What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.
~Jane Austen
“The church. Or maybe the roses?” Frank looked sideways at Holly for her opinion.
They stood in the art gallery’s storage room, deciding which painting should replace the landscape sold to a tourist earlier this morning.
“The roses, I think. They’re cheerful. Summer-y.”
“Agreed.” He picked up the frame at its edge and carried it off to the main room.
Holly was glad to be at work today—it gave her a break from everything at home. Her father had called a family meeting for tonight, finally, and Holly assumed the tension in the house would only worsen. Since she’d broken the news to the girls about Mildred nearly a week ago, things had been eerily quiet. Everyone moved about the house with solemn reserve, not even making an effort to argue or complain. Her father must’ve told Mildred the girls knew, because she’d left a voicemail on Holly’s phone canceling this week’s Tuesday workday at the house. Apparently Gertrude needed her.
Frank had reappeared in the doorway, and Holly found the nerve to ask him what she’d been dying to ask for the past couple of weeks. “Okay, I’m about to be terribly rude and pry. But I have to know. How are things going with you and Lily?”
Actually, Holly already knew. Lily had been emailing her, saying she and Frank were talking online more and more often, and had even taken up texting. Still, Holly wanted to hear it from his end of things.
“Well,” Frank said, a winsome smile appearing. “We’re… chatting. Quite a lot.” He inched a bit closer, as though there were a great crowd of people behind him who were trying to press in and listen. “We get on very well. She’s amazing. Did you know she plays the cello? Is part of the Cotswold symphony? She has a concert in two weeks.”
“No, I didn’t know. Impressive!”
“Yes. And, she’s agreed to go on a butterfly hunt—that’s what she calls them—next week with me. Says she’s fascinated when I talk about insects.”
Officially confirmed. A perfect match.
Feeling bolder, Holly said, “You really fancy her, don’t you?”
“I admit it. I do.” He looked suddenly years younger.
Holly found it fascinating, how love did that to people—transformed them into giddy teenagers again. Even her father, talking about his courtship with Mildred. It lit up his entire face, softened the edges—even seemed to take away some wrinkles, she could swear.
Pushing her father’s situation from her mind, she focused again on Frank, who was busy chattering on about a conversation he and Lily had this morning, via email.
On the way home an hour later, Holly stopped at the market for two packages of bacon and two dozen eggs for a fry-up. Abbey had requested a “breakfast night” for dinner this evening, a Bubble and Squeak—something their mother had started years ago when she’d been too tired to go to the market. Only having breakfast foods and leftover meat, she’d decided to make it into a dinner. Holly thought it the perfect comfort food for the evening that lay ahead.
As Holly placed her items on the counter, Mrs. Pickering gathered them up and tapped the keys on the register. One could never check out at her market without either being peppered with personal questions or receiving the latest bit of village gossip. Whether one liked it or not.
Today, Mrs. Pickering offered the latter.
“Did you hear,” she started, “about the fancy dress ball on Friday?”
“No, I didn’t. A ball?”
“You know, the filming. Emma.”
“Oh, I see. Is there a special scene coming up?” Holly wondered why Fletcher, her inside scoop, hadn’t mentioned anything.
“Yes.” Mrs. Pickering paused, holding the bacon. “The entire village is getting involved. The word is that they need fifty extras to fill in the gaps at the ball—standing around in the background and such.”
“Sounds fun.”
“With costumes and hairdos, as well! It should be a cracking good time,” she said, beaming. “Bring the community together.”
Holly wanted to tell Mrs. Pickering how very dull filmmaking actually was, but changed her mind. Mrs. Pickering could discover it for herself.
“Grab that big plate, will you?”
Unable to abandon the Bubble and Squeak, hot on the cooker, Holly pointed to the plate.
Abbey obeyed, and they worked as a team—Abbey holding the plate steady while Holly slipped the egg/bacon/potato/onion pancake onto the plate in one fell swoop. Next, they added some color by placing grilled tomato halves all around the edges.
“Dinner is served,” Holly announced, ready to carry the feast into the rarely used dining room, where the twins had earlier set the table.
“Can I get him?” Abbey pleaded, hearing Rascal’s cries and scratches grow louder. During meals, they placed the puppy into the nearby laundry room where he moaned and whimpered and scratched frantically at the door. The outside doghouse was lovely but much too big. Rascal didn’t think of it as home. So, the laundry room was the only place in the house he could be safely contained whenever they were busy or gone. That room had no carpets to chew or soil, no furniture to scar with his sharp nails.
“Why don’t you go settle him down and give him a chew toy? He’ll be fine in there for suppertime. You can play with him afterward.”
Holly continued toward the dining room, calling the twins as she went. After setting the table earlier, they’d disappeared again.
Though her father had promised to have “the talk” this evening, he had been unwilling to sit through an awkward dinner first. No, he would time it just right, so that his talk would be given after the meal. In fact, he was on his way home from the office now.
The girls ate in silence, devouring the meal until nothing was left. No matter their moods, a fry-up would always be completely consumed.
Without any communication, the meal was over in a record ten minutes, and the girls marched their plates to the sink to rinse them. Holly ached for this “talk” to be over and done. As with the Frank situation, she wanted things at home back to normal. But what did “normal” even mean anymore?
Holly kept busy with schoolwork until her father arrived, Rascal’s gruff puppy bark indicating he was home.
It took him twenty minutes to gather the girls into the sitting room. After he’d sorted through the post, skimmed the front page of the paper, poured himself some coffee, and, finally, run out of time-wasters, he sat on a chair in the center of the sitting room, facing the girls, lined up on the couch. Holly thought they all resembled patients at a doctor’s waiting room: uncomfortable, fidgeting, wishing they were anywhere else. Abbey stroked the sleeping puppy in her lap while the twins stared at the ceiling or the floor. Holly, sitting at the end, wished she could channel words to her father as a producer would feed lines to a nervous first-time newsreader. But he was on his own. And that was the whole point. This was his show.
Finally, he cleared his throat and leaned forward. His posture said it all—hunched over, he looked uncertain and ill-at-ease. Hardly the vicious multi-millionaire known for crushing businessmen with a few carefully chosen words.
“So…” he started, staring at his shoes. “I guess your sister informed you about the… situation.” He cleared his throat again. “So. Anyway, I wanted to meet with you together, face-to-face, and… sort this thing out.” He shot Holly a glance, presumably checking to make sure he was on the right track, then moved his attention back to the floor.
Holly watched him squirm and wished she could help. She could see the wheels turning, knew he was struggling.
“Right.” He clapped his hands together decidedly, and Holly saw an inkling of the businessman kick in. “The thing is, girls, I’ve found someone.”
“Mildred,” Abbey whispered, her mouth forming into a pout.
“Yes. Mildred. I’m… well, here’s the deal. I’m in love with her. It happened pretty quickly. I’m sure your sister explained everything.”
“You’re going to marry her,” Bridget stated, looking him dead in the eye now.
“Yes. If she’ll have me. And, if my girls can give me their blessing.”
He looked from daughter to daughter with measured glances. Receiving only silence, he pushed his chair back so he could pace and talk with his hands.
“Here’s the thing. Nobody can replace your mother. Not ever. She was my first love. It wasn’t my choice to let her go—but she did go, and we’ve dealt with it the best we can. As a family. I haven’t been the perfect father you needed. I’m a bad-tempered workaholic who would rather run away from emotions than face them. Well”—he stopped mid-step—”here I am. Not running away.”
He saw that he had the girls’ full attention, and his face relaxed. He sat back down, his eyes warmer, hopeful. The sincerity coated his voice even as it cracked, “I still miss your mother. It’s hard not to, when I see bits of her every day in the four of you. Holly, you have these little parentheses around your smile, like she did. Rosalee, you have a particular lilt in your laugh that sounds exactly like hers, the older you get. Bridge, you get your spunk from your mother—she could go toe-to-toe with me any day. And usually won. And Abbey, your sweetness comes from her. The way you respond to other people, your love for animals. Don’t you see? Your mother is right here. She’s left pieces of herself in all of you. How could that ever be replaced?”
Holly sniffed back tears. Since her mother’s death, he rarely talked about her, and certainly never so openly, with such ease. Holly glanced over to see her sisters tearing up, as well.
“Girls…” Duncan stood to walk around the coffee table that separated himself from his daughters and took a seat on it, his knees touching the twins’. “I’ve given you no time to absorb this… my relationship with Mildred. And I’m sorry. You had every right to know. It was daft of me to throw it all on you, with no time to adjust. I wish I could do things differently.”
“You can’t,” Bridget said tersely, thin-lipped.
“No, love, I can’t. But I can ask you to give her a chance. Mildred is a fine woman. She’s been good to this family. She wants to help us, not destroy us.”
The pause hung in the air, decisions being made, battles fought.
“I’ll try, Daddy,” Abbey offered quietly.
“Thank you, sweetheart.” He put his hand on top of hers and Rascal licked it.
“Me, too, I guess.” Rosalee shrugged indifferently.
“Do whatever you want.” Bridget bolted up, knocking against his knee as she stood. “You will, anyway.”
Before he could form the words to call her back, she’d bounded out the front door. Her father looked at Holly helplessly.
“She’ll come ‘round,” Holly reassured. “Give her time.”
He nodded, the tension showing in his weary face.
Rascal play-growled and attacked Abbey’s sleeve, gnawing it with his back teeth.
“And what do you think, little man?” Duncan asked, rubbing at the puppy’s ears.
“He thinks you deserve to be happy,” Abbey said.
For the first time since their mother’s funeral, Holly saw the glisten of tears in her father’s eyes. He grunted to hide his emotion and got up from the table, tousling Abbey’s hair as he moved past her.
“I smell a proper fry-up,” he announced brashly. “Anything left over for me?”