Kara pushed open the white wooden gate to Bee Cottage. Seeing her dad down at the end of the garden she walked slowly towards him.
‘All right, our Kerry? Why aren’t you at work?’ Joe Moon asked. ‘I’m just checking the bees are warm enough.’ He smiled. ‘Got to keep old Harry’s Honeysuckle Honey going or he’ll be telling us off from above, won’t he?’ Then on noticing the expression on her face, he knew it was time. ‘Get yourself in the shed, pet, the heater’s on,’ he said.
Joe Moon let out a loud, ‘Oof!’ as he plonked himself down on the threadbare green armchair in the big old shed. Kara felt as if she was reliving times with her Grandad Harry, Joe’s father, who would make exactly the same noise as he sat down there. He would then look out of the open door and down the long, beautifully tended garden to the pretty cottage at the end, inevitably making some comment or other about the chickens, which would be scratching around in their pen.
As he switched Harry’s old portable radio off, Kara shut the door, pulled out the old fold-up chair, and sat down opposite him. Without saying a word, she handed him the letter from her birth father.
‘The Reverend Matthew Nesbitt,’ he said, without even opening it.
Kara’s mouth fell open. ‘You knew, Dad? You knew and you kept this from me?’ She went to get up.
‘No, no. Stay and hear me out, Kerry Anne. I only found out the truth myself last week. Doryty sent me an email telling me about that man; said she thought the secret would come out, now she’d learned that he had died. I think she wanted to warn me, shield me from the blow. I admit, it was a very great shock, but I’ve had time to adjust.’
‘That’s not like her – and why didn’t you tell me as soon as you knew?’
Joe Moon said chokily, ‘Because I wanted you to believe that you were my own precious daughter for just a few days longer.’
‘Oh, Dad.’ Kara jumped up and went to his side. He pulled her onto his knee as if she were five years old again and held her to him as if he would never let her go, his face in her luxurious mane of red hair.
‘You will always be my daughter,’ he said huskily. ‘I love you so much, Kerensa Anne. Your name even means love, for God’s sake, as the minute I saw that beautiful little squished-up pink face of yours, that is what I felt for you. Pure and simple love.’
Kara unfurled herself, got up and stood leaning against the long workbench to her father’s side.
‘I don’t know why he had to tell me.’ She was upset and on the verge of tears. ‘We could have just carried on as we were, in ignorant bliss.’
‘Oh, darling. It could have been worse. If, all those years ago, your mother had told me she had had an affair and that you weren’t mine, we might never have had this special bond. To me, you are my daughter.’
‘Maybe he just wanted to absolve his own guilt before he died.’ Kara pulled herself together and took a deep breath.
‘Yes, and who are we to judge him, or to work out what was going through the mind of a dying man?’
‘It makes me so sad that Grandad wasn’t really my grandad either.’
Joe said warmly, ‘Now there is proof that it doesn’t matter that you are not mine by birth. You were everything to that man and he to you.’ It was true. Then: ‘Have you told your sister yet?’
‘Which one?’ Kara replied flippantly.
There was a silence while Joe thought about this. ‘What – do you mean this fellow Matthew had more children?’ he asked, looking astonished.
‘Just the one. It turns out that Star is my sister too – well, like Jen she is my half-sister, and she’s younger than me by six months.’
‘Well, I’ll be jiggered!’ Joe’s mouth was wide open. ‘Un-believ-able! And she has always been like a sister to you even though neither of you knew the truth. See? It’s all OK, it really is.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘What do you think?’ Joe Moon got up and ruffled his daughter’s hair. ‘Right, I need to go and pick Pearl up from the hospital. I don’t like her being on that scooter of hers when it’s cold like this.’ They walked down the garden arm in arm. ‘Come for dinner later, if you want to.’ Joe kissed his daughter on the cheek. ‘Just got to go in and get my keys. I love you,’ he called after her, watching her leave through the gate.
And when she was safely gone, Joe walked into his cosy low-ceilinged kitchen, reached for the worktop to steady himself. Then he began to weep.