Invisible(62)
Margaret and Brigid helped her organize everything for the move. Jake had told her that she was crazy to move out of the city at her age, that she couldn’t hide forever, but she insisted it would be good for her children.
She left London at the end of February, moved into a hotel in New York, and spent a month getting the house at the farm ready. The property was called Haven Farm, which suited her intentions. She was looking for a haven, a peaceful place to hide. She felt lost in the world now without Hamish to guide and protect her.
They moved at the beginning of April, almost exactly a year after Hamish’s fatal accident. It had taken her a year to come home. She gave Margaret and Brigid a year’s salary to give them time to find other jobs after years of working for Hamish. The London house was closed. And she put the plane on the market. She wasn’t going anywhere.
When Lara came to visit, she said she could see why Antonia loved it, although it was very secluded and remote for someone so young. She mentioned that she had seen Antonia’s father twice for lunch, but there was nothing there for her anymore. It was over for her. She would never be able to see him the same way again. He had killed it for her. She was dating one of her real estate clients, a widower who had bought a beautiful penthouse. And she said she was perfectly happy living on her own, just as she had been before.
Jake came to visit her at the farm too, and he thought it was beautiful, but he hated to see Antonia bury herself alive in the country. But she seemed happy there, she had a room to write in, and a hundred acres for her children to grow up on. He knew her too well.
Hamish had brought her out of her shell for a few years, and given her extraordinary opportunities, an amazing career, and two beautiful children. But the die was cast now that he was gone. Antonia was invisible again. It made Jake sad for her as he drove back to the city. He wondered if she’d ever come out of seclusion again.
Chapter 16
Haven Farm was just what Antonia had needed to start a new life in the States with her children. She had bought some beautiful early American pieces to furnish it, and kept it simple. It was a home where one lived outside a great deal. Dash and Olympia were still babies, but they wouldn’t be for long. She was going to buy horses for them when they were older, and sign them up at the private school in the area. She could envision her life there for a long time, until she was old herself. She had hired a housekeeper, a maid, and brought the nanny with her, and there was a team of people to care for the grounds under a property manager who came with the house.
Fred Warner was discouraged when he came to see it.
“You’re burying yourself alive out here,” he complained to her, just as Jake had said. “Hamish gave you a fabulous acting career. Are you really going to throw that away?”
“It was never what I wanted to do. It was his dream for me, not mine. I’m not going to just sit here and pick apples off the trees. I’m going to write, and if you help me put a picture together one day, I’d like to direct too. Hamish was the finest director I’ve ever seen. I learned a lot from him, not just about acting.”
“Show me what you can do, and I’ll put it together for you. I don’t want you to sit and rot out here. You’re too young to give up a career and just raise two kids. Hamish wouldn’t have wanted that for you.”
“I did the acting for him, because he wanted me to. I’m going to do the writing for me, and make him proud of me too. I just don’t want to be in front of the camera, or out in the world, showing off in evening gowns and high heels on the red carpet.” She had hated that, even with him at her side.
“You look damn good in them. Let’s not go all Daisy Mae just because you bought a farm, please.” Fred rolled his eyes and she laughed.
“I have an idea for a screenplay, Fred. Give me some time to get settled here, and see what I can do.”
“I’ll be at my desk, waiting for the phone to ring,” he said, waving one of his Cuban cigars at her.
“I’ll call you. I promise. And come out and visit us.”
“There’s too much fresh air out here. It makes me nervous. But yes, I’ll come to visit. I want to see you and the kids.” He was still heartbroken about Hamish. They both were. And she was only just beginning to feel like herself a year later. It had been the worst blow of her entire life.
* * *
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She had hired some of the staff who had worked on the farm before. It was a very large, luxurious property, and needed experienced high-end maintenance. She had kept the two men in the stables, who were going to help her buy horses. She wanted the children to ride when they got older. There was a housekeeper to clean the house, with a maid who was a young local girl. She already had the nanny for Dash and Olympia she’d brought from England, and there were people to take care of the grounds, run by the efficient property manager. It was all she needed for now. And she felt safe here. It was a wholesome little community, although she rarely left the property. People were curious about her, once they knew she was there.
She had a view of the lake from her new office window, and she had just sat down at her desk on a sunny May morning to work on the screenplay she had told Fred about when she saw a battered pickup truck pull up, and a woman get out. Antonia had no idea who she was. She was wearing a short, tight black skirt and a low-cut blouse you could see through. She had thick, long dark hair that looked like it was dyed black, and she was mincing across the gravel in high heels that made it hard to negotiate as she got to the front door. Antonia wondered what she wanted, if she was selling something, and then forgot about it and started writing at her desk, and two minutes later the housekeeper knocked on her office door.