“Gus just wants to feel important and valued, Miranda. Have you noticed how he looks at you?”
“Me?”
“Yes. He wants your approval and your admiration. Children are very easy to please; they just want your attention and your love.”
“I do love them.”
“It is not enough to tell them you love them. You have to show them. Words mean nothing if they are not backed up with action.”
“How come you’re so wise when you don’t have children of your own?”
“Because I learned from a very special woman many years ago. She put her children above everything, even above her heart’s desire. They came first.”
“Is it wrong to be a working mother?”
“Not at all. You have to satisfy yourself as well. If you are unhappy they sense it. Children need their mothers and fathers. Gus needs his father.”
“I know.” But he has you. You’re better than any father. You include him, inspire him, play with him, build him up, make him feel special and important. You’re the one he looks up to. You’re the one he loves. David only thinks of himself. Suddenly, a dark cloud of resentment cast her in shadow. “I need a husband, too,” she confessed huskily.
“Tell him,” he said simply.
She stood up, collected the empty cups and jug and sighed. “Life is so complicated. Love is complicated.”
“But life is unbearable without it.”
“Then how do you bear it?” she asked before she could stop herself. She realized that David had shifted away from the center of her world. Jean-Paul had taken his place in her affections. She loved him. She couldn’t help herself.
“Because I have no choice,” he replied. She walked away, turning as she reached the gate, hoping that he might still be watching her. But his head was bent over the sweet peas, lost in thought.
It occurred to Miranda that her life was beginning to mirror Ava’s. The parallels were startling. Both women had fallen in love with their gardeners. David appeared in her mind like a small boat drifting away on the current. If she shouted would he hear her? Would he care? Would he take the trouble to row back?
Suddenly she was inspired to write. With a pounding heart she realized she had found her story. A great love story in the grand style of Anna Karenina and Gone with the Wind. It was right here beneath her nose. She was living it. If she couldn’t have Jean-Paul she would satisfy her desire in a work of fiction.
While the children played in the gardens, she opened the windows in her study, filling the room with the honey-scented blossom from the orchard. She chose a CD of light classical music and sat at her desk, in front of her computer screen. The music carried her deep into her imagination where her longings lay like dormant seeds in a bed of rich and fertile soil. Her fingers tapped over the keys, faster and faster as she watered those seeds with expression and felt them grow. She inhaled, sure that she could smell the tangy scent of orange blossom.
That night, as she read the children a bedtime story, Gus snuggled up against her, resting his head on her shoulder. She was moved by the transformation in her little boy; he was no longer the troubled child he had been in London. But she could tell by his frown that something was troubling him now.
“Mummy, why doesn’t Daddy ever play with us?”
“Because he’s very busy, darling.”
“But you play with us.”
“That’s because I’m here all week and he has to work in London.”
“But on weekends?”
“He’s tired.”
“I wish J-P was my daddy.” Miranda felt a cold fist squeeze her heart.
“You don’t mean that, Gus,” she replied.
He wriggled uncomfortably. “J-P loves us like Daddy should.”
“Daddy loves you very much.” Gus looked unconvinced. “He would love to spend all day with you like Jean-Paul does. But he has to work in the City to earn money so we can live in this beautiful house and so you and Storm can go to school…”
“But he’s going to send me away to boarding school.”
Miranda took a deep breath. She couldn’t deny that boarding school was on the cards for both children. “You’ll love boarding school, Gus. You’ll play sports all day and make loads of friends.” He looked away. “And you’ll come home on weekends. Only big boys go to boarding school.”
“I don’t want to be a big boy,” he whispered.
XXVII
Planting sweet peas, watched over by those softly cooing doves on the wall. The bliss of being alone in the early evening light.
When David came home that weekend he was tired and irritable. Miranda was in high spirits. Having acknowledged her love for Jean-Paul she had put the children to bed after reading them The Three Little Wolves in a very theatrical voice, and returned to her computer to write until four in the morning, stopping only to make herself a cup of coffee. The words had spilled out from deep inside her. Inspired by love, and Ava’s secret scrapbook, she had written prose so lyrical it was as if someone else were writing through her.