Elizabeth said, racking her brain for the correct response. “Well, if it wasn’t what you wanted, it was for the best.”
“I suppose,” she said, doing up the buttons on an oversize cardigan. “But I’m starting to wonder if I was wrong. I see Dad in there, and you here with him. It’s about family, isn’t it?” An intense urge struck Elizabeth then, a need to tell Alice everything about Kate. “That’s the point of life. Not promotions and money and Michelin-starred restaurants on a Saturday. It’s family, and being together. I didn’t understand that before.”
Elizabeth needed to break the tension, Alice being close to tears. “Michelin-starred restaurants seem like a good part of life to me,” she joked. “Not that I’d know, mind. I’ve never eaten in one.”
“You’re not missing much.” Alice shrugged. “Just the same as anywhere else, really. Only less food.” They both smiled, shuffled to get more comfortably positioned in their seats.
“Regardless, your dad will be pleased to see Brian soon.”
“Yes,” she said, before a moment of quiet. “And I never thanked you, did I? Not just for convincing me to talk to Brian, but for being here too. The truth is, Dad needs you. And I think this would be a lot harder without you.” Tears streamed down Elizabeth’s cheeks. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to upset you.”
Without thought Elizabeth reached for Alice, patted her arm. It was a simple touch, but a sign that something had shifted in their connection. “You didn’t. You just made me think of something, that’s all.”
“Of what?”
“Not what. Who,” Elizabeth said. “You know, a long time ago, I didn’t want children either. Couldn’t imagine it, and thought that having a family would ruin all my plans to be an artist.” Alice twisted in her seat. Elizabeth didn’t look up in that moment, her cheeks growing hot. “Then I had Kate,” she said. “I love her more than anything, but we’re not on speaking terms anymore.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Families are not always easy, are they? I didn’t speak to my mother very much in the years before she died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
The resignation in Alice’s shrug was hard to witness. “When I was a kid, I worshipped her. She was so glamorous, you know, had all these amazing clothes; I used to dress in her heels, and she’d do my makeup. But she was fickle too. Volatile.”
“Your dad didn’t mention that.” Tom didn’t seem to want to talk about it much, and what he had told her never once painted the woman he married in a bad light.
“He would never speak badly of her. But after she and Dad separated, when she asked me to go and live with her, there was never any question in my mind that I preferred to be with Dad. She died almost twenty years ago now. Caught an infection that went to her heart. I did try to reconnect toward the end, but it seemed too much time had passed. If it helps, I regret we lost touch like that, but I regret it more that she let it happen.”
It was beyond Elizabeth’s comprehension that a mother wouldn’t want her daughter in her life. She would have given anything to get Kate back. “I’m sorry it was like that. I try all the time with Kate, but she won’t forgive me.”
“What did you do?”
Only then did she realize she’d said too much. “She feels wronged by something I kept from her.” Keen to get it back on track, she veered back toward Brian. “But my point is this: even though things are difficult now I would have bitterly regretted not having my daughter. So, if you think you’ve made the wrong choice, just tell him. Don’t get another ten, or even twenty years down the line and wonder where your chances went. It’s a horrible place, hindsight.”
For a while, they watched the radiographers coming and going. They both shifted to stand when the door of the room Tom had disappeared into opened, but the nurse who came out said they would be another ten minutes because of a computer having frozen, or something like that. Elizabeth wasn’t sure what she meant. It was cold, but not that cold.
“I’m still thinking about canceling the move to Hastings, you know?” Alice said.
“Is that what you really want?”
“Sometimes I think so, and then I remember life with Brian, and how awful we were to each other before I told him to move out. Can things