Chapter Fifty-One

ANNA’S FLIGHT GOT into Halifax airport just after lunchtime on the fifteenth of December. She’d been up since six a.m., and awake for three hours before that, so when she finally collected her suitcase and dragged it blearily through to Arrivals, it took a couple of seconds before she saw her father waiting for her.

‘Dad!’ she yelled, and almost left her luggage where it was and ran to meet him, but that probably wouldn’t have made her popular with airport security, or the passengers groggily following her, so she made herself stay patient and waited until she’d pulled her suitcase through the barriers and could greet him properly. He smiled the whole time he waited for her to make the short journey, and wrapped her in a strong, silent male hug the moment she was close enough. Oh, it was good to see him again.

‘Where’s Mum?’ she asked, after kissing him on the cheek.

‘Oh, you know,’ he said. ‘Cooking… Fussing… I hope you didn’t eat for a least a month before you came because she’s determined to fill you up while you’re here.’ He looked her up and down. ‘You look well.’

Anna smiled back at her dad. She’d learned from an early age that he wasn’t one for empty compliments, or empty words of any kind, so when he said something as seemingly throwaway as this, she knew not to dismiss it as small talk. He really meant it. ‘Thank you,’ she said, agreeing to his gesture to take her case. ‘I feel well.’

Her mother was indeed cooking (and fussing) when they arrived at their pretty clapboard house in Chester, only an hour’s drive away from the airport. After hugging the life out of her and instructing Anna’s dad to deposit the luggage in the spare room, she sat Anna down in the kitchen and plied her with tea and lemon cake while they caught up on each other’s news and plans for the Christmas period.

‘What about the Barrys?’ Anna’s mother asked, helping Anna to a second slice of cake. ‘Have you seen anything of them recently?’

‘Well, that’s the funny thing,’ Anna said, her mouth still partly full of crumbs, which couldn’t be helped because her mother’s lemon cake was notoriously gooey and lovely. ‘Richard turned up on my doorstep a few days ago.’

‘He did? What did he have to say for himself?’ Anna’s mother folded her arms. ‘I’m surprised that woman let him out of the house! He seems to need her permission to do anything. Talk about henpecked… I don’t know how he stands it.’

Ever since Anna had told her mother about the incident at Teresa’s party, Gayle had become ‘that woman’. Anna couldn’t help loving her mother for her unswerving loyalty. Her father had returned to the room while they’d been talking, and when he heard the word ‘henpecked’ he winked at Anna, causing her to almost choke on the remaining cake crumbs.

‘What did Richard say?’ he asked, swiping a slice of cake before her mother could bat his hand away. He was supposed to be watching his cholesterol.