Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [92]
“Now, Amanda…” He said her name slowly and deliberately. “I see why my son was so smitten.”
“He was, was he?”
“Instantly. He’s told me everything. All about you. I hope you don’t mind.”
Amanda didn’t. She loved it.
“Nancy says you’re a complete poppet, and she is never wrong about people.”
“I think she’s lovely, too.”
“She certainly is. Best thing that ever happened to me. Ed’s just like me, you see. My theory is that he needs someone just like her….”
He let the unspoken question hang in the air.
This craziness didn’t bother her, and that was the craziest part of all. She was just meeting this man, for the first time, in his pajamas in a hospital bed. Somehow, though, she desperately wanted his approval.
Ed came back with two plastic cups of tea. “Is he talking nonsense at you? I’d like to say it was the drugs, but he’s always like this….”
“Bugger off, you cheeky so-and-so. I’m getting to know Amanda. I hope you’re staying a while, love. I look much more handsome in clothes.”
“LOOK,” ED SAID LATER, WHEN THEY WERE WALKING BACK through the hospital car park, “I adore him, but he’s an acquired taste.”
“I think he’s completely wonderful.”
“You do?”
“I absolutely do. He’s warm and funny and kind.”
“I think you’re completely wonderful.” Ed stopped and kissed her.
“What did he say about me, when I went to the loo?”
He picked her up and spun her around. “Oh no—I’m not telling you that. Isn’t one male conquest in the family enough for you?!…Will you stay?”
“And do what?”
“Just stay.”
“I don’t want your family to think I’m a freeloader.”
“They won’t.”
“What about you? Don’t you need to get back?”
“Not yet. I’ve spoken to them. I can defer the whole term, if I need to.”
“Do you need to?”
“I’m not sure. I want to get Dad home and settled in. Make sure everything is okay. I want to spend some time with him.”
“Won’t I get in the way?”
“No. I want to spend some time with you, too. And, if it’s not too scary, I want you to be a part of all of this. I really want that. It feels right. Is there somewhere else you need to be right now? Somewhere you’d rather be?”
There wasn’t.
BARBARA’S JOURNAL
Me and My Empty Nest
I hated it when my big girls went away. I felt bad about hating it. I had Amanda—I was better off than a lot of women I knew. My “staggered family” was supposed to save me from loneliness. It was supposed to make it easier for me to let you go.
But I still hated it.
We’d been such a unit. Do you remember Carlton Close? It was just the four of us. We had so much fun in that house. I hate it when women say their daughters are their best friends. That seems so suffocating. That’s not what mothers and daughters are supposed to be to each other. I was always the mum. I was always in charge. But it didn’t stop us from having fun. I sometimes wonder if you remember it as well as I do. I don’t suppose that you can. Childhood distorts things, I know.
And then you left. I was so proud—prouder even than you knew—that the two of you both went to university. (And you, Amanda, and…you, Hannah, but only if that’s what you want. I’ll be proud whatever you choose to do unless, in the immortal words of Joyce Grenfell, you should choose to blow at Edgar. You probably don’t even know what that means. But trust me—it’s funny and I’m laughing right now while I write…see if you can download her onto your iPod sometime.) I almost couldn’t believe it. It was something that had been so far beyond my grasp. It just wasn’t ever a possibility, for me. I even wondered if I was jealous. You had chances I didn’t have. Back to that living through your kids stuff. But you wanted to go, you weren’t pushed…. Lisa first, then Jennifer. Did you know that after I dropped you off, that first day, both times, I had to park around the corner, out of sight, and sob my eyes out. I told Amanda they were “happy tears,” but that was only partly true. I was thrilled for you, of course, but I felt so desolate to be going home without you.
I must have had a premonition of what was