Sugar is sweet
Faith finds, once more, that there's a lot to unravel behind the outwardly simple words of Ken, but she can't even begin to think how to do it, so she doesn't. Instead, she points at Jims, who has inexplicably managed to find them in this sprawling zoo. For reasons she also can't unravel, she's grateful for his appearance.
"Look, there's Jims with the ice cream," she remarks stupidly.
Ken doesn't say anything in return, but his daughter does, turning quickly and bouncing towards them. As she does, Faith asks herself, with an uneasy feeling, how much she heard of their conversation or whether it was only the key word of 'ice cream' that she reacted to just now.
"Ice cream for everyone," announces Ken, his smile back to being easy and confident, "and afterwards, which animals shall we look at?"
"Winnie the Pooh!" declares Ava with the conviction of someone not used to being denied.
Jims, who has reached them and is currently distributing ice cream to everyone, clearly sees no reason not to voice his own preference anyway. "I'd like to see the new reptile house."
"Ick!" Ava shudders visibly.
Faith, despite herself, finds that she's smiling at the girl's antics. What she lacks in manners, Ava Ford makes up for in charm.
"The giraffes," Faith adds her own wish. "Maybe we could go see the giraffes later."
"No reason why we can't," agrees Ken, "and once we've seen them, maybe we can find a couple of pigs to ride?"
"Don't be silly, Daddy!" chides Ava dramatically. "You can't ride a pig!"
Raising both eyebrows to comical heights, Ken looks at Faith. She wants to roll her eyes at him, but they don't co-operate and the smile isn't leaving her lips either. She doesn't expect Ken to miss the fact that she's smiling, even though there's a part of her that feels slightly displeased at the thought. Quickly, she takes a bit of ice cream to masks her smile, ignoring the pain shooting through her teeth when they make contact with the cold.
"Maybe you'd like to ask Dr Meredith whether you can ride a pig, darling," Ken tells his daughter, though still looking at Faith as he speaks.
Ava wrinkles her nose. "Dr Meredith rides pigs?"
"She used to." That's Jims, probably having heard the story before, from Rilla or some other family member in Glen.
"It was just once," Fait tells Ava, leaning down to the girl. "When I was a little older than you, I rode a pig down Main Street. I don't know what made me do it, but it seemed like a good idea at the time."
"Did you get in trouble?" Ava wants to know, sounding fascinated, and stares at Faith over the top of her own ice cream.
Faith smiles at the memory. "When I was a girl, I got in trouble all the time. I always meant well, but sometimes, it can be hard to be good even if you want to be."
"I know that!" Ava nods seriously. "I don't intend to be bad either, but being good isn't easy."
Sometimes, Faith presumes, being good is difficult because it goes against what Ava wants, but it's a feeling that is not foreign to her. As a girl, she never understood the sense in following rules that she didn't understand, and frankly, there are times when she doesn't understand it today either.
"The respectable people of Glen St Mary were quite scandalised by what Faith and her siblings got up to during their childhood," Ken relays to his daughter, smiling that smile of his that Faith thinks is always a little too smug.
This time, Faith does roll her eyes. "Your father wasn't even there for most of it," she tells the girl, "and we weren't alone for most of our escapades either. When I rode the pig down Main Street, I did so in the company of your Uncle Walter. Do know who your Uncle Walter was?"
"Uncle Walter was Mummy's brother," Ava replies, sounding like she's reciting something someone told her before. "He and Uncle Jem died in the big war."
Sharply, Faith breathes in.
It's been years since she heard the name. Years, since anyone had reason to utter it in her presence. Years, since she allowed anyone to say it where she could overhear.
"Aunt Joy died when she was a baby," Ava continues her morbid list. "And Mummy died when she had me." She says it matter-of-factly, speaking about her mother in a tone no different than about the uncles and aunt she only knows through stories.
But, Faith realises with a jolt, she only knows her mother through stories as well. Rilla died so shortly after Ava was born that there was no time. Mother and daughter might have met, but only for the briefest of moments. Ava was too young to remember then and she's too young to understand now. Too young, Faith thinks, to understand the impact of the loss of the mother she never knew.
"Uncle Shirley is still alive," Ava points out. "And so are Aunt Nan and Aunt Di and Aunt Persis." She pauses and looks up at Faith. "I like Aunt Persis best. She sends me pretty dresses."
"Darling, we don't say that we like someone better than someone else," Ken tries to explain to her.
Ava juts her chin out. "If Jims likes Uncle Shirley best, I can like Aunt Persis best of all!"
On cue, everyone looks at Jims. He licks his ice cream and shrugs, not contradicting the revelation of his sister. "Uncle Shirley is nice. He's taught me lots of interesting things."
"Shirley is very clever and Persis has lovely taste," agrees Faith, who remembers Shirley Blythe only as a quiet, intelligent boy on the cusp of adulthood and Persis Ford as a pretty, laughing girl who always wore the most exquisite dresses. She supposes they're both adults now, but she hasn't seen Shirley since the war days and Persis not since those glorious, innocent days of peace. In her mind, they simply remained young. At least they had the chance to grow old outside of her mind, Faith reasons, unless the others who also remained young in her mind and forever will.
Out loud, she says, "Do you know that your Aunt Nan is married to my brother, Jerry?"
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jims nodding, but Ava furrows her brow. "Uncle Jerry is your brother?"
"He is," confirms Faith.
Ava's brow furrows even further. "I don't believe you!" she announces after a moment of deliberation.
"Ava," groans her father, putting into that word all the exasperation felt by any parent of a misbehaving child.
Faith, for her part, has to hide her smile by biting into her ice cream once more. "Why don't you believe me?"
"Because," Ava declares after a moment of deliberation, "Uncle Jerry's family all live close to Grandpa Gilbert and Grandma Anne."
Now it's Faith turn to frown. She can't seem to understand what Ava is trying to say. Luckily, she isn't the only one.
"What does that have to do with Dr Meredith?" asks Ken, while Ava still stares at Faith and Jims finishes up his ice cream, looking to all the world like he, at least, has no trouble understanding where Ava is heading.
"If they live there, how does she live here?" Ava wants to know, jutting her lower lip outward at the unfairness of the puzzle she sees herself confronted with.
Not that Faith has any chance in helping her solve it. The question, simple at outward appearance, is enough to throw everything within her into a disarray. As she grapples with the implications of that, she reflects that this girl not only has the eyes of the dead but also a knack for asking the kind of difficult questions that Faith has no answer for.
Luckily, Jims is there to save her. "Our family also lives in Canada and we're living here now," he points out to his sister.
Ava ponders his remark for a moment, but then she shrugs, appearing to accept it as valid. Faith turns to look at Ken and raises her eyebrow in surprise, because them actually living here is not an information she was privy to before. Ken, however, just mirrors his daughter and shrugs, though he grins as he does so.
Faith shakes her head and takes another bite of her ice cream.
"Shall we move on?" asks Jims, his own ice cream almost finished.
"Yes!" Ava perks up visibly. "I want to see Winnie the Pooh!"
"Or we could go to see the giraffes first," suggests Ken to his daughter. "Dr Meredith would like to see them."
Immediately, Ava's face darkens. "I want to see Winnie!" she demands and tosses her head back, making her dark curls fly through the air.
Ken sighs and turns to Faith. "Are you alright with going to see the bear first?"
She doesn't know much about raising children, Faith thinks, but she knows that it would probably be wiser to go anywhere but the bear right now. At the same time, however, she recognises that no-one wants a tantrum and anyway, if Ken wants to spoil his daughter into an awful human being, what is it to her?
So, she shrugs. "It's fine by me."
Ava beams at her. Ken seems to sigh in relief. Jims looks at her from the side and not for the first time, she wonders what he's thinking. Not for the first time, he doesn't reveal it.
Instead, their ice creams being eaten, they proceed to make their way towards where Winnie the Bear is kept. Ava proudly leads the way and Jims stays close to her, ever watchful. This leaves Ken and Faith to follow them, walking in unusual unison.
"Are you moving here for good?" asks Faith, once she thinks the children are out of earshot.
"For a while, at least," replies Ken.
"What brings you here?" she wants to know.
"My job," replies Ken.
Faith nods. She has a vague notion that she does something in politics or maybe diplomacy, but she doesn't know for sure and never cared enough to ask.
"I'm attached to the High Commissioner's Office at the moment," Ken explains, even though she didn't, in fact, ask him.
Again, Faith nods. The High Commission of Canada is based in the aptly-named Canada House on Trafalgar Square. She's had to deal with them in the past, for despite being a British subject by birth, she is also a Canadian citizen and thus, her mere existence is still governed by Canadian laws as well.
"How long do you expect to stay?" she asks Ken, despite not knowing why this information would have any relevance to her.
In response, she gains another shrug. "Maybe a year or two. It depends on when and where they offer me another interesting posting."
Faith hums as she realises that their continued presence in England might, in fact, have an impact on her own life after all. She has no time to understand the full implication of this new piece of information, but she does instinctively know that from now on, there's no outrunning the past anymore. It has caught up with her and it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
She tries to think of something to say, something that is more mature than 'England is my place, I'm hiding here, go somewhere else'. She doesn't come up with anything, however, and anyway, Ken attention is diverted by his daughter moments later, saving Faith from having to think of a response that doesn't make her seem like one of her own child patients.
"Daddy!" Ava shouts out loudly. "Look, the bear!"
Faith hasn't been asked to look, but she does so anyway and finds Ava standing on her tiptoes by the bear enclosure, her hands wrapped around the bars of the fence. Jims is by her side, keeping a close eye on her. Somewhere behind them in the shadows of the enclosure, Faith thinks she might be able to make out the shape of a bear.
"Lovely, darling," Ken calls back. Ava turns briefly to grin toothily at her father, before pressing her face against the fence again.
"Such a beautiful family," sighs a female voice to Faith's right.
It takes Faith an embarrassingly long moment to understand that the middle-aged woman by her side is talking about them. Once that particular fact dawns on her though, her mind starts racing.
She can see it, is the thing.
Ava with her dark hair to match Ken's, Jims with blond curls so like her own. For someone who doesn't know them, the false impressions add up to create the picture of a family that never was. Of course, she and Ken were young when Jims was born, just nineteen, but that's old enough. Life hasn't been kind to them either, so they both pass for older than they are. She can see, therefore, what the woman is seeing. Early marriage, perhaps right before he went off to enlist. Jims, the war baby, followed by Ava, the child of peace. A perfect family of four.
Faith doesn't know whether to laugh or scream.
She does know, with sudden clarity, that she needs to set the woman straight. She needs to explain to her that they are no family and never have been. She needs the woman to understand the truth.
Ken, alas, doesn't appear to agree. With horror, Faith watches him turn to the woman with that charming smile of his. "Thank you, Ma'am. That's very kind of you to say."
The woman beams back at him, as he's probably used to from members of the opposite sex. Faith manages a vague smile of her own in direction of the woman, before she grabs Ken by the arm and drags him with her.
"Ouch!" he protests.
Faith thinks that maybe she shouldn't have dug her nails into his arm quite like that, but what's done is done and besides, if anyone has earned it, it's Ken Ford with his bloody cheek.
"You let that woman believe we are a family," Faith hisses, letting go of his arm but not apologising for her treatment of it either.
Ken has the audacity to nod. "I did."
"Why did you do that?" Faith demands, struggling to keep her voice low and her temper down.
Instead of a prompt reply, she finds herself being watched thoughtfully by Ken. It makes her feel uneasy.
"What?" she snaps.
"What would you have me tell her instead?" Ken asks, his own voice uncommonly strained. "That the strongest familial connection between me and you is that your dead fiancé was the brother of my wife? That Ava is my child but not yours and that Jims is of no earthly relation to either of us? Would that have been better?"
Faith doesn't know if it would have been any better, but she does know that over by the fence, Jims has raised his head and is now looking at her over Ken's shoulder. She can't tell what he might have heard but she knows that if he did hear Ken speak, there's a lot of potential for hurt there.
"Jims is your son," she finds herself pointing out to Ken. "Yours and Rilla's."
"Of course he is," he replies, suddenly impatient. "That, incidentally, is why I prefer not to tell strangers that he wasn't mine from the beginning. It's not for them to know, or to judge."
Behind him, Jims turns back to look at the bear.
Her temper settling down as quickly as it flared up, Faith is left feeling foolish. "I'm sorry."
Ken waves her apology aside. "It's alright. There's no need to –"
He stops, interrupting himself. When Faith looks at him, there's a thoughtful expression on his face that she hasn't seen often on him.
"Are you really sorry?" he asks after a second of deliberation and Faith watches as the thoughtfulness is replaced by something best described as calculation.
She knows she shouldn't say Yes. For some reason, her head decides to nod anyway.
"Excellent!" declares Ken in a tone that suggests he might start rubbing his hands in glee any moment. "You can make it up to us."
She really should have said No when she had the chance!
"How so?" Faith hears herself asking. It's not surprising to hear the words though, because this is awfully close to a challenge and Faith Meredith has never backed down from a challenge in her life.
"We're looking at houses to rent on the weekend," explains Ken. "Come with us and be my wife."
These words, she is surprised to hear.
Stupidly, she blinks at him. "What?"
Ken has the audacity to laugh. "I'm asking you to pretend to be my wife in front of potential landlords. I want to get the children out of the hotel and settled properly somewhere. Unfortunately, whenever the landlords hear I'm a widower with two children, they're all suddenly less than keen to have us. I think they're afraid I don't have the children under control and that they'll destroy the place."
"Not an unreasonable concern," argues Faith, thinking back to all the trouble she and her siblings got in to under the less-than-watchful eye of their widowed father. No matter their good intentions, it needed Rosemary to come and bring order into their chaotic household.
Clearly having followed her train of thought, Ken grins widely. "Don't worry, not all children are like the feral offspring of Reverend Meredith."
Faith glares at him. His grin doesn't budge.
"The stories I've heard about you and your siblings would surely make all the landlords who declined my applications feel very validated," muses Ken, still distinctly amused. "They still have nothing to fear from my two though. Jims was raised by Rilla and is the most well-behaved child there could possibly be. Ava is possibly the least well-behaved child ever, but she's too vain to do anything that would get her dirty and destroying a house sounds like dirty work."
Still processing his odd request, Faith caught maybe every second of his words. She doesn't care much about his opinion anyway though. Instead, she tells him, "I can't pretend to be your wife."
"Why not?" he asks, not missing a beat.
She chokes in surprise. The brazenness of him boggles the mind!
"It wouldn't be right!" she insists. "It would be a lie!"
Ken raises an eyebrow. "Oh? Are you telling me you've never told a lie before?"
Faith opens her mouth and closes it again. He's got her. He knows it, too.
"Come on," he cajoles, lightly nudging her elbow with his own. "It'll be fun and no harm will come from it. You come with us, talk a little with the landlords and I will get my house for the children. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?"
To Guest:
I'm glad you enjoyed the previous chapter and hope that you're enjoying the rest of the story, too! =) I also promise that Faith meant no disrespect towards Anne and Gilbert when she took exception to Ken saying they buried four children. It's just that often, people find a certain comfort in holding a funeral ceremony for a lost loved one and being able to visit the grave. No-one, including Anne and Gilbert, had that for Walter and Jem, which sets them apart from Joy and Rilla. That's not to say the death of one child hurt more or less, just that they were deprived of the small comfort of a proper burial for the two men. Faith feels Ken doesn't take that into account, which is why she chaffs at his words, on her own behalf and yes, on Anne and Gilbert's behalf as well.
To DogMonday:
Yes, Ken loses his last name to the end of the previous chapter! As you said, this is Faith's story and it sticks to her POV, so it's indeed a sign of her coming around to his presence in some way. I won't say where we're heading with them, but there's a certain connection between them and a mutual respect. They both know what it feels like to suffer a major loss and have their life turned upside down by it, so that's something the two of them share. In addition to that, Faith is increasingly allowing herself to like the children as well.. Jims is hard not to like and while Ava is incredibly spoiled, Faith recognises parts of herself - or her old self - in the girl, which forms a connection between them, too.
I'm not saying who's dead at this point ;). Let's just say that by the end, we should know about the people Faith lost and how she lost them. I can say that Jerry is, indeed, alive and got married to Nan, which is how Jims and Ava know him. Regarding Ken's remark about the burial of four children (rather than two), I kindly point you towards the above comment =). I might not have brought my intended point across well with that paragraph, but I assure there was no disrespect meant.