“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I think for his age you might have to play it by ear, see how he’s coping once he arrives. He’s almost an adult really, although there will be times he’ll still feel like a child, especially considering his loss. Losing a parent is a huge event. He may be dealing with it quite well, he may not. How was he when you saw him last?”
Frederick rested his finger on his bottom lip and thought. “To be honest I thought he stood up so well after the funeral. He was a tower of strength for all involved. Made us proud.”
“Sounds like you don’t really have to worry about him too much, then. Maybe all of your focus should be on your daughter if it’s obvious she’s the one struggling.” Hamish sipped at the remains of his drink before putting the crystal tumbler down on the coaster, dabbing his cold fingers on his trousers. “I’m more than happy to help you out if and when they arrive. I have no problem doing an assessment of your grandson or daughter for that matter, whatever you want. My studies lie in the grieving process and the fight or flight reflex as you well know. I believe them to be closely linked and it’d be good for my paper to include another case study. Of course it will remain nameless for privacy.”
“I’d appreciate it, Hamish. It’s a shame you swapped clinical psychology for teaching in a way, but we appreciate your input in any capacity. Any help we can give them could only be of benefit to all concerned. If you could ease your way into a chance meeting or if you’d rather, I can introduce you at some stage.”
“Leave it with me. If I need help, I’ll give you a shout-out. Might be better if we meet outside the family gathering so to speak.”
“Fine, fine. Whatever you think is best. I love my daughter and will do anything for her but we may have a slight hiccup in the works.” He coughed, cleared his throat and continued. “Lucy and Billie have, how shall we say it, a rather rocky relationship. From the time she was a teenage, they’ve butted heads. I ride peacemaker as often as I can but as you will hopefully understand, Lucy needs my support as much as Billie does. I often found myself having to choose which side to be on, if only to keep the peace in the household.”
“That must have been difficult for you.”
“There were times, yes. I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but Billie isn’t the only one suffering here. Lucy may not show it, but she loves her daughter. The past has been hard on both of them.”
Hamish watched Billie now, looking for the tension that worried Frederick. She’d seemed calm and there were certainly no signs of manic behaviour nor maudlin episodes. Maybe she had improved way more than her parents gave her credit for and that, in his opinion, could only be a good thing.
Chapter 7
Sydney 1980
“How could you be so mean to her? She’s your mother.”
Billie stood in front of the couch and gaped at her son. “Alex, you have to understand something. Your grandmother and I didn’t have a good relationship when I was growing up.” She sat down next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I always thought she was overbearing and demanding. She probably thought I was a painful child and she was doing the right thing by me, trying to mould me into a mirror image, someone worthy like her.”
He stared at her, wiped his hand over his face, clearly not thinking her reason was valid enough to excuse her behaviour to the grandmother he’d come to love.
Billie tried again. “Kids often butt heads with their parents. It’s part of growing up, we both know that but in this case, the conflict was a bit more serious than that.”
“So tell me then.”
She hadn’t planned on going into it quite so deeply, hoping a quick gloss over that period in her life would suffice. “Lucy was always concerned about what people thought of her, of all of us.” Billie smiled. “I never cared and to some extent, nor did Father but she thought she had to be the perfect wife, the perfect daughter-in-law and we all had to tow the line. You see, Father’s family were prominent in Sydney society in those days. They had all the right connections, government connections and above everything else, she wanted nothing to tarnish their good name. Decided early on it was her mission in life to have the perfect family. Must have been hard for her because I was a brat. No two ways about it.”
“What’s that got to do with you not agreeing to what she wants now then?” Alex’s gaze didn’t leave her face waiting for her answer.
Billie lay back against the couch and reached for his hand. “I rebelled as a teenager.” Rebelled was a mild way of looking at it. “Some days I didn’t even know which way was up. I got lost in my own little world and managed to spiral out of control. It was the hippie era. Free love and everything.”
“Mom!”
She nudged him and squeezed his fingers. “It wasn’t quite like that. I fell in love too often and when I got rejected, I lost it. Carried on like it was the end of the world, which to me at that stage, it was. Needless to say,
