CHAPTER SEVEN
Drew Sullivan watched in his rear-view mirror as Connie’s car disappeared around a bend. He’d enjoyed chatting to her. He hadn’t intended to reveal so much about himself, but it had just seemed natural when he was talking to her. They were birds of a feather to a degree, he thought ruefully, wondering why her marriage had broken up and why an attractive woman like herself was footloose and fancy free. He’d got the distinct impression she was on her own when she’d said she was glad to be a free agent. She had a good sense of humour, too, he noted, a most important attribute in a woman. Marianna, his ex-wife, had had precious little sense of humour, he reflected wryly as he slowed down and pulled in to let a tractor drive out of a field.
She certainly hadn’t been amused to be left alone much of the time to bring up two young children, but he’d been a dairy farmer when they married, as well as having fields under tillage, and it had been tough going, especially trying to find money for the affluent lifestyle she expected him to provide for her.
‘You never spend time with me. Don’t you want to be with me? You prefer those bloody cows and that damn tractor to me and the kids’ was her constant refrain, especially around harvest time, when he was out on the land morning, noon and night and would come home, bone weary, to arguments and tantrums. He understood her frustration. It wasn’t easy being on her own so much, with young toddlers, and she spent a lot of her time driving over to Wicklow with them to spend time with her family and friends.
She’d never really wanted to settle in the country. She was from Wicklow town, her father was a successful solicitor who entertained a lot. She’d told Drew once that she far preferred the townie lifestyle to vegetating in the country.
‘Well, why did you marry me then? You knew what I was and the way I worked,’ he’d demanded angrily, fed up to the back teeth of her constant whingeing and moaning.
‘Don’t ask me,’ she’d retorted. ‘It was the biggest mistake of my life.’
That had hurt him to the core. He, like a fool, had thought he was doing his best for her and the children. In the end, she’d left the farmhouse and gone to live in a house in Brittas, where she could meet her hoity-toity friends and drink in McDaniel’s and have barbecues on the decks of their expensive mobile homes.
He’d missed his daughters so much. Missed standing beside their beds looking at the moonlight slanting down on their sweet, flushed little faces. He’d be so tempted to pick them up and kiss them and say, ‘Daddy’s home, my little darlings.’ He missed them trotting into the bedroom at the crack of dawn for their morning cuddles and tickles, until Marianna would moan long and loudly enough about getting some sleep. He’d take them down to the kitchen and give them their breakfast before saying goodbye to them and rousing her to mind them, then head out to help his farmhand feed the cattle.
He’d hoped very much, when they were older, to give them each a horse and teach them to ride. Drew loved riding, loved the feel of the majestic animal beneath him and the breeze enveloping them both as they galloped across the fields, completely at one with each other and nature. He’d wanted his daughters to feel that same sort of buzz and exhilaration.
The plans he’d had for them, he thought bitterly. Plans that came to nothing. Marianna had gone to visit relatives in America for six weeks and taken the children with her, and he’d been crucified with loneliness he’d missed them so much. She’d come home and gone back within three months, and he knew she’d met someone. She’d been very straight about it. She’d met an investment broker who was divorced with a young daughter. He had wooed her attentively, spent money on her and wanted her to come and live with him while she waited for a divorce from Drew.
‘But what about me, what about my time with the girls?’ Drew had been horrified.
‘What time?’ she’d snorted sarcastically. ‘An hour in the morning, an hour in the evening, if they’re lucky. Don’t be so selfish, Drew. Don’t put your needs before theirs and hold them back from the great life Edward and I could give them in America.’
The girls had been full of excitement about America and Disneyworld and having a swimming pool in the back garden.
‘Would you like to go and live there?’ he’d asked his three-year-old, Katy, and his five-year-old, Erin.
‘Oh yes,’ they’d chorused.
‘But I can’t come,’ he pointed out.
‘Pleassee, Daddy, couldn’t you get holidays?’ Erin had nestled into him and kissed his neck, while Katy had pulled his hair, sure in the knowledge that she’d get a tickle.
‘And who’d feed the cows and their calves? Would you not prefer to stay here and get a horse when you’re bigger?’ he’d pleaded.
‘A horse! Mom, Dad said we’re getting a horse.’ Erin went racing in to her mother with the news.
Marianna had been spitting with fury when she heard this. ‘Go up to your rooms, girls. I want to talk to Daddy,’ she had ordered, and when they’d scampered up the stairs, not daring to argue, such was her tone, she’d turned on him in rage and said, ‘How low is that, Drew Sullivan? Trying to bribe them to stay with talks of a horse. How selfish are you? I might as well have been a deserted wife for all the time you spent at home, and you have the nerve to talk about your time with them—’
‘I wasn’t out enjoying myself, Marianna, I was working damn hard to give you and the girls a decent lifestyle,’ he’d hissed, wanting to shake her for her selfishness.
‘Yes, and coming home and falling asleep in the chair after you’d had your dinner. I never knew it was going to be like that, Drew. I nearly went out of my head with boredom when I lived on the farm, that was why I moved back near town, and that’s why I want to go to America. I’ve met a man who wants to spend time with me and the girls—’
‘It wasn’t that I didn’t want to spend time with you,’ Drew had retorted hotly. ‘Farming is 24/7, and there’s nothing you can do about that.’
‘Yes there was, and I did it, Drew. And if you want to stand in the way of our girls having a chance of a good family life and plenty of opportunities, then you go ahead, but, for once, you think of someone other than yourself and your precious farm. I’ll bring them home in the summer and every second Christmas, as long as you pay for their fares.’
Marianna had stood with hands clenched by her sides, her eyes flashing with antagonism, and he’d wondered, not for the first time, how he’d been so deluded to marry her. What had possessed him to think that he and she, who were so different in personality and outlook, would ever stay the course?
He – quiet, shy, awkward around women – had been drawn to her bubbly, bright, chatty personality and hardly able to believe that this little blond bombshell would be at all interested in him. But interested she had been, and he had eventually invited her to go for a drink. She had done most of the talking, and he had been content to let her, but he’d enjoyed the night and asked her out again. Gradually, she’d taken him in hand, buying clothes he, happy enough to live in jeans, would never have dreamt of buying. He’d liked her proprietorial air and the fact that she seemed proud to have him at her side when other girls flirted with him. Their sex life had been adventurous and satisfying. She had few or no inhibitions, and the early years of their marriage had been relatively happy. Marianna had been a young woman who was used to getting her own way, and he’d resisted that. They’d fought, but they’d made up, usually with hot, hungry sex. He’d loved coming home from work knowing that she was waiting for him and wanting him but, as routine set in and their two children had been born, she had grown dissatisfied at the amount of time he spent working, and the rows became more frequent, and coming home was no longer something he looked forward to.
It was a sad irony that he’d lost his wife and children to the hard work he’d put in trying to give them the lifestyle Marianna aspired to.
‘Even if you don’t agree to me bringing the girls to America, I want a divorce,’ she’d told him viciously.
‘You can have that with pleasure,’ he’d barked and had been glad to see her flinch. Glad that for once he’d hurt her as much as she was crucifying him.
‘So, are you going to stand in their way or not? You won’t have the time to spend with them, even if we do stay here. Why would you be such a dog in the manger and deny us all our chance?’ Her eyes raked over him, cold and unloving, and he knew their marriage was well and truly over, and that he wanted to be free of her as much as she wanted to be free of him. They had gone past the point of rescue. To stay together would be toxic and of no use to their daughters.
She stood there before him, full of anger and dislike. Her features had lost their girlish softness over the years, and she’d become pinched and dissatisfied, hard-faced even. Had he done that to her, he wondered, or was it her true nature asserting itself? He had begun to realize a few years into their marriage that whatever he did would never be enough for her. Marianna had always been a daddy’s girl, spoilt within an inch of her life. Drew reckoned that part of his initial charm for her had been the fact that he wouldn’t give her everything she wanted and was quite capable of saying no to her. She was right about him not having a huge amount of time to spend with his daughters. He wasn’t yet wealthy enough to employ a farm manager, although it was something he wanted to do eventually. His assets were his land and property but, if he sold his land, he reduced the size of his farm, and it wasn’t feasible. Could he give up farming altogether? But, even if he did that, their marriage was finished. All these thoughts raced through his mind, but he kept coming back to her assertion that his daughters could have a very good life in America with this new man of hers.
Could he stand in their way? Was he being a dog in the manger, as she put it, wanting it all his way? What was the best for their girls? He was in turmoil trying to find the answers. He couldn’t let them go, just like that. They might think, in years to come, that he hadn’t cared enough to fight for them.
He stared at his wife and said, very quietly, ‘You go if you want to, Marianna, but the girls stay here in their home with me. Over my dead body will you take them to America.’
‘You’re a selfish bastard, that’s what you are – a prick, Drew Sullivan,’ she swore, furious that her emotional blackmail hadn’t worked and that she wasn’t going to get her own way.
She’d gone to America on her own for six weeks, and his heart had almost broken when the girls would come crying to him, ‘When is Mommy coming back?’ ‘Why can’t we go on holidays with Mommy?’ ‘Daddy, I miss Mommy, can I go and stay with her?’
His own mother had helped out as much as she could but, in the long term, Drew knew he’d have to make other arrangements if he was insisting on the girls staying in Ireland. He had to face the fact that they would soon be starting school, with all the running around that entailed, and how traumatic that would be for them without their mother around to ease them into it. He’d been fraught, trying to juggle everything, but he would have done it with a heart and a half if he’d thought the girls were happy to stay with him. It wasn’t that they didn’t love him. They adored him, but Marianna was their mother, when all was said and done, and he couldn’t take her place, no matter how much he wanted to.
Marianna had come home laden with presents one dark November evening, and Erin and Katy had run into her arms, ecstatic at her return, and Drew had known, with gut-wrenching despair, that he couldn’t part them from her again.
‘I want to meet this bloke. If you’re going to bring my daughters to live in America, I want to see who they’re going to be living with,’ he growled a week after her return, when she’d told him she was going for good the next time. He turned on his heel and walked out, leaving her standing with her mouth open.
A week later, Edward Delahunt had come to visit. A well-built, black-haired, jovial man in his early thirties, he’d held out his hand to Drew and said, ‘Buddy, I appreciate your meeting me like this, and I completely understand where you’re coming from. I’ll give Marianna and your girls the best life I can. And you can visit any time you wish. I’ve a thriving investment and taxation practice in Boston; I own several properties and a big share portfolio. I have no financial problems. They’ll have a good lifestyle.’
‘Is that so?’ Drew said. He wanted to say, Don’t call me ‘buddy’, but he felt it would be childish. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Mr Delahunt, I’ll support my own daughters.’
‘But, of course, buddy, you and Marianna can work out your divorce settlement between yourselves. I just want you to know I’d have their best interests at heart. They are sweet little things, and they get on big time with my own young daughter. She’s seven, and she lives with her Momma, not too far from us. We share custody.’
There was nothing actually to dislike about him, Drew had to admit, and he could see why Marianna was drawn to his larger-than-life personality. He could see, also, how she was drawn to his wealth, he thought sourly, studying photos of the big house and swimming pool and the gleaming Mercedes in the driveway.
Drew’s father-in-law had advised Marianna on their divorce settlement, and she had fleeced him. Had it not been for the girls, he would have fought her claims tooth and nail, but he’d given her what she wanted, even though he’d had to sell the dairy farm and farmhouse. He’d put money in a trust fund for his daughters, happy that Marianna wouldn’t be able to get her greedy mitts on it.
Saying goodbye to them had been the most devastating experience of his life. They’d run into his arms, all excited that they were going on a big plane on holidays again, to the house with the swimming pool, not realizing that it would be six months before they saw him again.
He had cried solidly for two days when they left, shutting himself away from his concerned parents and sister, who were also devastated that their granddaughters and nieces were leaving Ireland. He tormented himself, asking himself whether he had let them go too easily. But they needed their mother. They’d pined for her in a way they wouldn’t pine for him, and they might have held it against him in years to come that he’d been so intransigent.
‘They need you too, Drew, she’s only a selfish shrew,’ his mother exclaimed bitterly when he told her what was happening. ‘You can’t let them go. We’ll muddle through somehow.’
‘I have to, Mam, I tried it and it didn’t work. It’s too hard on them being parted from her. Children need their mother.’
‘Even though she’s a selfish, irresponsible woman, and now you have to sell the farm as well as losing your daughters? May she never have a moment’s peace of mind,’ Margaret Sullivan had raged, wishing she could get her daughter-in-law on her own for ten minutes at the slurry pit.
It had been the darkest, loneliest period of his life. Losing his girls, his farm, his reason for living. The kindness of friends and family had brought him through the deep, black depression he’d sunk into and, gradually, he’d hauled himself out of the mire and got his life back on track.
He’d started up a riding stables and livery on land an uncle had left him in Greystones and thrown himself into his work. He’d built a house with a room each for his girls for their holidays – and what joy it had been when they’d come racing into his arms at Dublin airport, that precious first visit, which he’d lived for. He’d marvelled at how tall they’d become and hated the faint twang of their newly acquired Boston accents. But by the time their holiday was over and he had to kiss them goodbye, they were Wicklow women again, he told them. That was the pattern of his life: waiting for their visits; despair when they went back to America, until his routine would set in again and keep him focused on work.
He hadn’t been a monk. For some reason that he couldn’t even fathom, women were attracted to him. He’d had a couple of relationships, but he’d never let himself get deeply involved, and the women had become tired of trying to get him to commit. The barriers were up. He’d been hurt unspeakably once, and he’d never let a woman do that to him again. He had regained his equilibrium, but buried deep in his heart was the sense of loss he carried. It had never left him from the moment he kissed his daughters goodbye when they left for Dublin and a life without him in America.
Although Marianna tried to be friendly once she’d got her own way, Drew, though civil and polite, never gave his ex-wife an inch when they were together. She wanted to be pally-wally and to ‘forgive and forget’, as she’d said herself, and she’d urge him to stay at her and Edward’s house when he was visiting the girls and, years later, when he’d gone over for Katy’s wedding.
‘You’re fine, I’ll look after my own accommodation, thank you,’ he assured her every time. And though he made an effort when the girls were around or they were out for meals together, when he and Marianna were on their own, he didn’t indulge in idle chitchat, no matter how hard she tried to engage him. He’d never been a hypocrite, and he had no intention of starting because of Marianna’s desire to bury the past. No woman should ever put a man through what his ex-wife had put him through. No woman should ever separate a father from his children. Some things were beyond the pale.
It had been a long, long time since he’d allowed himself to remember those painful memories which his conversation with Connie had brought up, Drew reflected as he drove into the stable yard. He had a great relationship with his daughters. They spoke on the phone and emailed each other constantly, Erin had been over for a visit just six weeks ago, and Katy and her new husband had spent a week of their honeymoon staying with him after their trip to Venice. He loved them dearly, and it gave him great satisfaction to know that, when he died, both of them would inherit a considerable amount of money when the stable, house and lands were sold. He’d provided for them well, and paid for Katy’s wedding, despite Marianna’s protestations that Edward would be very pleased to.
‘Katy is my daughter, Marianna. I’ve never forgotten that, even if you have,’ he’d replied calmly but very, very firmly. That had shut her up quick enough.
He shook his head. What the hell was he doing, raking up the old coals of his past? He had plenty to concentrate on in the present. He cut the engine and got out of the car, hurrying into the stall, where the pregnant mare whinnied when she saw him. He ran his hand over her swollen belly. ‘It won’t be long now, my beauty,’ he said soothingly, and smiled as she nuzzled him affectionately.
Women – you could keep them. He was happy with his horses.