Starting Over

More than anything else she wanted to stay where she was, here in bed, to pull the duvet over her head and shut out the world and her problems but she couldn’t. She had responsibilities … duties … two children … a job…. Mentally she started to list the day’s tasks. There was the washing, the girls’ school uniforms for tomorrow, her own case notes to read … food to buy … meals to cook … the house needed cleaning. Her heart was thudding even more frantically now as anxiety-induced adrenaline shot through her veins.

‘Mummee …’ Alex persisted. ‘I’m hungry … I’m starving.’

Olivia could feel the scream building up inside her but she knew she must not give voice to it. It wasn’t Alex’s fault she was feeling like this. She had no right to be feeling like this. She was a woman … a mother … a wife … No, not a wife any more … not now …

Caspar … Suddenly her whole body started to tremble.

‘Mummy,’ Alex had started to cry and Olivia could see the fear in her eyes. More than anything else children needed security and love. No one knew that better than Olivia herself.

‘It’s all right darling,’ she reassured her. ‘I’m going to get up now. You go downstairs and wait for me.’

Caspar … Caspar … Why hadn’t he understood …? Why hadn’t he helped her …? Why hadn’t he loved her …? No one had ever loved her….

As she walked into her bathroom Olivia raised an unsteady hand to her face to wipe away her tears. Her—crying? But she never cried …

It was five o’clock in the morning and still dark outside. Caspar lifted his head from his pillow. Next to him lay a small toy, one of Alex’s. He had found it after she had gone. Gently he touched it with his fingertips. He ached with the pain of missing his daughters—and his wife? His mouth compressed grimly. Olivia might be his wife but she wasn’t the woman he had married, the woman he had fallen in love with and who he had believed loved him.

Ultimately they were going to have to sit down and talk. There was no way he intended to be merely a weekend father to his kids, but right now … right now, locked up in the garage of his half-brother’s house where he was spending the night was the gleaming Harley-Davidson motorbike he had bought the previous day and tomorrow he was going to start out on the journey he had first promised himself he would make when he was still in high school, right across America from coast to coast.

‘You’re going to do what?’ his father had asked in disbelief, adding, ‘Hell, Caspar, a man of your age can’t ride something like that. It’s for kids.’

He shifted uncomfortably in the too soft, too big bed that felt even bigger and emptier without Olivia’s presence at his side, her body tucked close to his.

Tucked close to his. It was one hell of a long time since they had shared that kind of night-time intimacy.

Closing his eyes he tried to think back to exactly when it had been, certainly before Alex’s birth. She had been a colicky, light-sleeping baby causing Olivia to get up so many times during the night to her in the first weeks after her birth that eventually Olivia had started sleeping in the nursery with her. They had both agreed that it would be unfair to Amelia to bring Alex’s cot into their room. And after that? After that Olivia had spent so much time working that when she did go to bed it was purely and simply to sleep.

Was that when sex had ceased to become a shared pleasure between them, turning instead into a reluctant exchange on Olivia’s part which he had had to barter for?

Caspar started to frown. Loving someone wasn’t just about sex. But Olivia didn’t want his love any more than she wanted his body. Bleakly he closed his eyes.

‘Jon …’

Jon smiled as he saw his twin waiting for him when he got out of his car at Fitzburgh Place.

‘I had to come up to collect some plants from the greenhouses for Honor so I thought I might as well hang around and wait for you,’ David explained as they exchanged affectionate hugs.

‘Olivia and Caspar were due back yesterday, weren’t they?’ David asked with such deliberate studied carelessness that Jon’s heart went out to him. ‘I expect she’s already been round to see Jenny to tell her all about their trip….’

Jon frowned.

‘No … she hasn’t.’ There was no easy way for him to tell David what had happened.

‘Livvy’s come back David, but Caspar hasn’t. They’ve separated,’ he told his twin bluntly.

‘What …?’

Jon could see the shocked disbelief in David’s eyes. ‘But I thought they were so happy together.’

‘They were,’ Jon agreed heavily, ‘But … look, I don’t know the full details.’

‘I’m going to go and see her,’ David announced starkly, ‘She’s my daughter … I’m …’ He stopped, his face twisting with unhappiness. ‘I was going to say that I’m her father but of course, I don’t deserve to be considered fitting for that role—not really.’

‘Look, I know how you must feel,’ Jon tried to comfort him. ‘But why don’t you wait until Jenny’s been to see her?’

‘Has she brought the girls back with her, do you know?’ David asked him.

‘Yes,’ Jon confirmed.

David let out his breath in a leaky sigh. He ached to get closer to his granddaughters, to be for them all that he had not been able to be for their mother. Just watching Jon with Max and Maddy’s children brought out such a yearning in him to hold his own granddaughters in his arms that it was almost a physical pain. Right now he felt that same urge, that same need, to hold Olivia—adult though she was.

‘Oh, by the way, I ought to warn you that Dad isn’t too pleased about the fact that you’ve invited Father Ignatius to live with you,’ Jon told him ruefully.

‘I know, he told me,’ David acknowledged without adding that Ben had actually hinted to David that if he and Honor were to move into Queensmead with him he would make the house over to him.

‘Queensmead! You’ve already promised Queensmead to Max,’ David had reminded his father grimly. ‘Maddy has spent a fortune of time and effort on the place and—’

‘More fool her. I never asked her to,’ Ben had returned surlily.

Honor had been both shocked and angry when David had told her what Ben had said.

‘When I think of the way Maddy has looked after him,’ she had exclaimed. ‘He really is the most thoughtless, chauvinistic man….’

‘All that and more,’ David had agreed wryly. He was working himself up into a real royal fury. ‘What’s wrong?’ he had questioned when Honor had started to frown.

‘Well, although for his age he’s relatively healthy, he does have a heart condition. He told me and I checked with Maddy,’ Honor informed him.

‘Just how serious is it?’ David had asked her.

‘Well, it isn’t going to do him any good if he overdoes things and that includes working himself up into a furious temper. He’s well into his eighties, David,’ she had added gently.

‘I understand what you’re saying,’ David had agreed, ‘But just because he’s got a heart condition that doesn’t mean he can be allowed to get away with hurting other people, especially someone like Maddy.’

‘He can’t hurt Maddy,’ Honor had assured him gently. ‘She’s far too well protected by Max’s love.’

No, he couldn’t hurt Maddy but he had hurt Olivia. Olivia who should have had his, her father’s love, to protect her.

‘I won’t come up to the house with you if you don’t mind,’ David told Jon abruptly.

Jon shook his head guessing that David wanted to talk over what he had told him about Olivia with Honor.

David found Honor in the kitchen with Father Ignatius who was peeling the potatoes for their meal.

‘I went to early communion this morning,’ the priest told him. ‘I like your church.’

David waited for him to finish before turning to Honor to tell her, ‘I’ve just seen Jon up at Fitzburgh Place. Olivia and Caspar have separated.’

‘Oh, David!’ Honor exclaimed, coming over to him.