My mum rubbed my knee. “But now I know what you’ve been doing, what your friends have done and how you’ve really stepped up, honey. We are so proud of you.”
My nerves melted away at her words, and I smiled at my dad who I loved so much. He had explained things to Mum like he’d said he would. Told her some home truths and probably made her see that the hotel was a thing to be saved, that it meant so much to me and so much to him and that it could shine again. That it could be something to bring us together, not tear us apart.
Mum squeezed my hand. “We have some good news.”
I edged forward, keenly buying into Mum’s excitement. “With everything you have done, and all the hard work you’ve put in, we are pretty certain that we can get an even better price at auction!”
Chapter Forty-Seven
My heart stopped and my smile dropped. I looked from Mum’s beaming face to Dad, who couldn’t even bring himself to look at me.
“What?” I whispered.
“The real estate agent is coming out tomorrow and he is pretty certain that with all of the improvements, we could very well make Onslow real estate history.” Mum all but squealed in excitement. “Isn’t that great?”
Her enthusiasm was short-lived as she read the horror plastered all over my face.
I shook my head, looking at Dad as if he was a stranger.
My voice broke as I started to speak. “So everything I did, everything that I worked for was for nothing?”
“Not nothing, honey. Mum said. What you did has helped so much. We are so—”
“Proud of me? Yeah, I can tell,” I scoffed, staring at my hands that were balled up into angry fists in my lap.
My eyes burned as I looked up at my dad’s profile. “So you’re going to sell? Just like that?”
“It’s not just like that.” Mum straightened. “We have thought this through, haven’t we, Eric?”
Dad made no move; he just stared away as if looking at me would admit his faults, as though looking me in the eye would seal the fate of the Onslow.
“Answer me this, Mum,” I said, turning back to face her. “Is it something you both want or something you want?”
“I cannot believe you are still so surprised about this, I told you …”
“That’s right! You told me, you never asked me. I’m a member of this family too, even though I’m sure you’ve forgotten that. While you’ve been off living your second honeymoon, I’ve been here, working my fingers to the bone to save our home.”
I walked across to kneel in front of Dad in his chair, my eyes brimming with tears. “Dad, you said it, you told me what it felt like to see the hotel today, that you hadn’t seen it shine this way since your grandfather owned it. You said it was like magic. Are you willing to put a price on that?”
Dad finally turned his head to face me; his sad eyes looked across at me, really looked at me. I held my breath waiting for him to speak.
“Amy, sometimes no matter how hard it may be, we have to be smart about things. We have to make decisions with our heads, not with our hearts.” He wiped away a tear as it slid down my cheek, and with those words, my heart shattered into a million pieces. I stood, pulling away from him. I glared down at my father, a stranger.
“That’s the thing about us Hendersons, Dad,” I said. “We think with our hearts. I don’t know who you are anymore.”
“Amy, that’s enough.” My mother stood too. “You need to realise that you can’t always get what you want in life.”
I couldn’t believe the hypocrisy coming out of my mother’s mouth. “That’s rich, coming from you,” I said.
Mum’s eyes narrowed as her cool, hard, stare seared into me. Her tone was low and threatening as she said, “Get out before I do or say something we will both regret.”
“There’s nothing you could possibly do right now that could hurt me any more than you already have,” I said. I strode towards the door, ripped it open and slammed it behind me with an almighty force. I moved as quickly as I could down the stairs before my tears really fell.
And fall they did.
***
Like a dishevelled Cinderella, I sat on the back staircase in the beer garden with my face in my hands. It was after midnight. I had been sitting in the dark for hours, lost in a deep misery that I couldn’t bring myself out of. Without a lift I had no way of getting to the party, not that I felt like it now, anyway. How could I face them? All the people that had gone above and beyond to help me? I felt like I had betrayed them, used them, just to gain a better selling price for the Onslow.