Agnes looked at her, aghast, but Hattie pressed her lips together, unapologetic. ‘Please, carry on.’
‘Right. Well. He made it clear we weren’t welcome. Chester phoned a few times, drove all the way down here again, but Leonard turned him away at the door. Threatened all sorts of horrible things if we tried to keep in contact. So, that was that. We had enough to deal with, what with Chester’s illness, and then Gideon arriving. To be honest, we were glad the pretence was over and we could move on without too much guilt. He made up an excuse to avoid Chester’s funeral, and I only knew Leonard had died when the solicitor called about the will. I have to be honest, we were surprised that he’d left Gideon some money. It wasn’t like they knew each other.’
‘That monster only cared about himself. I don’t blame Chester for wanting nothing to do with him. He probably left Gideon the money for appearances’ sake. And so I wouldn’t get it.’
Agnes furrowed her brow. ‘I don’t suppose he was an easy man to live with. I’m sorry, Harriet, that we didn’t try harder to keep in touch with you, at least. But then, Chester died when Gideon was only four; it was all I could do to look after the two of us.’
‘I’m sorry, too. But we can make up for it now, can’t we?’
It was Agnes’ turn to start crying.
‘Tell me about Gideon,’ Harriet asked, once they’d dried their eyes and topped up the teapot.
‘Oh, he’s a bonny lad.’ Agnes beamed. ‘Just graduated with a degree in landscape architecture! Now he’s on a gap year, in South America, otherwise he’d have come to the funeral, of course.’
‘Do you have a photo?’ Hattie asked, intrigued and excited about a real-life first cousin.
‘Oh, no. I didn’t think.’ Agnes patted her pockets as if one might appear. ‘I’ll send you one. Or even better, come up and visit some time. Meet him for yourself.’
‘I’d love that,’ Hattie said, and she meant it. But then, there was so much to do; before she knew it, months and then a year or two had gone by. She’d made it her mission to restore Riverbend back to life, but of course that required funds, so she also had to invest time and effort into building a career out of the Sherwood Forest designs that had begun to attract some commercial attention. Still haunted by her past traumas, she retrained as an art therapist, and with one thing and another, it was almost three years before she and Agnes managed more than the odd phone call. Hattie made the trip up to Lancashire one Easter, but Gideon was away with his girlfriend’s family, and the intimacy the two women had shared at the funeral had stiffened into the awkwardness of strangers with nothing in common save a horrible man and a heap of regrets.
It was another four years – seven since the funeral – that Hattie tried again, hoping to establish a connection with her cousin, even if things were still a little forced with her aunt.
She made a detour to Lancaster on the way back south after attending an art-therapy conference in Glasgow, meeting them at a restaurant for dinner.
In that moment, everything changed.
30
The final art therapy session was scheduled for the 20 April. Hattie had requested to meet much earlier than usual, at four, so that we had plenty of time to complete our projects then enjoy a celebration dinner afterwards. The Gals had managed to squeeze in a meal at the pub the week before, to discuss party plans, and we’d been in regular communication since, but this still felt like a significant evening. Hattie hadn’t promised our problems would be solved after the six sessions, but she had assured us that we should be a lot clearer about what those issues were, and how we wanted to handle them.
It was also Hattie’s last professional therapy session. For now, at least. I tried not to cry about that as we spent the morning sorting through her shoe collection, and the afternoon consolidating her different savings into one bank account.
Once we’d gathered in the studio, Hattie gave us the brief before ushering us outside.
‘We’re making nests.’
‘As in, bird nests?’ Laurie asked, stroking the goose printed on her jumper.
‘Well, what other type of nest is there?’ Kalani asked.
‘Now you’ve done it.’ Deirdre smirked.
‘Rats. Squirrels.’ Laurie started counting off on her fingers. ‘Wasps, bees and ants. Duck-billed platypus. Snakes and crocodiles…’
‘Okay! We get the picture. Although I don’t suppose there are many crocodiles in Hattie’s river in need of a nest.’
‘Gorillas,’ Laurie couldn’t help adding.
‘Are we making a nest for a duck-billed platypus?’ I asked Hattie, attempting to move things along before the casserole I’d prepared completely dried out in the slow cooker.
‘No, for ourselves.’ Hattie pulled out a scrap of paper from her jeans pocket. ‘Nests are designed to protect new life. Eggs, or offspring. To provide a safe place for them to grow, until they’re ready to fly. What is your new, post-therapy life going to look like, Gals? What does it need to thrive and grow strong enough to fly? How are you going to protect it from predators like busyness, laziness or people who don’t care less about your dreams?’
‘What?’ Deirdre looked pensive. ‘Is this like the other tasks, where we did a collage or a picture? We don’t have to actually make a stonking big nest, that we can sit in?’
‘Oh, no, we are absolutely going to do that.’
‘I’m a forty-something human being. Not a duck, Hattie. Or a rat.’ Kalani screwed up her nose. ‘I can barely get a duvet cover on, how I am supposed to build a nest?’
