Chapter 35: Home Sweet Home(2)
When Rory met the Roberts family, Frank and Claire were just married. She remembered thinking that Claire is too young to be the mother of a twelve-year-old. And she came to know that she was not his birth mother only after a week.
Rory learned a little about Liam’s mother Brigetta. Liam’s mother and his father were childhood sweethearts. They were always together and everyone knew that they would end up together. They had Liam when Frank was just twenty-one—when they were still in university.
They married when they knew Brigetta was pregnant, but she got sick during pregnancy. Rory was not told what kind of sickness, but Frank quit his studies to come to live in his parent’s home because Brigetta needed constant care. Grandma Roberts took care of Brigetta and Liam was born in this house.
Brigetta died when Liam was eleven. Claire, who was working in Frank’s convenience store became his wife within a year of Brigetta’s death. Claire was twenty-one when she married and Frank was thirty-three. It sparked various rumors in the town.
Liam... whether he listened to the rumors or because of other reasons, hated Claire right from the start. He used to say that his father married someone close to his son’s age than to his age. He’d blame Claire for killing his mother. He is under the impression (that goes with the rumors in the town) that his mother died because of his father’s affair with Claire.
But Rory found Claire to be a kind and a very easygoing woman. She rarely takes anything to heart and she is a natural caregiver.
Liam was always an ass to Claire, but she never took anything to heart.
Grandma Roberts was very tired taking care of Brigetta for a decade. Grandpa Roberts was admitted to a hospice after having a stroke.
When they learned that Grandpa Roberts was getting abused in the hospice by a mean staff, Claire was the one who made the tough choice. She took an effort and with the family’s permission brought grandpa Roberts back home. She became his full-time nurse and she took very good care of him. She took very good care of grandma Roberts too.
Rory heard Liam’s eldest uncle mentioning that he is seeing his mother smile after a decade only after Claire’s arrival.