all those things I said about being single at forty, by the way,’ Eleanor added. ‘Not that you’re anywhere near it yet, but even if you are still single at forty, you won’t look tired around the edges. But if you do look a little bit tired, there are all sorts of wonders available to change that now. So we’ll just look into your options.’

Kate had to throw herself face down onto the bed to muffle the laugh that rose up and exploded at her mother’s words. Only Eleanor could come out with something like that with wholehearted, loving sincerity.

‘Katherine? Are you still there?’

Kate lifted her face from the pillow. ‘Yep! I’m here,’ she confirmed, looking at the phone with a fond smile. ‘I love you, Mum. And I’m really glad we had this chat.’

‘I am, too,’ Eleanor agreed. ‘We don’t properly sit down and talk to each other enough.’

Kate thought about it and realised she was right. There was always something else going on, keeping them busy while they exchanged brief snippets of information, or they were with other people and got carried along with the conversational flow of the group. They rarely spent time just the two of them. In fact, now she thought about it, Kate realised that the run-up to Christmas was probably the only time of year they ever truly made time for that. They talked on long walks and over games of cards by the fire. Over lazy breakfasts and late-night eggnogs. She realised suddenly that this was what she’d really been missing every time she felt a pang of nostalgia for their traditions of Christmas. It wasn’t the lingering smell of nutmeg or the taste of her mother’s famous Christmas cake. It was what came with those things. That proper uninterrupted time with the people she loved the most.

‘Well, maybe we should do that more,’ she suggested. ‘Meet up more regularly, just us, to catch up.’

‘I’d love that,’ Eleanor replied.

‘OK then.’ Kate bit the inside of her cheek. ‘I should have told you how I felt about Lance the day he proposed. I just panicked, and then it all spiralled out of control. The truth is, Lance and I want and value very different things. He’s a great guy, but we’re not right together. And I know you really want to see me find the right man to settle down with so I can give you grandchildren, but I need to be honest: that’s just not something I’m even thinking about. There are some other things I want to focus on right now.’

‘Oh, that’s OK,’ Eleanor said, surprisingly chirpily. ‘I don’t need grandchildren yet.’

Kate frowned. ‘You don’t ?’ she queried. Eleanor had been openly lamenting her lack of grandchildren for quite some time, so this was a surprising response.

‘No. In fact, I don’t think I could have one in the house anyway, darling, for quite some time, so you hold on to those eggs,’ Eleanor told her.

Kate blinked. ‘Right. I’ll, er, I’ll do that. Have to ask ’ – she squeezed her gaze – ‘why couldn’t you have one in the house?’

‘ Because ’ – Eleanor drew the word out excitedly – ‘your father has bought me a puppy !’ Her voice rose on each syllable until it reached an excitable squeak. ‘He’s a King Charles spaniel and he’s absolutely gorgeous, Katherine. You’re going to love him. I’m calling him Mortimer. Morti for short. We’re off this afternoon to get all the things he needs, then we pick him up tomorrow morning!’

Kate’s jaw dropped in stunned amazement. ‘You…’ She put a hand over her mouth as she pieced together what her father had done for her. ‘A puppy ? As in a real baby dog?’

‘Well, I’m hardly talking about a seal pup, Katherine, am I?’ Eleanor replied.

‘Well, that’s great !’ Kate exclaimed. ‘I can’t wait to meet him.’

‘Right, I have to get off, darling, or Morti won’t have a bed to sleep in,’ Eleanor told her. ‘I’m here if you need me, OK?’

‘Thanks, Mum. Happy shopping!’

‘Thanks, darling. Ciao for now!’

The line went dead, and Kate quickly opened her messages.

You bought her a *puppy*??!

She pressed send and thought back to the last time they had a dog. Her dad hated dogs. He’d grudgingly agreed to the one dog they’d had when she was little because Eleanor had assured him he wouldn’t have to do a thing. He’d ended up doing nearly all the daily walks and scooping all the poo from the garden as Eleanor complained it wasn’t very ladylike for her to do it. He’d made it very clear that he would never, ever have another dog in the house again, after Pippi died. But now here he was, making the ultimate sacrifice to save Kate’s metaphorical bacon with her mother.

Yes. A puppy. A small, yappy, untrained one. You owe me. Big time.

Kate bit her lip and stifled a grin as the second message followed shortly behind.

BIG Xx

She smiled and started typing.

I love you, Dad. I know how much that must have hurt. Thank you. Xx

The response came straight back.

I love you, too. Now go and make sure my pain and suffering is worth it. Get all the adventures your mother will disapprove of in that you can while she’s distracted. Because once it’s not a puppy anymore, she’ll be right back on you – and I am NOT giving in to her request for us to start salsa lessons. Xx

Sending back a heart, Kate smiled and looked out the window, feeling uplifted and more energised than she had in days. Feeling, finally, like she wasn’t so alone with her troubles, after all.