Page 83 of Tears of Gold

There’s a pause that you’d be able to hear a mouse fart in. “What do you want, Faith?”

He sounds tired, the man who once used to squeeze his princess so tight her ribs ached. “I wanted to talk to you about Aiden.”

“What do you want to say?”

I grip my phone tighter, my fingers cramping with the force. “I don’t want to say anything. I want to ask. Why didn’t you believe me? I came to you a wreck, broken. I wouldn’t have even been able to walk up the path to the house that day if Dan hadn’t borne my weight. But you didn’t believe me, no matter how hurt I was.”

“Faith, I knew the rumours about you, but I wanted to ignore them. I heard what people were saying, that you were wild, dangerous. Someone told me once they expected to find you washed up with the tide. So when you said what he’d done to you, I didn’t know what was truth and what was just who you were.”

Just who you were.

You fucking arsehole.

“So you decided to believe others instead of me. I was only like that because of what he did. He dragged me so low I didn’t think I’d ever get back up.”

“But you have, Faithy, haven’t you? Look at you, marrying into the aristocracy. While your old man is skint and being chased by creditors left right and centre. What sort of a daughter are you?”

“What sort of father are you that you’d never believe your only daughter?”

“Yeah, well, I can’t help it if you’re like your mum; she shagged about, too.”

A rising stream of vomit threatens to force its way out of my mouth. I swallow hard. “You never talk about her.”

“Because there is nothing worth talking about.”

“Nice. Maybe you could tell me who she was, where she went?”

“What’s the point, Faith? She didn’t want you, she left.”

“With you, who couldn’t protect me.”

“You tell yourself that. Give me ten grand and I’ll maybe remember something.”

My stomach roils and it takes everything I have to bring it under control. “I hate you.” This doesn’t cover half of what I feel, but it’s a start.

“Yeah? Tell me something new.”

This conversation is getting me nowhere. It’s not helping me find out anything. Not helping me fight.

I hang up without so much as a goodbye. I need to make sure that man can never come near my husband or my child.

It’s with that in mind, I send Eli a message.

We need to talk about a pre-nup. Not for me, but to protect you and our kidney bean.

I’ll do whatever it takes to protect them from the darkness that has eaten away at my life.

Feeling lighter than I have for a while, I climb the stairs to the attic. All my papers and sketches are there and from under a sketch pad I pull out the swift drawing Eli did of my House of Glass Flowers in France. I’d do anything to be back there now. Just me and him, and the sun on our faces and our bodies stretched on white sheets.

I pull one of Eli’s untouched easels over towards the desk. I don’t want to play with glass or ceramics. Instead I flip through palettes of colours until I find the brightest yellows and the deepest blues. Using my fingertips, I dab them on the canvas, building up the density with the tiniest of dots. Every so often I rub my belly covering my T-shirt in paint. The small swell I thought I could sense the other day is still there. Tiny and smooth. No one else can see it but I know it’s there. For hours I stand and dab paint, light and gentle like the kiss of the sun on skin, the lightest of dancing touches.

I jump in surprise when the door opens and blue eyes stare at me through the opening. “Miss Beesley said you’d been up here all day.” He’s holding a tray. If anyone is going to bring me snacks, it’s got to be Eli in his navy suit.

“Wow, what time is it?”

He steps closer, his lips brushing my cheek, the blues dancing. “It’s early, six maybe.”

“Six! What are you doing home so early? Have you been sacked?”