Page 31 of The Lovers (Echoes from the Past #1)
TWENTY
The restaurant Rhys took Quinn to was the type of place one would never take notice of just walking past. It was tiny and ultramodern, decorated entirely in white with abstract paintings adorning the walls.
The servers all seemed awfully young—polished women and solicitous men, dressed in uniforms of pristine white.
Quinn had to admit though that the food was sublime.
Her swordfish served over pumpkin ravioli with feta cheese crumbles and caramelized onions was superb.
“Do you like it?” Rhys asked, eager to hear her opinion.
“Fantastic,” Quinn replied. “You really are a foodie,” she observed with a smile.
“I suppose I am. When I was a boy, my mother made the same dishes every week. She was a single, working mum, so she had no time or extra money to get too creative. I swore that when I grew up I would try something different every day.”
“You must have been a handful,” Quinn observed, trying to imagine Rhys as a precocious child.
“More than you can imagine. I had acute asthma when I was a child. Any type of strenuous activity or anxiety could set off an attack. My poor mother was always frantic with worry, imagining that I would have an attack while on my own and not have my inhaler nearby. She forbade me to participate in any afterschool activities or play with the other boys. I envied my older brother, Owain, who was always playing football and going swimming at the beach with his friends during the summer. I was only allowed to sit on the sand and breathe in the bracing sea air,” he mimicked with a grimace of disgust, which made Quinn laugh.
“I suppose that’s when my interest in television began.
I used to read a lot, especially during the summer holidays, and I put on one-man productions of various plays for my mum.
She worked as a hairdresser, but before she got pregnant with Owain and married my dad, she had aspirations of going to the university and studying medieval literature.
She was a huge mythology fan, particularly anything to do with King Arthur. ”
“Where did you grow up?” Quinn asked as Rhys refilled her wine glass, clearly in no rush to get back to the office.
“Pembrokeshire, Wales.”
“So, you speak Welsh?”
“Just a few words. I understand everything, but we always spoke English at home, being on the wrong side of the Landsker Line. Have you ever been to Wales?”
“Yes, many years ago while on holiday with my parents. We visited St. Govan’s Chapel in Pembrokeshire. That must have been very close to where you grew up.”
“Yes, but I’ve actually never been. My mum wouldn’t let me go because of all the steps. She was afraid I’d have an attack. What did you think of it?”
“I was just dumbstruck by it, even as a child. To me there was something utterly magical about building right into a cliff. You could hardly tell where the chapel ended and the cliff began, as if it simply grew out of the stone. My mum told me the story of St. Govan hiding from the pirates inside a crevice in the cliff face that shielded him from prying eyes. I had nightmares for days about being swallowed up by stone. ”
“You were an impressionable child, weren’t you? Did you dig up your parents’ garden looking for artifacts?” Rhys asked with a teasing smile.
“No, not really. I was more interested in genealogy when I was a child.”
“Really, why is that?” Rhys looked at her with genuine interest, and suddenly something caught in Quinn’s throat.
She hadn’t meant to have this conversation.
He’d been so open about his own childhood that she suddenly felt as if she couldn’t lie to him.
She rarely told people the truth about her origins.
It was a painful subject, and not one she cared to discuss with anyone.
People meant well, but the look of pity on their faces was usually enough to undo her.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asked, his eyes widening with sudden anxiety.
“No, you didn’t. It’s just that I was abandoned as a baby. When I found out that I’d been adopted, genealogy became something of an obsession.”
“Have you ever tried to find your parents?”
“I don’t know who my parents were. I was left in a church pew and found by the priest. I was turned over to the state and eventually put up for adoption.
I have no desire to track down my natural parents, but I would very much like to know who they were and why they gave me up.
It would fill a void that has existed inside me since I was a child, and answer questions that have been gnawing at my mind. ”
“Like what?”
“Like why they couldn’t just go through the proper channels and put me up for adoption legally.
I tried to tell myself that being left in a church meant something, but there were times when I thought that I’d been disposed of like rubbish.
Whoever my parents were, they couldn’t be bothered with me, so they just left me. ”
Quinn was surprised to see that Rhys didn’t look remotely pitying. Instead, he gazed at her with surprise, his eyebrows lifting in astonishment.
“Rubbish? I think not. Making films and documentaries is all about studying human nature, as I’m sure being a historian is, and deep down you know that no one leaves rubbish in a church.
Whoever left you there wanted to make sure that you were found by someone who would do the right thing by you.
They left you in what they perceived to be the safest possible place.
It was a declaration of love, the final act of a caring mother.
You might never know who she was or what prompted her to do what she did, but know that she loved you. ”
“My mum said the same thing, but I always thought that she was just trying to comfort me.”
“She was trying to comfort you, but that doesn’t mean that what she was suggesting wasn’t true,” Rhys replied. “And did it comfort you?”
“For a time. But I longed to know who my parents were, especially my mother.”
“My situation is very different, but I can understand how you feel. My father died when I was two. I have no memory of him, except sometimes, I dream that I can hear his voice reading me a bedtime story. I suppose the memory is stored somewhere deep in my subconscious. Of course, I know who he was and have seen pictures of him and heard stories, but I would have liked to know him for myself. When I was a boy, I’d often wished that my mum would remarry, so that I’d have a dad.
My brother is seven years older than me, so he had memories of our father and felt resentful of any man who might try to take his place, but I just longed for a man in my life. ”
“Did your mum remarry?”
“Yes, but only after I’d went off to the university. Dawydd had been in love with my mother for years. He’d been a friend of my father’s when they were at school. I think he liked her even back then. She’s happy,” Rhys added with a warm smile.
“And your brother?”
“Oh, Owain never left Pembrokeshire. He owns a butcher shop and lives a few minutes away from Mum. He checks up on her regularly and drops off the children for a few hours in the process. Mum loves babysitting, so everyone wins.”
“How many children does he have?”
“Owain has four boys and a girl, and Dawydd’s daughter has three girls, so it’s a full house when they are all there.
I always go home for Christmas. It’s a far cry from what it used to be when it was just the three of us.
Of course, there are always the usual digs about my failure to produce more grandchildren for them,” Rhys said with an irreverent shrug. “There’s time.”
“My parents moved to Marbella when Dad retired. They love it there. I’ve never told them this, but I actually dread Christmas since they left. I always have a place to go, but it’s not quite the same as being with your family, is it?”
“No, it’s not. Why not go spend Christmas with them this year?” Rhys suggested as he took a last sip of his coffee and rose to leave.
“I just might do that,” Quinn replied. She gathered her coat and bag and followed Rhys out of the restaurant.
“Thank you for lunch, Rhys. It was lovely. ”
Rhys leaned forward and kissed her softly on the cheek before returning to his office. Quinn looked after him for a moment, then dashed toward the nearest tube station. Lunch lasted for over two hours, but she could still catch Jill before the shop closed for the night. She had some shopping to do.