Free Isabella's Heiress by N.P. Griffiths Page B

mother’sface was hidden but Emma could hear the sobs. Emma watched her mother turned the stiff cardboard page, struggling to work it through the ring bindings. For a brief second a pained smile crossed her face as new photos were exposed only to disappear and be replaced with more tears. “Oh, Emma” her mother’s voice was soft but the words were cracked and came through deep breathes and sharp intakes of air.
    â€œIt’s okay mum. I’m here.”
    Emma had never felt pain like it. Watching her mother, wretched and weeping, she knew things had changed. She was on the outside looking in. For all the pain and tears, she knew she was no longer a part of this family no matter how much she wanted to cling on.
    Her mother looked up and, for the briefest moment, Emma thought she saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes only for it to be dashed as she heard the slightest of noises behind her and realised her mum was looking towards the source.
    Emma turned and followed her gaze. In her distress she hadn’t heard the footsteps behind herself. Standing in the doorway was a woman a year younger than her. The hair was shorter and the face fuller but other than that, Emma’s sister was undeniably from the same bloodline.
    â€œMum.” The woman walked straight across the floor, Emma instinctively moving out the way, and wrapped her arms around their mother’s neck in a vain effort to comfort her.
    Emma wanted nothing more than to take away all the pain even though right then her own was almost too much to bear. She turned and walked out of the kitchen in a daze and headed to the stairs, walking past Father Eamon and Taryn who was weeping uncontrollably. As she slowly walked up the stairs, her hands touched lightly on the wallpaperand the family pictures hanging there. Reaching the top, she turned left onto the landing and stopped in front of a door. Looking in she could see a wardrobe set back into an alcove and a dressing table against the wall on the left. She walked in to find the room unchanged since she had left it six years ago except now her father was sitting on her bed looking blankly in to thin air. Emma looked around, taking in the mementos of her past. On the wall was a picture taken on a school trip to France. There were four of them in it, Taryn, her and two other girls from her class whom she had been close with at the time. It was at an odd angle, as if it had been taken off the wall and then carelessly put back. On the dressing table was a small jewellery case, which had been given to her on her fifteenth birthday by her gran. The latch had broken, so Emma had decided to leave it here when she had moved out. Now it served to bring back memories of a happier time. She turned back to face her father.
    â€œDad, I’m so sorry.” She knew he couldn’t hear but guilt sat like a vulture on her shoulder, slowly picking her apart. She sat on the bed and just looked at him. For a while he sat there not moving, just looking at the wall and then he did something Emma had never seen him do before. He cried. These were not the silent sobs of her mother but were deep and heavy. It felt to Emma like one of the pillars her life had been built on, her father’s guaranteed strength, had just crumbled in front of her. She looked away not wanting to see but could not block the sound from her ears. After a while, her father’s tears spent for now, stopped and he went back to looking at the wall. Emma sat there just looking at him. He was hunched over, which gave the effect of prematurely ageing him and to Emma he looked older than his fifty eight years. She leant forward to hug him, as much for her own comfortas his and was met with a searing cold as she approached him. She tried again only to find the pain waiting for her. Emma sat on the bed, defeated, her father none the wiser to his daughters vain efforts.
    After a while Emma got up, realising that no good could come from