“I was trying to impress your mother, be the man I thought she wanted me to be, but it turns out my clothes had nothing to do with it.”
“Let’s have a drink.” Her mom sloshed bourbon into three glasses and added ice before joining them at the table.
Another anomaly in a day tipped topsy-turvy. She’d never, ever seen Lydia touch a spirit; her mom was a chardonnay drinker any day of the week.
When they all had a drink, Lydia raised her glass. “To the Rylands.”
“To you and dad,” Harper said, clinking her glass against her parents’. “Now, would someone like to give me the lowdown?”
Her dad couldn’t take his eyes off her mom, so Harper knew Lydia would be the one to talk.
“Your father and I had a good marriage for the most part, but when you live with someone long enough, resentment can set in. While I gave up my career by choice to save your father’s business, I envisaged going back to it one day. But your father got used to having me around as an adjunct to his business, entertaining his cronies, throwing parties, and I knew having a salon again would never happen.”
“But I thought you loved entertaining,” Harper said. “Some of my fondest childhood memories are the big parties you guys hosted here. We were always having people around. The food, the music, the laughter, I cherished all that.”
“What I didn’t realize was your mother had to do all the work to make those parties a success,” her dad said, suitably shamefaced. “I was the life of the party, but your mother did it all. The preparation, the food, the cleaning up.” He shook his head. “I was hopeless.”
“I gave up asking him to help after a while but that wasn’t good, because as my resentment built I seriously started to dislike your father.”
“So what happened last year to push you over the edge?”
“You know I consult at the local beauty salon every now and then?”
Harper nodded.
“An opportunity came up for me to help with a bridal party. Hair, makeup, the works, but it meant traveling to Albury for the weekend. Turns out I’d done one of the bridesmaid’s hair and she was opening her own beauty salon and wanted me on board for hair. But when I told your father, he said that was the weekend his partner was hosting the hardware store owners, and we had to be there otherwise his business would suffer.”
Lydia huffed out a breath. “Once again, his business came first. I’d felt neglected for years because of his bloody business, and that was the last straw.”
Alec rested his hand on Lydia’s knee. “I’m so sorry.”
Lydia flashed a grateful smile. “We’ve been over this, Alec. Let me tell Harper the rest.
“You know what triggered me the most? Your father never really saw me. He didn’t see how excited I was about the opportunity. He didn’t see my devastation when he told me about his event. It was like I’d become invisible over the years, and that hurt the most, after I’d devoted my life to making his easier.” Lydia shrugged. “I’d finally had enough. When I initially kicked him out, I wanted to give him a wake-up call, to show him how he’d been taking me for granted.”
“It worked,” Alec muttered, shaking his head. “I was such an idiot.”
“But a funny thing happened when I had the house to myself,” Lydia said. “I liked it. I began to do the things I wanted to do, things I never had a chance to when your father was around, like playing loud rock music and eating in front of the TV and staying up till two a.m. I felt . . . free.”
“While I was bloody miserable.” Alec bumped Lydia with his shoulder. “I used to sit out the front sometimes, hearing you blast that music, and imagine you were partying with some bastard two decades my junior.”
Harper bit back a smile. “Stalker much, Dad?”
“Your father never stopped caring.”
The speed with which Lydia defended Alec showed Harper more than words could say. They were definitely a team again.
“So what changed? What led to this?” Harper gestured at the two of them, sitting close, shoulders touching.
“Those blasted gift baskets,” Lydia said, shooting Alec a fond glance. “Your father wrote me a letter and tucked it into the last one. It was the first time he didn’t beg for forgiveness or ask to come home. But he listed every reason he thought why our