Free Quiet Neighbors by Catriona McPherson Page B

let it go again. All from a smile Jude didn’t really mean.
    â€œI was bricking it,” she said. “I nearly didn’t come in.”
    â€œMy dear,” said Lowell, as he had to Jude so recently. “My dear.”
    â€œEddy,” the girl said. “Eddy Preston.”
    â€œPreston?” said Lowell. He was searching her face so intently that Jude itched to remind him his spectacles were still halfway up his forehead. He could use them to take a better look.
    â€œMy step-dad,” said Eddy. “For a bit.” Jude watched the emotions passing over Lowell’s face like clouds in a high wind. Disappointment then relief. Guilt, finally. “My mum,” Eddy went on, and then paused, Lowell still as a stone, waiting. “I’m Miranda’s daughter.”
    â€œBut—” said Lowell, then caught it. “Miranda,” he repeated, and his cheeks showed a very faint pink flush. “Of course, dear me. My goodness. How is she? Is she here ? Is she with you?”
    Eddy’s lids lifted again, her eyes larger than ever, and Jude knew what she was going to say. But Lowell kept the same mild expectant look on his face, and it hit him like an anvil.
    â€œShe died,” said Eddy. “Three weeks ago.”
    Through all the hurt that was coming in the days ahead, the one thing that kept Jude from running away, even walking into the sea, was that right then—a moment after learning he had a child, the same second he learned his lover had died—Lowell remembered about her parents, about her. He flashed her a look of concern, just a flicker, before turning back to Eddy again.
    â€œWhy did she keep you from me?”
    No ums and ahhs . No dear me this time.
    Eddy shook her head, staring. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
    â€œMiranda,” said Lowell again and then, “Didn’t you ask?”
    â€œI didn’t bloody know ,” said Eddy. “She only told me when she was dying.”
    The water was starting to bubble.
    â€œWhat do you take?” asked Jude, but Eddy didn’t hear her; didn’t answer anyway.
    Then the kettle clicked off and Jude filled three mugs, pushed one into Lowell’s hand, and set another one down beside the girl.
    â€œI didn’t know if you wanted sugar,” she said, “so I haven’t stirred it.”
    Eddy was staring at Lowell, who was staring back. They were drinking each other in. It had never seemed true enough to deserve becoming a cliché, but Jude understood it now.
    â€œI always thought you were—” she said. “I mean, I thought he was dead. Then really late on her last night she told me, ‘Lowland Glen—it’s a bookshop.’ I just assumed it was the painkillers. Then a bit later she said, ‘Lowell is your father.’ I didn’t even put the two things together till days later. Lowell and Lowland. I Googled you.”
    â€œPainkillers?” said Lowell.
    â€œCancer,” Eddy said. “Pancreas. She tried so hard. She wanted to see the baby.” She took two slow breaths, through pursed lips in a silent whistle, the kind of breaths learned in baby classes, then sipped the tea and gave Jude a watery smile. “Lovely,” she said. “Just how I like it.”
    No one likes their tea half sugared and half not, Jude thought, and her heart softened. The poor kid was walking on her eyelashes, choking down horrible tea, scared to ask for anything.
    â€œI’ll leave you two to it,” she said, thinking it would be easier on the girl not to have two of them gawping at her. Telling herself that was what she was thinking anyway.

    Last she heard as she turned the bend in the stairs was Lowell asking, “And is your, um, I mean, dear me, yes, are you all alone on this trip?”
    Jude stopped.
    â€œTrip?” said Eddy. Then she gave a little laugh. “My ‘um’? I’m not married or anything, if