Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [90]
When he died, neither of his older daughters had seen him in more than six months, and Amanda hadn’t seen him for years. Amanda was supposed to be on a school trip to the Tower of London on the day of his burial. Barbara said she should go ahead and make the trip with her friends, and Amanda had agreed gratefully. His funeral was completely uncomfortable. Lisa remembered feeling like a fraud. Marissa had awkwardly insisted that Barbara, Jennifer, and Lisa sit in the front pew with her. She’d almost pleaded with them. Lisa knew almost no one else in the church. She didn’t associate the hymns with her father, didn’t know any of the readings or poems selected to be read. She could tie nothing about the service to the man she had known. There were freesias on his coffin, and she supposed that such an unusual flower must have been a personal preference. It seemed funny—her dad had been such a big man, and freesias were such little flowers. Marissa and Olivia had worn the hollow, vacant expression of the properly grieving. Marissa sniffed and cried quietly. Olivia had violently twisted a lace-edged handkerchief in her hands throughout the service, staring intently at the embroidered kneeling cushion at her feet. Lisa wished she hadn’t come and wondered why she didn’t feel more.
Lisa often watched Andy with Cee Cee, as she had watched Mark with Hannah. These were fathers. She knew, with both of these men, that their daughters were their world. That they felt all the things that songs and literature and films said you were supposed to feel. That they lived for them, would die for them in a minute, cared about the happiness of their children above their own. Donald was nothing like that.
Amanda
Nancy asked them both to go to the supermarket while she was at the hospital; she had no food in, she said, but she couldn’t concentrate on doing it herself. Ed drove them to the giant Tesco on the edge of town. When he wasn’t changing gear, he kept his hand on her knee, and she liked him doing it.
It felt very grown-up, doing the grocery shopping with him: it was coupley, in a nice way. He kissed her, hard, in the cereal aisle. Opening her eyes, Amanda watched a young mother watching them, leaning heavily on the double trolley she was pushing, filled with nappies and white bread and babies.
Afterward, they went to a café for something to eat before they went to see Ed’s dad.
She was getting used to him sitting so close to her. She liked that, too. They ate croque monsieurs and drank coffee, and when they’d finished, Ed said, “You haven’t mentioned anything about what was going on with you when I left.”
Amanda met his gaze.
“Is that because you don’t want to talk about it?”
She shook her head and smiled gently at him.
“Afraid of returning to the subject that made me go psycho on you last time….”
“That’s stupid.”
“Sorry.”
“I care about you, Amanda. I thought you got that.”
“I’m starting to.” She put her hand up to his cheek, and he caught it there, pulled it round to his mouth, and kissed her palm.
“So what’s happened? About your ‘dad’?”
“Nothing’s ‘happened.’”
“But you’ve talked about it to someone. To your sisters?”
“To one of them. My sister Lisa.”
“That’s the one you’re closest to, right?”
“I’m probably closest to Hannah, but she’s the youngest one, the daughter Mum had with Mark, my stepfather. She doesn’t need to know. Not right now, at least. Lisa’s my ‘cool’ sister. She’s the one who was closest to