But when it had hit her, a few months back, that she had fallen into the exact same pattern in her relationship with her ex—not rocking the boat, putting his needs, his career first—that had been the real beginning of the end.
First time she’d stood up for herself, in a real way, he’d acted swiftly, brutally unburdening himself of all the secrets and lies she’d allowed herself to simply not see in order to keep the peace.
She was not going to make her own needs appear smaller for someone else’s sake ever again.
Sable lifted her chin a fraction. “I caught up with Janie. And kept any sniffing to a minimum.”
Mercy snorted her response, then slanted her daughter a rare look of respect. Maybe this “standing her ground” thing would work on more levels than she’d imagined.
On that score... “What on earth happened to the old Thorne shack?”
Mercy’s inner battle was written all over her face before she admitted, “He knocked it down.”
“Mr Thorne?”
Mercy shook her head.
“Then who?” Say it, Sable thought. Say his name.
“Rafe Thorne.”
Never one name, always both. Like a serial killer.
“The father finally drank himself to death a few years back. Day after the funeral I woke up to a god-awful racket. Found your boy tearing the place apart. He carried every single piece of the place away until there was nothing left but the footprint. Then he dug that up with an excavator and grassed the lot over.”
Oh. She hadn’t even known Rafe’s father had died, much less the rest. If she had, she would have sent word. Though which words? Sorry didn’t seem quite right. Neither did good riddance.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sable asked. “You know...when I rang and said, ‘Anything exciting happen in town?’”
“It mustn’t have seemed relevant at the time.”
Relevant? Hang on... “Did you think I’d come running home if I knew?”
The glint in her mother’s eyes said it all.
“I wouldn’t have.” Probably. “Just so you know. I wouldn’t have run back. I had a life over there. Just like you always wanted for me.”
Only, in the end, that life hadn’t been for her. And Sable was more than ready to curate one that was.
“Anyway, it’s been a very long couple of days. I’d love to crash, if it’s okay.”
Mercy waved a hand in the direction of the bedrooms. “There’s a couch in one of the rooms. You might have to move a few things.”
Super. Sable spun her suitcase over a knot in the floor before heading back down the hall.
One room was full of nothing but dust motes. Her mother was not a collector of things. Too hard to cut and run. In the front room her mother’s unmade bed with its slew of hand-woven blankets showed through the wide-open door.
The only room left was Sable’s old bedroom.
It was the first room she’d stayed in long enough to tack things on the walls: pictures torn from magazines, drawings, photos she’d shot as her interest in photography had taken off.
That room was why Radiance was the first place that had ever felt like home.
That room and the boy next door.
It took a nudge with her boot to encourage the door open as it caught on a rug that had not been there when she’d left. The desk under the window was a new addition too. And the faux suede couch with bottom-shaped dips in the seat cushions and an escaped spring in the back. In fact, not a single reminder of her had remained.
That was Mercy in a nutshell. Seeing sentimentality as a weakness. Leaving her daughter to feel as if she left pieces of herself behind every place they lived.
Sable sank into the couch with a groan and stared blankly at the bare walls long enough to make out the sun-stained echoes of the pictures that had been stuck there years before.
She imagined she knew how they felt.
CHAPTER TWO
SABLE WOKE WITH light burning into the backs of her eyelids. She didn’t even remember falling asleep.
Opening one eye, she found warm afternoon light streaming into the room, sharp, square and split into shades of white and gold, like something out of a Rembrandt painting.
Instinct had her reaching for her camera only to remember how long it had been since she’d held the thing. Long enough she hadn’t been able to find it when she’d madly packed everything she could fit into a single suitcase and moved into a hotel.
The impulse to capture the view dissolved away.
She checked her phone to see the time, only to find another message from Nancy in New York.
When do I get you back? Soon, I hope! I’ve a jaunty little Greek magazine super-keen to hire you. Summer spread. Rugged location.
In Nancy language, “keen” meant Nancy was hounding them. As for “jaunty little Greek magazine”, that was no doubt a far cry from her last gig with Italian Vogue. And light years from a show of her own.
She sent a quick message back.
Hey Nance. I’m alive. I’m fine. Off the grid for a bit. Taking a break from work. Talk soon.
Her phone rang immediately. She turned it on silent and slid it back onto the desk.
She listened to the sounds of the house. No music, meaning her mother was no longer home. And realised she was starving. Meaning she’d have to head into town. For her mother’s fridge would contain little in the way of edible food.
She slid her boots back onto her feet and swapped her man’s jacket for a faux fur coat. A tad over the top for downtown Radiance, but it had been a long time since she’d owned Ugg boots and flannel.
She checked the cupboard for a hat or scarf to cover the mess that was her hair only to find something else instead.
A vintage Kodak box Brownie—the first camera Sable had ever owned. Picked up at a yard sale when she was fourteen
