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One Summer In Paris
Sarah Morgan
The next unmissable summer read from Sarah Morgan!Praise for Sarah Morgan:‘I laughed, I cried, I held my breath. I absolutely adored it’ Cathy Bramley‘Sarah Morgan just gets better and better’ Veronica HenryOne charming Left Bank bookshop, two unlikely friends, and a summer in Paris that will change their lives forever…Grace can’t believe it when her husband of twenty-five years announces he doesn’t want to join her on their anniversary trip to Paris – instead, he wants a divorce. Reeling from the shock, Grace makes the bold decision to go on this holiday of a lifetime alone.Audrey, a young woman from London, leaves behind heartache of her own when she arrives in Paris. A job in a bookshop is her ticket to freedom, and Audrey’s determined to enjoy every second of her adventure. But with no money, and no knowledge of the French language, suddenly a lonely summer spent wandering the cobbled streets seems much more likely… Until she meets Grace, and everything changes.Grace can’t believe how daring Audrey is. Audrey can’t believe how cautious newly single Grace is. Living in neighbouring apartments above the bookshop, these unlikely friends offer each other just what they’ve both been missing. They came to Paris to find themselves, but finding their friendship might be the best thing that's ever happened to them…


SARAH MORGAN lives near London with her husband and two sons. An international bestseller, her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and she has sold over sixteen million copies. For more about Sarah visit her website www.sarahmorgan.com (http://www.sarahmorgan.com), and sign up to her newsletter. She loves to connect with readers on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AuthorSarahMorgan (http://www.facebook.com/AuthorSarahMorgan)), Twitter (@SarahMorgan_ (http://twitter.com/@SarahMorgan_)) and Instagram (sarahmorganwrites (http://www.instagram.com/sarahmorganwrites)).
Also by Sarah Morgan (#ulink_eada3900-367b-5cbb-8416-86898f5a3ae8)
How to Keep a Secret
The Christmas Sisters
From Manhattan with Love
Moonlight Over Manhattan
Holiday in the Hamptons
New York, Actually
Miracle on 5th Avenue
Sunset in Central Park
Sleepless in Manhattan
Puffin Island
One Enchanted Moment
Some Kind of Wonderful
First Time in Forever
The O’Neil Brothers
Maybe This Christmas
Suddenly Last Summer
Sleigh Bells in the Snow


Copyright (#ulink_e35495cc-40a0-567c-b5ea-0f4336829c50)


An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Sarah Morgan 2019
Sarah Morgan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9781474070713
Dear Reader, (#ulink_b33e92ba-827f-5c1e-8966-7c53b334284e)
If you’ve read my books before (thank you! And if you haven’t, welcome) then you’ll know I often explore themes of friendship in my stories. If we’re lucky we continue to make friends throughout the course of our lives, finding like-minded people in many different places. Our friendship circle more often than not includes people of our own generation, but sometimes we find ourselves with older and younger friends.
For years I enjoyed a friendship with my elderly neighbour, who often shared stories of her life during the war. (When a bomb dropped on the railway line, she jumped off the train and walked the rest of the way into London, refusing to alter her plans. Obviously, I was never able to complain about train delays again.) Our age difference, close to six decades, was never a barrier to conversation. If anything, it made the friendship richer and deeper. Intergenerational friendships bring with them a broader perspective and that was something I was keen to explore in this story.
Grace is in her forties and Audrey is a teenager. They meet by accident at a point in their lives when each of them is struggling and they form a friendship that is both unexpected and life-changing. I loved writing about these characters and discovering what each could offer the other.
If you’re a member of a book group, or talk about your reading with friends - and if you don’t, but you’d like to, you’re always welcome on my Facebook page where we all frequently chat about which books we’re reading and loving - you’ll find plenty of other interesting themes to discuss in this book.
If what you really want is to escape for a few hours into a story that makes you laugh and cry (but in a good way, I promise!), while making you feel as if you’ve had a summer break in Paris, then I hope you’ll find that too.
Happy Reading
Sarah
xxx
For Susan Swinwood,with love and thanks.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
MARCEL PROUST
Contents
Cover (#ua3d5c8a9-ccf4-58fe-b6db-9f1e3461803d)
About the Author (#u3c744b55-6f97-53d0-9da6-369ebf66d82e)
Booklist (#ulink_f0a37055-809c-5678-8451-0785cc2e0bc9)
Title Page (#u218e15fe-a5de-51ad-a7ac-da83b5e011e1)
Copyright (#ulink_10142129-a20f-56af-90ce-7cb1884a666a)
Dear Reader (#ulink_fc8269d3-9217-5e85-8006-25732d18e8a3)
Dedication (#ucc1f86e9-700d-50ee-b818-42c20cb019a0)
Epigraph (#u32dd3188-02b8-5777-8738-063c12ca764d)
Grace (#ulink_4ace0b14-4032-5ca6-87a4-2ddc1fc514fb)
Audrey (#ulink_c6e75cc7-c8a3-515c-8803-30bcc6f92fd4)
Grace (#ulink_f58972f9-ff02-52fa-974d-ce1fe063ccbb)
Audrey (#ulink_015df243-5cf8-56b2-80cd-89039243daa9)
Grace (#ulink_2e3a18a4-46f5-5601-84b4-4484421a3640)
Mimi (#ulink_abaa3032-6f70-535c-96ad-f45d8ab1237c)
Paris (#litres_trial_promo)
Audrey (#litres_trial_promo)
Grace (#litres_trial_promo)
Audrey (#litres_trial_promo)
Grace (#litres_trial_promo)
Audrey (#litres_trial_promo)
Grace (#litres_trial_promo)
Mimi (#litres_trial_promo)
Audrey (#litres_trial_promo)
Grace (#litres_trial_promo)
Audrey (#litres_trial_promo)
Grace (#litres_trial_promo)
Audrey (#litres_trial_promo)
Grace (#litres_trial_promo)
Mimi (#litres_trial_promo)
Grace (#litres_trial_promo)
Audrey (#litres_trial_promo)
Grace (#litres_trial_promo)
Audrey (#litres_trial_promo)
Grace (#litres_trial_promo)
Mimi (#litres_trial_promo)
Grace (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Grace (#ulink_f3060a24-da55-5833-a758-3d3562a39ca0)
Grace Porter woke on Valentine’s Day, happily married and blissfully unaware that was about to change.
Downstairs in the kitchen she added slices of cheese to the bread she’d baked fresh the day before, put fruit and raw vegetables into lunch boxes and then checked her list.
Number four on today’s list: remind Sophie about dinner.
She glanced up. “Don’t forget Dad and I are out tonight. Your dinner is in the fridge.”
Her daughter, Sophie, was messaging a friend. “Mmm…”
“Sophie!”
“I know! No phones at the table—but this is urgent. Amy and I are writing a letter to the paper about that development they’re going to build on the edge of town. Dad promised he’d publish it. Can you believe they want to close the dog shelter? Those dogs are going to die if someone doesn’t do something, and that someone is me. There. Done.” Sophie finally looked up. “Mom, I can make my own lunch.”
“Would you include fresh fruit and veg?”
“No. Which is why I’d rather make my own.” Sophie gave a smile that didn’t just light her up, it lit Grace up, too. “And you’re starting to sound like Monica, which is a little scary.”
Her daughter was like sunshine. She made the world a brighter place. For years Grace had been braced for her to rebel, take drugs, or roll in drunk after an illicit party with friends, but it hadn’t happened. It seemed that Sophie’s genetic makeup favored David’s side of the family, which was a relief. If Sophie had an addiction it was causes. She hated injustice, inequality and anything she deemed unfair—particularly when it related to animals. She was the champion of all dogs, especially the underdog.
Grace was quick to defend her friend. “Monica is a wonderful mother.”
“Maybe, but I can tell you that the first thing Chrissie is going to do when we get to Europe this summer is feast on a ton of fries to make up for all the years her mom wouldn’t let her touch them.” Sophie finished her oatmeal. “Did you say something about dinner?”
“Have you forgotten what day it is?” Grace closed the lunch boxes and put one next to Sophie. The other she slid into her own bag.
“Valentine’s Day.” Sophie slid off her chair and picked up her empty bowl. “The day it becomes public knowledge that nobody loves me.”
“Dad and I love you.”
“No offense, but you’re not young, cool and athletic.”
Grace took a mouthful of coffee. How much should she say? “It’s still Sam?”
Sophie’s smile faded as if someone had hit the dimmer switch. “He’s seeing Callie. They walk around together holding hands. She keeps giving me these smug smiles. I’ve known Callie since I was three, so I don’t understand why she’s doing this. I mean, date him, sure. That sucks, but it’s life. But it’s like she’s trying to hurt me.”
Grace felt a burning in her chest. Not heartburn, but parenthood. As a mother, her role was to support from the sidelines. It was like being forced to watch a really bad play without the consolation of knowing you could leave in the interval.
“I’m sorry, honey.”
“Don’t be.” Sophie put her bowl in the dishwasher and then added the one her father had left on the side. “It would never have worked out. Sophie and Sam sounds pretty lame, don’t you think?”
Her hurt slid into Grace and settled deep in her gut.
“You’re going to college soon. After a month in California you won’t even remember Sam exists. You have your whole life ahead of you, and all the time in the world to meet someone special.”
“I’m going to study, graduate top of my class and go to law school where I can learn how to sue people who are assho—”
“Sophie!”
“Er…not very nice people.” Sophie grinned, slung her backpack over one shoulder and stroked her long ponytail over the other. “Don’t worry, Mom. Boys drive me insane. I don’t want a relationship.”
That will change, Grace thought.
“Have a great day, Mom, and happy anniversary. Twenty-five years of not yelling at Dad when he leaves his socks on the floor and his dirty plate on top of the dishwasher. Major achievement. Are you seeing Mimi today?”
“This afternoon.” Grace slid her laptop into her bag. “I made macarons, like the ones she used to buy in Paris. You know what a sweet tooth your great-grandmother has.”
“Because she lived in Paris during the war and she had no food. Sometimes she was too weak to dance. Can you even imagine that?”
“That’s probably why she talks to you about it. She doesn’t want you to take things for granted.” She opened the box she’d carefully packed that morning, revealing pastel macarons lined up in neat rows of rainbow perfection.
Sophie made a sound that was almost a purr. “Wow. I don’t suppose I could…?”
“No.” Grace closed the box. “But I might have packed a couple for your lunch.” She tried not to think about the sugar, or how Monica would react to the inclusion of empty calories in a lunch box.
“You’re the best, Mom.” Sophie kissed her cheek and Grace felt warmth flood through her.
“Do you need a favor or something?”
“Don’t be cynical.” Sophie grabbed her coat. “Not many people would teach French at an assisted-living center, that’s all. I think you’re amazing.”
Grace felt like a fraud. She didn’t do it out of any sense of charity, but because she liked the people. They were always so pleased to see her. They made her feel valued.
It was embarrassing to think she could still be needy at her age.
“Their French Club is the best part of my week. Today being Valentine’s Day, I’ve allowed myself to be creative.” She picked up the stack of menus she’d designed. “The staff are laying the tables in the restaurant with red-and-white tablecloths. We’re eating French food, I’m playing music… Knowing your great-grandmother, there will be dancing. What do you think?”
“Ooh là là, I think it sounds great.” Sophie grinned. “Just remember that the average age of Mimi’s friends is ninety. Don’t give them all heart attacks.”
“I’m pretty sure Robert has his eye on Mimi.”
“Mimi is a minx. I hope I’m like her when I’m ninety. She has this wicked twinkle in her eye… It must have been fun having her living with you when you were growing up.”
It had been lifesaving. And that, of course, was why Mimi had moved in.
It was a time she’d never discussed with her daughter. “She’s one in a million. You’ll be okay tonight?” She checked the kitchen was tidy. “There’s casserole in the fridge. All you need to do is heat it up.”
“I’m eighteen, Mom. You don’t have to worry about me.” Sophie glanced out the window as a car pulled up outside. “Karen is here. I need to run. Bye.”
Telling Grace not to worry was like asking a fish not to swim.
Two minutes after Sophie had left, she slid on her coat, picked up her keys and walked to the car.
Turning the heat up, she focused on the drive.
Four mornings a week, Grace taught French and Spanish at the local middle school. She also tutored children who were struggling and occasionally gave lessons to adults keen to improve their language skills.
She took the same route she always took, seeing the same houses, the same trees, the same stores. Her view only changed when the seasons changed. Grace didn’t mind. She savored routine and predictability. She found comfort and security in knowing what was going to happen next.
Today the snow lay deep on the ground, coating roofs and gardens in thick slabs of white. In this little corner of Connecticut the snow was likely to linger for many weeks. Some people embraced it. Grace wasn’t one of them. By March, winter felt like a guest who had outstayed her welcome. She longed for sunshine and summer dresses, bare legs and iced drinks.
She was still dreaming of summer when the phone rang.
It was David.
“Hi, Gracie.” That voice of his still made her insides melt. Deep and gravelly, but smooth enough to soothe life’s hurts.
“Hi, handsome. You had an early start today.” And you left your breakfast plate on top of the dishwasher.
“Things are busy at work.”
David was editor of the local newspaper, the Woodbrook Post, and had been kept busy lately thanks to the astonishing success of the girls’ tennis team, the formation of a county children’s choir and a robbery at the local gas station during which the only things stolen were a box of doughnuts and a bottle of rum. By the time the local police had located the man responsible, the evidence had been consumed.
Whenever Grace read the paper it reminded her of all the reasons she lived in this quaint town with a population of only 2,498.
Unlike other journalists, whose sights might have been set on bigger targets, David had never shown a desire to work anywhere but this small town they’d both fallen in love with.
The way he saw it, he was the voice of the community. He was obsessed with the news, but he also believed that it was what happened right here in their hometown that mattered to people. He often joked that all he needed to fill the entire newspaper was to spend an afternoon at a backyard barbecue listening to the gossip. He was friends with the police chief and the fire chief, which ensured that he was given all the major scoops.
Of course in Woodbrook, a place most people had never heard of, there were more scoops in the ice cream parlor than there were in the local community, and that suited Grace.
“Happy Valentine’s and happy anniversary.” She slowed as she approached an intersection. “I’m already looking forward to dinner tonight.”
“Shall I book somewhere?”
Only a man would think it possible to get a table on Valentine’s Day without forward planning. “Already done, honey.”
“Right. I should be home early. I’ll fix something for Sophie to eat so you don’t have to bother.”
“I’ve handled that. The fridge is full of food. You can relax.”
There was a pause. “You’re superwoman, Grace.”
She glowed. “I love you.”
Her family was the most important thing in the world to her.
“I’ll drop by the store and pick out something for Stephen’s birthday on my way home. He says he doesn’t want a fuss, but I feel we should buy him something, don’t you?”
“I do—which is why I bought him a gift when I was shopping last week.” Grace waited for a gap in the traffic and turned into the school. “You’ll find it under the bed in the spare room.”
“You’ve already bought something?”
“I didn’t want you having to think about it. Remember that great photo of Stephen with Beth and the kids?”
“The one I took at the Summer Fair?”
She pulled into a space and undid her seat belt. “I had a print made and bought a frame. It looks great.”
“That’s…thoughtful…”
“I’ve wrapped it. All you have to do is sign your name.” She reached across and gathered her coat and bag. “I’m at school, so I’ll call you later. You sound tired. Are you tired?”
“A little.”
She paused with one leg out of the car. “You’ve been working long hours lately. You need to slow down. There’s nothing for you to do at home, so maybe you should lie down and rest before we go out.”
“I’m not geriatric, Grace.”
There was a sharpness to his tone that was unusual.
“I was trying to spoil you, that’s all.”
“Sorry.” The sharpness vanished. “Didn’t mean to snap. There’s been a lot going on lately. I’ll call a cab for tonight, so we can have a drink without worrying about driving.”
“Cab is already booked for seven.”
“Do you ever forget anything?”
“It’s all down to lists—you know that. If I lose my lists, my life is over.”
It occurred to her that if she died someone would be able to pick up her “To Do” lists and carry on with her life as if she’d never inhabited it.
What did that say about her? A life should be individual, surely? Would someone looking at the lists be able to learn anything about her? Would they know that she loved the smell of roses and indulged her love of French movies when no one was home? Would they know she listened to Mozart piano concertos while she cooked?
“Is there anything you need me for?”
Grace gave a smile that her daughter would have said was very like Mimi’s minxy look. “I can think of a few things… I plan on showing you later.”
David ended the call and she walked into school, waving at a couple of parents who were delivering their precious cargo.
Twenty-five years. She’d been married for twenty-five years.
She felt a glow of pride.
Take that, universe.
She and David were a perfect team. They’d had their ups and downs like any couple, but they’d handled everything together. Grace had become the person she wanted to be, and if a tiny voice occasionally reminded her that underneath she was someone quite different, she ignored it. She had the marriage she wanted. The life she wanted.
The day deserved a special celebration, and she’d made a reservation for dinner at Bistro Claude, the upmarket French restaurant in the next town. Claude himself was from Texas, but he’d seen a gap in the market, cultivated an accent and modeled his restaurant on something he’d once seen in a French movie.
Even Grace, a purist and Francophile, had to admit the place was charming. She would have loved to take Mimi there, but her grandmother no longer enjoyed eating out.
Bistro Claude was the perfect setting for tonight, because Grace had planned a big surprise. Organizing it had been a major undertaking, but she’d been careful to leave no clues or hints.
Fortunately David had worked long hours over the past couple of months, or it would have been impossible to keep her research a secret.
She pushed open the doors and headed into school.
The children in her class were at that age where anything to do with sex or romance was treated as either hilarious or awkward, so she was fairly sure Valentine’s Day would evoke plenty of giggles.
She wasn’t wrong.
“We’ve written you a poem, miss, to celebrate your anniversary.”
“A poem? Lucky me.” Grace hoped they’d give her the PG version. “Who’s going to read it?”
Darren clambered onto his chair and cleared his throat. “Twenty-five years, that’s a very long time. More than you get for a life of crime.”
Grace wasn’t sure whether to laugh or put her head in her hands.
By the time she headed back to the parking lot at lunchtime she felt exhausted, and relieved she only worked mornings. Fortunately the drive to the assisted-living center where her grandmother lived would give her time to decompress.
It was a scenic route that wound through woodland and sleepy villages. In the fall the road was clogged with tourists admiring the sunset colors of the foliage, but now the trees and the rolling hills were coated in snow. The road followed the curve of the river, which had a tendency to flood as the snow melted.
Grace drove past the wildlife sanctuary, turned right into the road that led to Rushing River Senior Living and parked the car.
When Mimi had first announced her decision to move here Grace had been horrified.
As well as having a love of dance and all things hedonistic, her grandmother was a celebrated photographer. She’d traveled the world with her camera at a time when it had been rare for a single woman to do such a thing. She was famous for her photographs of postwar Paris, and Grace had always marveled at how her grandmother could capture people’s personal struggles in a single frame. Mimi’s vivid, exuberant personality was at odds with her dark, atmospheric photos of streets drenched by rain, or couples clinging together in a desperate embrace. The photographs told a story that her grandmother rarely shared in words. Of hunger and deprivation. Of fear and loss.
The last thing Grace had anticipated was that her well-traveled, worldly grandmother would choose to move somewhere like Rushing River. She’d tried to persuade her otherwise. If Mimi had reached the age when she could no longer manage alone, then she should live with Grace and David.
Mimi had insisted that she enjoyed her independence far too much to live with other people—even her beloved granddaughter. She’d gone ahead and paid the money without giving Grace any say in it.
That had been five years ago, but it had taken only a couple of visits for Grace to understand why her grandmother had chosen the place.
It was a haven. On busy days, Grace fantasized about living there, too. There was a fitness center, including a pool, a spa and salon facilities, which Mimi loved. But the best thing was the people. They were interesting, friendly and, thanks to excellent management, the place felt like a community.
Her grandmother lived in a two-bedroom garden cottage, with views across the lawns down to the river. In the summer, with the doors and windows open, you could hear the sound of the water. Mimi had turned one of the bedrooms into a darkroom, where she still developed her own photographs. The other room, her bedroom, looked like a dancer’s dressing room, complete with a mirrored wall and a barre that her grandmother used for stretches.
The front door opened before Grace had lifted her hand to the buzzer.
“What do you think? Je suis magnifique, non?” Her grandmother did a twirl and then immediately reached out to steady herself. “Oops!”
“Careful!” Grace grabbed her hand. “Maybe it’s time to stop dancing. You might lose your balance.”
“If I’m going to fall, I’d rather do it while I’m dancing. Unless I fall out of bed having sex. That would also be acceptable—although unlikely, unless the men around here get their act together.”
Grace laughed and put her bags down. She loved the mischievous look in her grandmother’s eyes. “Don’t ever change.”
“I’m too old to change—and why would I want to? Being yourself is the one thing every person should excel at.” Mimi smoothed her dress. “So, what do you think?”
“Is that the dress you wore when you were in the ballet in Paris?”
She’d seen photos of that time. Her grandmother, impossibly delicate, standing en pointe with her hair swept up. According to Mimi half of Paris had been in love with her, and Grace had no trouble believing it.
“I didn’t know you still had it.”
“I don’t. This is a copy. Mirabelle made it for me. She has such a talent. Of course I was younger then and my legs weren’t as scrawny as they are now, so she made it longer.”
“I think you look incredible.” Grace leaned down and kissed her grandmother’s cheek. “I have everything ready for French Club. I need to go and help the staff set up, but I wanted to give you this first.” She handed over the macaron box, which she’d tied with a beautiful bow. “I made them.”
“A gift you make yourself is the best gift of all.” Mimi slid her fingers over the silk ribbon. “I had a pair of ballet shoes with ribbon exactly this color.” She opened the box with an enthusiasm that ninety years on the planet hadn’t dimmed. “They look exactly like the ones I used to buy in Paris. They were there in the shop window like jewels. I remember a man once sneaking out of my apartment early in the morning to buy me a box for breakfast—we ate them in bed.”
Grace loved hearing about her grandmother’s colorful past. “What was his name?”
Could Mimi be talking about the man who had made her pregnant?
Grace had tried on numerous occasions to persuade her grandmother to talk about the mysterious man who was her grandfather, but she never would. It was a fling, was all she would say.
As usual, her grandmother was vague. “I don’t remember his name. I only remember the macarons.”
“You’re a wicked woman, Mimi.” Grace took the box from her and closed it. It felt odd to not know anything about her grandfather. Was he even still alive?
“Since when has it been wicked to enjoy oneself? And why are you closing the box? I was about to eat one.”
“You’ll have plenty to eat in French Club. There are more where these came from.”
“I like to enjoy the moment.” Mimi opened the box again and helped herself. She took a delicate bite and closed her eyes. “If you focus on living well in the moment, you will never have regrets about yesterday.”
Grace wondered if she was thinking of Paris, or of the man who had brought her macarons in bed. She knew her grandmother had stories she hadn’t shared, and that there were times she didn’t like to think about. Grace understood that. There were times she didn’t like to think about, either.
“Good?”
“Excellent.” Mimi opened her eyes and reached for her coat and a silk scarf. Today’s choice was peacock blue. “How is Sophie?”
“Enraged about the plans to close the animal shelter. She’s writing letters and calling anyone who will pick up the phone.”
“I admire a person who is prepared to stand up and fight for a cause they believe in. Even more so when that person is my great-granddaughter. You should be proud, Grace.”
“I am proud—although I’m not sure the way she is has much to do with me. She has David’s genes.”
Mimi read her mind. “Relax. She has nothing of your mother in her.” She tucked her arm into Grace’s as they stepped out of the apartment onto the covered walkway that led to the main house. “When is Sophie coming to see me?”
“On the weekend.”
“And David?” Mimi’s expression softened. “He popped in yesterday and fixed the broken handle on my door. That man is perfect. He has time for everyone. And did I mention that he gets more handsome by the day? That smile.”
“I know.” She’d fallen in love with David’s smile. “I’m lucky.”
Mimi stopped walking. “No, honey. He’s the one who is lucky. You went through so much and yet you have a family like this—well, I’m proud of you. You’re the glue, Grace. And you’re an excellent mother.”
Her grandmother was her biggest supporter. Grace hugged her in full view of anyone who happened to be watching. It was only when she held her grandmother that she was aware of her frailty. It scared her. She couldn’t imagine a life without Mimi.
“I love you.”
“Of course you do. I’m the buttercream frosting on the stale cake that is life.”
Grace let her go. “Twenty-five years today. Had you forgotten?”
“I have creaking bones and varicose veins, but my memory is fine. I know what day it is. Your anniversary! I am happy for you. Every woman should love deeply at least once in her lifetime.”
“You didn’t. Were you never tempted to get married? Not even when you discovered you were pregnant?”
Mimi flipped the scarf around her neck and slid her arm through Grace’s. “I wasn’t the marrying kind. You, however, always were. I hope you’re wearing your sexiest underwear to celebrate.”
“I refuse to discuss my underwear with you, but I can tell you that I’ve booked dinner. And that’s when I’m giving him his gift.”
“I’m envious. A whole month in Paris. Sunlight on cobbled streets, and the gardens… Paris has a special atmosphere—do you remember that? It slides under your skin and permeates the air you breathe…”
Mimi seemed to be talking to herself and Grace smiled.
“I remember—but I have only been once, and just for a short visit. You were born there. You lived there.”
“I did. And I really did live.” Mimi was never so animated as when she talked about Paris. “I remember one night we stripped off our clothes and—”
“Mimi!” Grace paused at the door to the dining room. “You’re about to appear in public. Don’t scandalize everyone. We don’t want to shock them with your sinful stories.”
“Boredom is a sin. You’re never too old for a little excitement. I’m doing them a favor.” Mimi snapped her fingers in the air. “Pierre! That’s it.” She looked at Grace, triumphant.
“Pierre?”
“The man who bought me the macarons. We’d made love all night.”
Grace was intrigued. “Where did you meet him? What did he do for a living?”
“I met him when he came to watch me dance. I have no idea what he did for a living. We didn’t talk. I wasn’t interested in his prospects—just his stamina.”
Grace shook her head and adjusted her grandmother’s scarf. “You should go back.”
“To Paris? I’m too old. Everything would be different. The people I loved—gone.”
Her grandmother stared into the distance and then gave a shake of her head.
“Time to dance.” She opened the door and sailed into the room like a prima ballerina making her entrance onstage.
They were greeted by a chorus of cheery voices, and Grace unloaded her bag onto the table. She’d stopped to pick up baguettes from the bakery on Main Street. They weren’t as crisp and perfect as the ones she’d eaten in France, but they were the closest thing she could find in rural Connecticut.
While the staff helped prepare the tables Grace selected the music.
“Edith Piaf!” Mimi glided gracefully to the center of the room and beckoned to Albert.
Several other people joined them and soon the room was filled with people swaying.
When they sat down to eat, they bombarded Grace with questions.
Did she have everything in place for David’s surprise? How exactly was she going to tell him about the trip she had planned?
She’d shared her plans with them, knowing how much they enjoyed being part of a conspiracy.
It had been David’s idea not to buy each other gifts for their anniversaries, but instead to treat themselves to experiences. He’d called it their “Happy Memory Project.” He’d wanted to fill her memory bank with nice things to cancel out all the bad experiences of her childhood.
It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her.
The previous year she’d booked a weekend at Niagara Falls. They’d had a good time, but Grace had been determined to go bigger and better this year.
The afternoon passed quickly, and she was clearing up when her friend Monica arrived to teach a yoga class.
Grace and Monica had met when pregnant. No one understood the anxieties of parenting like another mother, and it was good to talk to Monica, even though her friend often made her feel inferior.
Monica was obsessed with living a healthy lifestyle. She blamed red meat for at least half the wrongs in the world. She juiced, grew her own vegetables and taught yoga. She insisted the whole family were vegetarian, although David swore he’d once seen Monica’s husband devouring a sixteen-ounce bone-in rib eye at a steak house in the neighboring town. They’d only socialized once as a couple—a dinner consisting almost entirely of lentils, after which David hadn’t been able to leave the bathroom for twenty-four hours.
Never again, he’d yelled through the bathroom door. She’s your friend.
Grace, whose own stomach was listing like the deck of a ship in a storm, had agreed.
From that point onward the friendship had been confined to the two women.
They met for coffee, or lunch, or the occasional spa day.
Despite David’s reservations, Grace loved Monica. She had a good heart and teaching yoga here at Rushing River was an example of that.
Grace helped Monica set out her equipment in the exercise studio. “How is Chrissie?”
“Anxious. Not sure what she’ll do if she doesn’t get her first choice of college. The waiting is driving us insane. I’ve been practicing meditation techniques, but they don’t seem to be working.”
“Sophie is stressed, too. They’re not going to hear until next month.”
Both girls were hoping for places at Ivy League colleges, and Grace and Monica knew there would be major disappointment if they didn’t get in.
“Chrissie wants Brown because she loves their program, but I want it because it’s close.” Monica removed her sweatshirt, revealing perfectly toned arms. “I want to be able to visit sometimes.” She sent Grace a guilty glance. “Sorry. That was tactless.”
Grace would have loved her daughter to go to college on the east coast, too, but Sophie was desperate for Stanford and excited about going to California. Grace wouldn’t have wanted to stop her, or try to persuade her to pick a college closer to home. She was pleased that Sophie had the confidence to fly far from the nest.
“Do you think about it a lot? What life will be like when she leaves?” Monica dug out the microphone she used to teach her class. “Chrissie seems so young still. Todd is dreading her leaving, although at least we don’t have to worry about her suddenly going off the rails. She’s such a steady, sensible girl. How’s David taking it?”
“He seems relaxed. We don’t really talk about it.” Grace didn’t want to spoil the last few months of having Sophie at home by constantly focusing on her departure. She’d hidden her feelings of anxiety in case she somehow transmitted them to her daughter. She and David were not Sophie’s responsibility.
She’d stuck to that resolution—even with friends. “It will be a change, of course, but we’re both looking forward to having some time together.”
Long summer days stretched ahead, just her and David… No Sophie bouncing into the kitchen and raiding the fridge. No clothes strewn around the house and open books on the furniture. No letters of outrage spread across the kitchen counter ready to be mailed.
When Sophie left there would be a big gaping hole in her life. There were moments when it scared her to think about it, but she knew it was up to her and David to fill it.
“You’re both so well-adjusted.” Monica clipped the microphone to her top. “When Chrissie first raised the possibility of going to Europe with Sophie this summer I thought Todd was going to explode. I keep telling him she’s not a child anymore and that she wants to be with her friends. But I’m worrying a little, too. Do you think we should have encouraged them to do something less adventurous?”
“I was the same age when I first went to Paris. It was an unforgettable experience.”
Memories flashed through her head. Rain-soaked Paris streets, sunshine filtering through the trees in the Jardin des Tuileries, her first proper kiss in the moonlight with the river Seine sparkling behind her. The glimpse of a life so far removed from hers, it made her dizzy. The excitement of knowing there was a whole world out there waiting for her.
Philippe.
First love.
And then the phone call that had changed everything.
It all seemed so long ago.
“But they’re doing Rome and Florence, too.” Monica wasn’t reassured. “I’ve heard bad things about Florence. Donna’s daughter had her purse stolen, and she said they didn’t dare go out unless there were two of them—even in the day. They were groped all the time. And what if someone spikes their drinks? I don’t want Chrissie introducing poisons to her system. She’s never even had antibiotics.”
Grace dragged herself out of the past. She was pretty sure that Chrissie would be poisoning her system plenty when she got to college. “They’re sensible. If they do get into trouble—which they won’t—they can call us. David and I will be in Paris for a month.”
It sounded exotic, and suddenly it felt as if a door had opened just a crack. Part of her would always ache for those days when her daughter had been safely nestled in the protective cocoon of the family, but there were plenty of things to be excited about in the future.
Possibilities stretched before her.
David’s parents had passed away early in their marriage and he had no other family. He’d often said that Grace and Sophie were his whole world, and Grace was happy with that because she felt the same way. And she had Mimi, too. She smiled. Her buttercream frosting.
The idea of a month in Europe, when every day would be completely their own, left her feeling almost light-headed. They’d lounge in bed, enjoy long breakfasts on the balcony of the hotel, do some sightseeing. They’d have the time and energy for sex, and wouldn’t have to worry that Sophie might disturb them.
She’d miss Sophie, but the more she thought about it the more excited she was about spending more time with David.
She raised the subject later, when she and David were at dinner.
“I’ve been thinking of all the things we can do when Sophie has left for college.”
The restaurant was full. They were surrounded by the low hum of conversation, the clink of glasses, the occasional sound of laughter. Candles flickered on tables and silverware gleamed.
“We don’t know where she’s going yet.” He tucked into his boeuf bourguignon. The scent of herbs and red wine drifted across the table. “She might not get in.”
“She will. She’s smart. And she works hard. Our baby is grown-up.”
From behind them there was a burst of applause. Grace turned her head. A man was on one knee behind them, holding out a ring to a weeping woman. Grace clapped, too, and then glanced back at David. She’d expected him to wink at her, or maybe roll his eyes at the clichéd public display, but David wasn’t smiling. He was staring at the couple with an expression Grace couldn’t quite interpret.
“It’s going to be just the two of us,” he said. He watched as the man slid a ring onto the woman’s finger. “Do you ever think about that?”
Grace shifted in her seat so that her back was to the couple. She’d ordered the duck confit, and it was delicious. “Of course. I’ve also been thinking of all the things we can do. I’m looking forward to it, aren’t you?”
She was so caught up in her own burst of positivity that it took a moment for her to realize he hadn’t answered her. He was still staring past her to the couple.
“David?”
He put his fork down. “I feel old, Grace. As if the best days of my life are behind me.”
“What? David, that’s insane. You’re in your prime! If it helps, Mimi thinks you’re sexier than you’ve ever been.”
She thought so, too. When you grew up alongside someone you didn’t always see them the way a stranger did, but lately she’d found herself looking at the width of David’s shoulders or the shadow on his jaw and thinking nice. Age had given him a gravitas that she found irresistible.
At the mention of Mimi, the tension left his features. His eyes crinkled at the corners—a precursor of the smile she loved so much. “You’ve been discussing my sex appeal with your grandmother?”
“You know what she’s like. I swear if I weren’t already married to you, she’d marry you. No, actually…” She frowned. “Marriage is too establishment for Mimi. She wouldn’t want to be tied down. She’d sleep with you, and then discard you and not even remember your name. Paris is paved with the fragments of all the hearts Mimi broke there.”
And soon they’d be going there. Maybe this was a good time to tell him.
He fiddled with his knife. “I still remember the day Sophie was born. I can’t believe she’s leaving home.”
“It’s natural to feel that way, but we should be proud. We’ve raised a smart, kind, independent adult. That was our job as parents. She thinks for herself, and now she’s going to live by herself. It’s the way things are supposed to be.”
The fact that it hadn’t been that way for her had made her all the more determined to make it happen for her daughter.
David put his knife down. “A milestone like this really makes you take a good look at your life. I’ve been thinking about us, Grace.”
She nodded, pleased. “I’ve been thinking about us, too. We should celebrate our fresh start. And our summer won’t be empty, because I have the perfect way to fill it. Happy anniversary, David.”
She handed over the parcel she’d kept hidden under her chair. The paper was covered in tiny pictures of Paris landmarks. The Eiffel Tower. The Arc de Triomphe. The Louvre. It had taken two hours of searching to find it on the internet.
“What’s this?”
“It’s my anniversary surprise. We always take a trip and make a new memory. This is a special one. And maybe you’ll feel inspired to work on your novel.” He’d been working on a book for as long as she’d known him, but had never finished it.
“A trip?” He removed the paper slowly, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was underneath.
The couple at the next table glanced at them, intrigued. She knew them vaguely—in the way everyone knew everyone in a small town like this one. Faces were always familiar. Someone’s cousin. Someone’s aunt. Someone’s husband.
David pulled out the street map of Paris she’d also ordered on the internet. “We’re going to Paris?”
“Yes!” She was ridiculously pleased with herself. “It’s all booked. We’re going for a month, right through July. You’re going to love it, David.”
“A month?”
“If you’re worried about taking the time off work, don’t be. I already spoke to Stephen, and he thinks it’s a great idea. You’ve been working hard, and July is a quiet month, and—”
“Wait. You spoke to my boss?” He rubbed his jaw, as if he’d suffered a physical blow. Streaks of color appeared on his cheekbones, and she couldn’t work out if it was anger or embarrassment.
“I needed to know you could take the time off.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have done that—although Stephen had been charming about it.
“Grace, you don’t have to handle every detail of my life.”
“I thought you’d be thrilled.” Wasn’t he going to look at the other items in the box? There was a ticket for the Métro, the Paris subway, a postcard of the Eiffel Tower and a glossy brochure for the hotel she’d booked. “This trip is for us. We’ll have a month together in the summer, exploring the city. We can eat dinner outside in pavement cafés, watch the world go by and decide what we want our future to look like. Just the two of us.”
She was determined to view this new phase of life as an adventure and a celebration, not as a time for regrets and nostalgia.
Would it feel weird being in Paris with David? No, of course it wouldn’t. Her last visit had been decades ago. It was part of a past she didn’t let herself think about.
“You should have talked to me about this, Grace.”
“I wanted it to be a surprise.”
He looked sick. She started to feel sick, too. The evening wasn’t going the way she’d imagined it.
He closed the box. “You’ve booked everything already? Yes, of course you have. You’re you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Was she supposed to apologize for something that was one of her best qualities? Being organized was a good thing. She’d grown up with the opposite and she knew how bad that was.
“You do everything—even though I’m capable of doing things for myself. You don’t have to buy my boss’s gift, Grace. I can handle it.”
“I know you can handle it, but I’m happy to do it so that you don’t have to.”
“You organize every single small detail of our lives.”
“So nothing gets forgotten.”
“I understand why that is important to you. Really, I do.”
There was gentleness in his tone and the sympathy in his eyes made her squirm a little. It was like walking into a crowded room and discovering you’d forgotten to button your shirt.
“We don’t need to talk about bad stuff on a night like tonight.”
“Maybe we do. Maybe we should have talked about it a lot more than we have.”
“It’s our anniversary. This is a celebration. You’re worried I’m doing too much? It’s fine, David. I like to do it. It’s not a problem.”
She reached across the table but he moved his hand away.
“It’s a problem for me, Grace.”
“Why? You’re busy, and I love spoiling you.”
“You make me feel…” He rubbed his jaw. “Incapable. Sometimes I wonder if you even need me.”
Her insides swooped. She felt as if she’d stepped off a cliff. “How can you say that? You know it’s not true.”
“Do I? You plan every detail of our lives. You are the most independent woman I know. What exactly do I contribute to this marriage?”
At any other time she would have said great sex, and they both would have collapsed with laughter, but tonight David wasn’t laughing, and she didn’t feel like laughing, either.
The people at the table closest to them were staring.
Grace didn’t care.
“You contribute plenty! David—”
“We have to talk, Grace.” He pushed his plate to one side, his meal only half-eaten. “I wasn’t going to say this tonight, but—”
“But what? What do you want to talk about?” Unease mushroomed inside her. He didn’t sound like himself. David was always sure, confident and dependable. She almost al ways knew what he was thinking. “Why do you keep rubbing your jaw?”
“Because it aches.”
“You should see the dentist. Maybe you have an abscess or something. I’ll make you an appointment in the morning—” She stopped in midsentence. “Or you can make it yourself if you prefer.”
“I want a divorce, Grace.”
There was a strange ringing in her ears. The background music and the clatter from the kitchen had distorted his words. He couldn’t possibly have just said what she’d thought he’d said.
“Excuse me?”
“A divorce.” He tugged at the collar of his shirt as if it was strangling him. “Saying those words makes me feel sick. I never wanted to hurt you, Gracie.”
She hadn’t misheard him.
“Is this because I bought Stephen a gift?”
“No.” He muttered something and tugged at his collar again. “I shouldn’t be doing this now. I didn’t plan to. I should have—”
“Is it because of Sophie leaving? I know it’s unsettling…”
Panic gripped her heart. Squeezed. Squeezed some more. Her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. She was going to pass out in her duck confit. She imagined the story appearing in the following day’s edition of the Woodbrook Post.
A local woman was asphyxiated when she fell face-first into her meal.
“It’s not because of Sophie. It’s us. Things haven’t been right for a while.”
There was something in David’s eyes she’d never seen before.
Pity. Yes, there was sadness, and also guilt, but it was the pity that tore her to shreds.
This was David. Her David—who had cried on their wedding day because he loved her so much, who had held her while their daughter fought her way into the world and been there for Grace through thick and thin. David, her best friend and the only person who truly knew her.
He would never want to see her hurt, let alone hurt her himself. Knowing that, she felt her panic turn to fear. He didn’t want to hurt her but he was doing it anyway—which meant this was serious. He’d decided he’d rather hurt her than stay with her.
“I don’t understand.” Surely if something hadn’t been right, she’d have known? She and David had been a team for as long as she could remember. Without him she would have fallen apart all those years ago. “What hasn’t been right, David?”
“Our lives have become… I don’t know. Boring.” His forehead glistened with sweat. “Predictable. I go to work in the same place, see the same people and I come home every day to—”
“To me.” It was all too easy to finish his sentence. “So what you’re really saying is that I’m predictable. I’m boring.” Her hands were shaking and she clasped them in her lap.
“It’s not you, Grace. It’s me.”
The fact that he was shouldering the blame didn’t help. “How can it be all you? I’m the one you’re married to and you’re unhappy—which means I’m doing something wrong.” And the problem was that she loved the fact that their life was predictable. “I grew up with unpredictability, David. Believe me, it’s overrated.”
“I know what you grew up with.”
Of course he did.
Was she boring? God, was it true?
It was true that she was a little obsessed about them being good parents to Sophie, but that was important to David, too.
He undid another button on his shirt and gestured to the waiter to bring more water. “Why is it so hot in here? I don’t feel too good… I can’t remember what I was saying…”
She didn’t feel too good, either. “You were telling me you want a divorce.”
She hadn’t believed that word would ever come up in a conversation between her and David, and she wished it hadn’t come up now, in a public place. At least two of the people in the bistro had children in her class—which was unfortunate, given the nature of this conversation.
Mommy says you’re getting divorced, Mrs. Porter, is that right?
“Grace—”
David took a sip of water, and she noticed there was a tremor in his hand. He was looking pale and ill.
She was pretty sure that if she looked in the mirror she’d think the same about herself.
What about Sophie? She’d be devastated. What if she was too upset to go away for the summer? It was terrible, awful timing.
Monica would probably blame red meat. Too much testosterone.
“We can talk to someone, if you think that would help. Whatever it is that needs working on, we’ll work on it.”
“Fixing our marriage isn’t something you can add to your ‘To Do’ list, Grace.”
She felt color flood into her cheeks, because mentally she’d been doing exactly that. “We’ve been married for twenty-five years. There is nothing—nothing—we can’t fix.”
“I’m having an affair.”
The words were like a solid punch to her gut.
“No!” Her voice cracked. And that was how she felt. Cracked. Broken. As if she were a piece of fine china he’d flung against the cabinet. “Tell me that isn’t true.”
She was going to be sick. Right here in a pretty little French bistro, in front of an audience of around fifty people, she was going to be sick.
She could imagine how the kids in her class would react to that.
Did you barf, miss?
Yes, Connor. I barfed, but it had nothing to do with the duck.
David looked worse than she felt. “I didn’t plan it, Grace.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
She had a thousand questions.
Who is this woman? Do I know her? How long has it been going on?
In the end she asked only one. “Do you love her?”
David rubbed his fingers over his forehead. “I—Yes. I think so, yes.”
She almost doubled over. Not just sex, then, but feelings. Strong feelings.
It was the ultimate betrayal.
She stood, although her legs didn’t seem to agree with the decision. They felt like water. But she didn’t want the local community to witness any more of this conversation—not for his sake but for hers and Sophie’s. How much had people heard already? Was she going to be stopped in the supermarket?
I hear David doesn’t love you? That must be tough.
“Let’s go.”
“Grace, wait!” David fumbled for some bills and dropped them on the table without counting them.
Grace was already halfway to the door, the box filled with her Paris plans tucked under her arm. She had no idea why it seemed so important to take it with her. Maybe she didn’t want to leave her dreams lying around. The happy summer she’d spent months planning wasn’t going to happen. Instead, they’d spend the time dividing up property and belongings and consulting lawyers.
The reality of it swamped her.
David was the love of her life. He was the solid foundation upon which she’d constructed her wonderfully safe, predictable world. Without him the whole thing would crumble.
She felt as if she was having an out-of-body experience. Her mind was elsewhere but her body was still here in this bistro, going through the motions. Smiling, leaving—thank you, yes, the meal was delicious—as if her life hadn’t just been torn apart.
David pressed his hand to his chest again and shook his head when the waiter offered him his coat. “Grace, I’m not feeling too good—”
Seriously?
“Oddly enough, I’m not feeling too good, either.”
Did he expect sympathy?
“I feel as if—I can’t—”
David staggered and then collapsed, sending a trolley and a coat stand flying. The weight of him hit the floor with a sickening thud.
Grace couldn’t move.
Was this what shock did to you? Did it freeze you into a useless object?
Silence had fallen across the restaurant. She was vaguely aware that a few diners were standing up, the better to see what was going on. Waiters had turned to look at her, panic and expectation in their eyes.
David was on the floor, sweat covering his brow and his eyes bulging.
He clawed at the collar of his shirt and pressed his hand to his chest.
His eyes met hers and she saw the terror there.
Help me…help me.
“Call the emergency services.” She was fascinated by how normal she sounded.
She was trained in first aid, but her body and mind were paralyzed by the knowledge that her husband of twenty-five years didn’t love her anymore.
He’d been unfaithful to her. He’d had sex with another woman. Probably multiple times. How long had it been going on? Where? In their bed or somewhere else?
David’s throat made a rattling sound and Grace examined her response with a mixture of awe and curiosity. Was she seriously considering not resuscitating him?
My name is Grace Porter and I murdered my husband.
No, not murder. Murder was premeditated. This was more…opportunistic.
If he died she wouldn’t even know who to call to break the news. She’d have to look around her at the funeral and try to identify the one woman who was crying as hard as she was.
Dimly registering the clattering and panic around her, Grace stared down at him for what felt like minutes but was in fact no more than a few seconds.
This was the man she loved. They’d had a child together. She’d assumed they’d grow old together.
If he was bored with his life, why hadn’t he said something?
The injustice of it almost strangled her sense of duty. He hadn’t even given her a chance to fix things. He’d made the decision for both of them. How could he do that?
As sirens sounded in the distance, David made a choking sound and then his eyes closed.
Grace woke from her inertia.
She couldn’t let another person die even though it felt as if that person had stabbed her through the heart.
She knelt down beside him, felt for a pulse, checked his breathing and then put her hands on his chest and started compressions.
One, two, three—Damn you, David…damn you, David…
She counted as she pumped and then pinched his nose and breathed air into his mouth, trying not to think about those lips kissing another woman.
The first thing she was going to do when she got back home was change the sheets.
The sound of sirens grew louder. She willed them to hurry. She didn’t want him to die. That would be the easy way out for him, and Grace didn’t want to give him the easy way out.
She wanted answers.
Audrey (#ulink_10845bcc-4356-551b-a209-923e351c5f42)
Thousands of miles away in London, Audrey was in the middle of studying for a chemistry exam when her bedroom door burst open.
“Which dress? Green or pink?” There was a note of wild panic in her mother’s voice. “The green shows more of my cleavage.”
Audrey didn’t turn her head from the screen. Why didn’t her mother ever knock? “I’m working.” And every word was a struggle. Whoever had put her brain together had done a crap job.
There were days when she totally hated her life and this was one of them.
“It’s Valentine’s Day. You should be out on a date. At your age I was already a party animal.”
Audrey knew just how much of a party animal her mother was. “My exams start in May.”
“You mean July.”
“I’m done by the middle of June.” Why did it bother her that her mother didn’t know that? She should be used to it by now. “These exams are a big deal.”
Audrey felt sick about them. She was terrible at exams. It didn’t help that the teachers kept saying that the results would affect their whole future. If that was really the case then her life was already over.
Everyone else in her class had parents nagging them.
Are you doing enough work?
Should you be going out on a school night?
No, you don’t need fizzy drinks and pizza.
Audrey longed for someone to show her that much care and attention. Any care and attention. She longed for her mother to stroke her hair, bring her a cup of tea and say a few encouraging words, but her mother did none of those things and she’d given up hoping for it.
She’d been six years old when she’d realized her mother was different from other mothers.
While her friends’ parents hovered outside the school gate, Audrey stood alone, waiting for a mother who frequently didn’t show up.
She hated being different, so she began making her own way home. The school had strict rules about only releasing a child into the care of a known adult, but Audrey found a way around that. If she smiled and waved a hand in the vague direction of a group of mothers, they’d assume hers was among them. She’d slip through the crowd and once she was out of sight she’d make her way home. It wasn’t far and she’d memorized the route. Turn at the red post box. Turn again at the big tree.
Day after day Audrey let herself into the empty house, unzipped her schoolbag and struggled with her homework. Every time she pulled her book out of her bag, she had a sick feeling in her stomach. Her handwriting looked as if a demented spider had hurled itself across the paper and she could never quite organize her thoughts in a way that made sense written down. Teachers despaired. She’d despaired. She tried hard, achieved nothing, stopped trying. What was the point?
When she’d tried telling her mother she found reading difficult, the suggestion had been that she watch TV instead.
Finally, after years of handing in messy work and missing deadlines, a teacher who was new to the school had insisted Audrey was tested.
Those tests showed her to be severely dyslexic. In a way the diagnosis was a relief. It meant she wasn’t stupid. On the other hand, she still felt stupid and now she also had a label.
They gave her extra time in exams, but everything was still a struggle. She needed help, but when her mother came home from work she usually fell asleep on the sofa.
For years Audrey had believed her mother was just more tired than other mothers. As she’d grown older and more observant she’d noticed that other people’s parents didn’t drink a bottle of wine or two every evening. Sometimes her mother was late arriving home, and then Audrey would know she’d started her drinking early. She had no idea how her mother managed to hold down her job as an office manager, but was thankful that she did.
Functional alcoholic. She’d done an internet search once and found the perfect description of her mother.
Audrey told no one. It was too embarrassing.
The happiest days were when a school friend invited Audrey for tea or a sleepover. Audrey would watch other mothers, and occasionally fathers, fussing over home-cooked meals and homework and wonder why her mother didn’t know that was the way it was supposed to be done. She tried not to think about their empty fridge, or the empty bottles stacked outside the back door. More embarrassing were the men her mother brought home from her after-work drinking sessions. Fortunately, since meeting Ron, that had stopped. Audrey was pinning all her hopes on Ron.
“Your exams are done by June?” Her mother leaned on the edge of the desk, creasing a stack of papers. “I had no idea. You should have told me.”
You should have known. Audrey tugged at the papers and moved them out of harm’s way. “I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I’m interested. I’m your mother.”
Audrey was careful not to react. “Right. Well—”
“You know I’ve been busy planning the wedding. If you’re done by the middle of June, then that means you’ll be around all summer.”
Not if she had anything to do with it. “I won’t be here in the summer. I’m going traveling.”
It had been a spur of the moment decision, driven by a deep-seated horror of being at home.
She’d saved some money from her Saturday job at the hair salon and hidden it inside the soft toy she’d had since childhood. She didn’t trust her mother not to use the money to buy drink, and that money was her hope for the future. Every time she felt herself sinking into darkness, she looked at the bear that she placed in the middle of her bed every day. He had a missing eye and discolored fur, but he felt like a friend to her. A coconspirator in her escape plan. She’d worked out that it should be enough to get her a ticket somewhere. Once she was there she’d find a job. Anything was better than being trapped here in the repetitive, exhausting cycle that was living with her mother.
“That’s good. It’s just that with Ron and I newly married, well—you know—” She nudged Audrey, woman to woman.
Audrey did know. The walls in their house were thin. She probably knew far too much for a person her age.
She noticed that her mother didn’t ask where she was traveling, or with whom. All she cared about was that Audrey wouldn’t be around to intrude on her romantic interlude.
It hurt even though it shouldn’t, but Audrey was used to handling conflicting emotions. And to be honest she was relieved that her mother and Ron were getting married. Ron treated her mother well, and if the wedding went ahead, then Audrey would no longer feel responsible for her.
A whole new life was within reach.
“I’m spending the summer in Paris.” The idea had come to her in a flash the week before. Paris was meant to be beautiful in the summer. The men were hot, the accent was sexy and if they talked crap, as most boys did in her experience, it wouldn’t matter because she wouldn’t understand them anyway. Best of all, she could get away from home.
The first thing she was going to do when she had her own place was put a lock on the door.
Her mother sank onto Audrey’s bed, ignoring the piles of clothes that needed sorting. “Do you speak French?”
“No, which is why I want to live in France.” In fact, it wasn’t, but it was as plausible a reason as any and her mother wasn’t a woman given to examining anything in greater depth. “I need a language.”
“It will be good for you. You need to live a little! At your age—”
“Yeah, I know, you were having the time of your life.”
“No need to use that tone. You’re only young once, Audie.”
Most days she felt about a hundred. “I need to work now. I have a test tomorrow.”
Her mother stood up and wrapped her arms around Audrey. “I love you. I’m proud of you. I probably don’t tell you that enough.”
Audrey sat so stiffly she wondered if a spine could snap. The fumes from her mother’s perfume almost choked her.
Part of her wanted to sink into her mother’s arms and let her take the worry for once, but she knew better than to lower her guard. Within minutes her mother could be screaming at her, throwing things and saying mean words.
Audrey had never understood why mean words sounded louder than kind ones.
“You’re very tense.” Her mother released her. “Would a drink help relax you?”
“No thanks.” She knew her mother wouldn’t be offering a cup of tea.
“I opened a bottle of wine. I could spare you a glass.”
Wine explained the glittering eyes and the brittle mood. It also explained the perfume. “Have you eaten?”
“What? No.” Linda smoothed the dress over her hips. “I don’t want to get fat. What are you studying?”
Audrey blinked.
Her mother had never shown the slightest interest in what Audrey did with her life. At the open evening at school when they’d been invited in to discuss subject choices and university, Audrey had been the only student attending alone. As usual, she’d lied and said her mother was working. It sounded so much better than admitting that her mother couldn’t be bothered and that the only time her father had been present in her life had been during her conception. She lied so much about her life that sometimes she forgot the truth herself.
She cleared her throat. “Organic chemistry.” And she was going to fail. She’d picked sciences so that she could avoid essays and reading, but there was still a ton of reading and writing. After this she was never studying anything ever again.
“I think this fad for everything organic is nonsense.” Her mother checked her reflection in the mirror on Audrey’s desk. “It’s just an excuse for the supermarkets to charge more.”
Audrey sat with slumped shoulders, swamped in misery as she stared at her laptop screen. Go away. Just go away! She sometimes found it hard to believe she and her mother were related. Most days she felt as if she’d been dropped by a stork into the wrong house.
“Mum—”
“You’ve always been a slow learner, Audrey. You just have to accept that. But look on the bright side—you’re pretty, and you have big—” her mother thrust her hands under her breasts to make her point “—get yourself a male boss and they’ll never notice that you can’t spell.”
Audrey imagined the interview.
What do you consider to be your best qualities?
They’re both attached to the front of my chest.
Not in her lifetime.
If a work colleague ever touched her boobs Audrey would break his arm.
“Mum—”
“I’m not saying that college isn’t fun, but everyone gets a degree these days. It’s nothing special. You pay a fortune for something that in the end means nothing. Life experience, that’s what matters.”
Audrey took a breath. “Wear the green dress.”
She was exhausted. She wasn’t sleeping. Her schoolwork was suffering.
Her friend Meena had helped her make a spreadsheet with all her exams on it. Then they’d set alerts on Audrey’s phone, because she was terrified of misreading the spreadsheet and getting her timing wrong. They’d printed out an enlarged version and stuck it on her wall because every since the day her mother had drunk a bottle of whiskey and decided it would be a good idea to throw the computer in the trash, Audrey no longer dared risk storing things on her laptop.
You teenagers spend too long on screens.
On the calendar above her desk were crosses where Audrey marked the end of each day. Each cross took her closer to the day when she could leave school and home.
Her mother was still hovering. “You don’t think Ron would prefer the pink? It shows a little hint of lingerie, and that’s always good.”
“It isn’t good! It looks like you forgot to get dressed! It’s called underwear for a reason. It’s supposed to be worn under clothes.” Bursting with exasperation, Audrey finally glanced away from the screen. Her mother’s hair was wild from pulling dresses on and off. “Wear the dress you prefer. You can’t live your life constantly trying to please another person.” She couldn’t for a moment imagine asking a man what she should wear. She wore what she liked. Her friends wore what they liked. It was a roundabout of trying to fit in and trying to be different.
Linda’s lip trembled. “I want him to think I’m pretty.”
Audrey wanted Ron to think her mother was pretty, too. Audrey wanted Ron to take care of her mother, so she didn’t have to.
“Green,” she said. “Definitely green.”
None of the men her mother had dated had stuck around as long as Ron.
Audrey liked Ron. His favorite response to everything was As long as no one is dead, it will be fine. Audrey wished she could believe it. “Stop drinking. Sober is sexy. Drunk isn’t.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve had a drink, yes, but I’m not drunk.”
Audrey paused, her heart pounding. “You drink a lot, Mum. Too much.” And her biggest dread was that Ron would grow tired of it. “Maybe you should talk to the doctor, or—”
“Why would I talk to a doctor?”
“Because you have a problem.”
“You’re the one with the problem, but I can’t reason with you when you’re in this mood.” Her mother flounced out of the room, slamming the door.
Audrey stared at the door, feeling sick. This was why she rarely brought the subject up. How could her mother think she didn’t have a problem? Someone in this house was crazy and Audrey was starting to think it must be her.
And now her mother was upset. What if she went off the deep end and she drank everything in the house? From time to time Audrey went through the place, room by room, hunting down hidden bottles. She hadn’t done it in a while.
Stressed, she grabbed a chocolate bar from the stash she kept hidden behind her textbooks.
She tried to get back to work but she couldn’t concentrate. Giving up, she left her room and stood listening.
She heard sounds of her mother crying noisily in the bathroom.
Crap. She knocked on the door. “Mum?”
The crying grew louder. Anxiety balled in Audrey’s stomach. It felt as if she’d swallowed a stone. “Mum?”
She tried the handle and the door opened. Her mother was sitting on the floor leaning against the bath, a bottle of wine in her hand.
“I’m a bad mother. A terrible mother.”
“Oh, Mum.” Audrey’s insides churned. She felt exasperated, anxious and a little desperate. Most of all she felt helpless and scared. She didn’t know how to deal with this. Once, in a state of desperation, she’d called a help line for children of alcoholic parents but she’d lost her nerve and hung up without speaking to anyone. She didn’t want to talk about it. She couldn’t talk about it. It would be disloyal. Despite everything, she loved her mum.
She wasn’t alone, but she felt alone.
Her mother looked at her, mascara smudged under her eyes. “I do love you, Audrey. Do you love me?”
“Of course.” Despite her dry mouth, she managed to say the words. It was a routine that happened often. Her mother drank, told Audrey she loved her, sobered up and forgot all about it.
Audrey had given up hoping that one day her mother might say those words when she was sober.
“Give me the bottle, Mum.” She eased it out of her mother’s hand.
“What are you doing with that?”
Audrey poured it down the sink before she could change her mind, bracing her shoulders against her mother’s distressed wail.
“I can’t believe you did that! I was having one drink, that’s all, to give me confidence for tonight. What did I do to deserve a daughter like you?” She started sobbing again, apparently forgetting that a moment before she’d loved Audrey. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to lose Ron. I’m no good on my own.”
“Of course you are.” Audrey put the empty bottle down on the floor. “You have a good job.” Which she was afraid her mother might lose if she didn’t sober up.
What would happen then? Did Ron know her mother was an alcoholic? Would he walk out once he found out?
She clung to the idea that he wouldn’t. Hope, she’d discovered, was the light that guided you through dark places. You had to believe there was something better ahead.
Audrey grabbed a packet of wipes and gently erased the streaked mascara. “You have pretty eyes.”
Her mother gave a tremulous smile, her earlier nastiness no longer in evidence. “You think so?”
The vulnerability made Audrey queasy. Most of the time she was the adult, and the responsibility terrified her. She didn’t feel qualified for the role. “Definitely. People wear contact lenses to get this shade of green.”
Linda touched Audrey’s hair. “I hated having red hair when I was your age. I was teased all the time. I wanted to be blonde. You don’t get teased?”
“Sometimes.” Audrey reapplied her mother’s makeup, her approach subtler than Linda’s.
“How do you handle it?”
“I can take care of myself.” Audrey styled her mother’s hair and stood back and admired her handiwork. “There. You look good.”
“You’re so much stronger than I was.”
“You’re strong, too. You’ve just forgotten it.” And if you stopped drinking it would help.
She didn’t say it again. Her mother was calm now, and Audrey didn’t want to do or say anything that might change that. They lived on a knife edge. One slip, and they’d all be cut.
Her mother studied herself in the mirror, touching her cheekbones with the tips of her fingers. “You’d better get back to studying. Thanks for your help.”
It was as if the emotional explosion had never happened.
Audrey returned to her bedroom and closed the door.
She wanted to cry, but she knew that if she cried she’d get a headache and then she’d fail her test. If she failed her test, she might fail her exams and she hadn’t come this far to fall at the last fence. A few more months and she’d never have to study again.
Half an hour later a deep rumble of laughter announced that Ron had returned home.
Audrey covered her ears with her headphones, turned up the volume on pounding rock music and drowned out whatever was going on in the room above her.
Only when she glanced out of the window and saw her mother and Ron heading out of the house together, hand in hand, did she finally relax.
Don’t blow it, Mum.
When she was sure the coast was clear and that her mother wasn’t about to return for a bag, a coat or any other number of things, she ventured downstairs.
She could hear a dog barking in the street outside, and one of her neighbors shouting at another. She didn’t know them. It wasn’t that kind of street. In this particular London suburb, people came and went and never spoke to their neighbors. You could die, and no one would know. It was one of the cheaper areas of the city, which basically meant you paid twice what you would anywhere else in the country and got half as much for your money.
Rain was sheeting down, obscuring the view from the window.
Hardy, their rescue dog, was curled up in the warmth of the kitchen but when he saw Audrey he greeted her like a long-lost friend.
Audrey dropped to her knees and hugged him. “You are the only thing about this place I’m going to miss. You’re my best friend, and I wish I could take you with me when I go.” She giggled as he licked her face. “I hope she gets out of bed long enough to feed you when I’m gone. If not, scratch at the door. Or bite Ron on the ankles.” She stood up. “Food?”
Hardy wagged his tail.
She put food into his bowl, freshened his water and was wondering what to eat herself when her phone buzzed. It was Meena, asking if she could come over so they could study together.
Audrey and Meena had both moved to the school two years earlier, at an age when everyone else was already in groups and cliques.
Their friendship was one of the best things about the place for Audrey.
Given that she was likely to have the house to herself for hours, Audrey messaged back a yes. She would never, ever have contemplated having a friend around when her mother was home, but she occasionally invited Meena, provided the house was empty. Her parents were both doctors and Meena had the kind of stable home life Audrey could only dream of. She had uncles, aunts and cousins and Audrey wanted to implant herself in her family.
She checked the fridge.
It was empty apart from two bottles of wine.
She’d asked her mother to buy milk and cheese, but instead she’d eaten the few things Audrey had stocked up on the day before.
Tired, Audrey grabbed the open bottle of wine and tipped it down the sink. It was like trying to bail out a sinking ship with an eggcup, but still she couldn’t help trying to fix the situation.
There was no time for her to shop, so she headed for the freezer. Fortunately the frozen pizzas she’d bought the day before were still there. She threw them in the oven and retrieved a packet of chocolate biscuits she’d hidden for emergencies.
The moment she answered the door to her friend, she knew something was wrong. “What?”
“Nothing.” Meena pushed past her into the house. “Close the door fast.”
“Why?” Audrey peered out into the street and saw two girls leaning against a wall. She recognized them immediately. They were in her year at school. “What do those hyenas want?”
“My carcass. For dinner. Close the door, Aud!”
“They followed you again?” Audrey felt something hot and uncontrollable burn inside her. “What did they say?”
“The usual.” Despite the cold, Meena’s face was sweaty. Her eyes looked huge behind her glasses. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just words. Please don’t say anything.”
“It matters.” Audrey was out of the door and across the street before Meena could stop her, carrying all the extra emotion leftover from her encounter with her mother. “What is your problem?” She directed her question at the taller of the two girls because she knew she was the ringleader. Her name was Rhonda and she and Audrey clashed regularly.
Rhonda folded her arms. “I’m not the one with the problem. But you should stop hanging out with that dumb bitch. You need to rethink your friends.”
“Yeah.” The smaller girl standing by her side sounded like an echo. “You need to rethink your friends.”
Audrey glared at her. She couldn’t even summon up the girl’s name. She was a mouse who hid in Rhonda’s shadow. “When you have an original opinion you can voice it, but until then shut up.” She shifted her gaze back to Rhonda. “I don’t need to rethink anything. And seeing as Meena gets top grades in everything, the only dumb bitch I see is standing right in front of me.”
Rhonda lifted her jaw. “She should go back to wherever it is she came from.”
“She comes from here, you brainless baboon. She was born half a mile down the road from you but you’re too stupid to even know that, and who the hell cares anyway?”
“Why are you defending her? This isn’t your business, Audrey.”
“My friends aren’t my business? Is that a joke?” Audrey felt the last threads of control unravel. She took a step forward and had the satisfaction of seeing the other girl take a step back.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“It’s you who shouldn’t be here. This is my street. My wall. I don’t need a bunch of mean girls leaning against it.” Audrey stabbed Rhonda in the chest with her finger. “Get out of here, and if you come near Meena again I swear I’ll hurt you.”
“You and whose army?”
“I don’t need an army. I’m my own army. Now fuck off back to wherever you came from, which is probably the sewer.” With a threatening scowl that she’d spent hours perfecting in front of the mirror, she stalked away from them. They called something after her and she lifted her finger and kept walking.
She found Meena shaking like a baby fawn, her phone in her hand.
“I thought they were going to kill you.”
“You have so little faith in me.” Audrey glanced at the phone. “Why are you calling emergency services?”
“I thought you needed backup.”
“We’re not in an action film, Meena. Put the phone away. And stop shaking. You look like a kitten someone dropped in a puddle.”
Meena rubbed her arms. “I wish I could be like you. You’re funny and everyone likes you.”
“Yeah? Well, I wish I was like you. You have a brain and a place at Oxford.”
“I’d rather be popular and fit in. Pathetic, I know. Those girls say I just got the place to fill their diversity quota.”
“Yeah, well, those girls are mean as snakes and dumb as shit. They’ve got to say something to make themselves feel better because their lives are crap. But you—” Audrey grabbed Meena and swung her around. “You’re going to rule the world. And because you have me to do your hair, you’re going to look good while you do it. Be proud! You’re, like, insanely smart. I can’t even spell engineering, let alone study it. I boast about you to everyone. My friend Meena is going to Oxford.”
“You don’t hate me for it?”
“What? Don’t be crazy. I’m proud of you. Why would I hate you?”
Meena looked sweetly anxious. “Because studying is so hard for you.”
“Life is hard for you, too. I don’t have to put up with the crap that’s thrown in your direction on a daily basis.” Audrey shrugged, trying not to think of her own life. “Everyone has something to deal with, right? I’ve got your back and you’ve got my back.”
“No one will have my back at Oxford.” Meena wiped the rain from her glasses. “I wish you were going, too.”
“No, you don’t. You’ll be hanging out with smart people, saying smart things and doing smart things. Now stop letting them get to you. Be mad, not scared. And if you can’t actually be mad, then act mad. You need to be meaner than they are. You need to be meaner-Meena.” She collapsed, laughing, and Meena giggled, too.
“Meaner-Meena. I like that.”
“Good. Because right now you’re far-too-nice-Meena. Let’s eat.”
Meena followed her into the kitchen and sniffed. “Is that pizza?”
“Mushroom and olive.”
“Bliss. Well, apart from the olives, but I can pick those off.” Meena dumped her bags on the kitchen floor and stripped off her coat. Her long black hair was damp. She wore jeans and a black sweater that belonged to her sister. Audrey would have loved to have a sister to share clothes with, but mostly she would have loved to share the load of her mother.
She watched as Meena sent a text.
“Who are you texting?”
Meena flushed. “My mum. She made me promise to let her know I arrived safely.”
“You live, like, two streets away.”
“I know. It’s embarrassing, but it’s either that or she drives me here and that’s more embarrassing.”
Audrey felt a stab of envy. “It’s great that she cares so much. You have the best family.”
“Aud—”
“What?”
“I smell burning.”
“Shit.” Audrey sprinted across the kitchen and opened the oven. “It’s fine. A little burned maybe, but not totally charred. Can you grab plates?”
Meena opened a cupboard. “Are you nervous about leaving home and living alone?”
“No.” Audrey dumped the pizza on a board. She virtually lived alone now. No one cared what she did. She didn’t have a curfew or rules. She’d reached the point where she’d decided that genuinely living alone would be an improvement. “Are you?”
“A bit, but it will be nice to have some independence. Mum is determined to make sure I eat healthily while I’m revising so every hour she brings me a healthy snack.”
The mere thought of someone thinking to bring her a snack, let alone a healthy one, almost made Audrey bleed with envy.
“And she’s on my case the whole time.” Meena unloaded her books and piled them on the table next to the plates. “We should get started. My uncle is coming at nine thirty to pick me up.”
“I could walk home with you if you like.”
“Then you’d have to walk back alone.”
“So?” She walked everywhere alone. “What do you want to drink?”
“Anything.” Meena walked to the fridge and opened it before Audrey could stop her. “What happened here? Why is your fridge empty?”
“My mother was defrosting it. It was so full, it needed clearing out.” The lie came easily, as lies always did to Audrey.
Yes, Miss Foster, everything is fine at home.
My mother couldn’t make parents’ evening because she’s working.
She could control the story she told. Less easy to control was the shame. It clung to her like sweat and she turned away, terrified it might be visible. “This pizza is getting cold. We should eat.”
“You’re lucky. Your mum gives you so much freedom.”
Audrey switched on her habitual smile. “Yeah, it’s great.”
Why didn’t she just tell Meena and her other friends the truth? It was partly because having started this story it was hard to untangle it, but mostly because it was embarrassing to admit that your own mother thought a bottle of wine was more important than you were. What did that say about her? At the very least, that she was unlovable.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do this summer?”
“I’m going to Paris.” Audrey snapped the top off a can of soda. They had no food in the house, but they always had mixers. “I’m going to find a job and somewhere to live.”
“That’s going to make Hayley sick with envy. You need to post photos that are cooler than hers. Have you seen her Instagram? Spending a month by the pool in Saint-Tropez this summer. #lovemylife.” Meena crunched her way through the overcooked pizza and licked her fingers.
“Yeah. I’ve got my own hashtags. #yousmugbitch or maybe #hopethepoolturnsyourhairgreen or #hateyourguts. Trouble is, I can’t spell any of them.”
“I’ll spell them for you if you promise you’ll post at least one smug photo of you in Paris. How are you going to communicate? You don’t speak French.”
Audrey nibbled her pizza. “I can say I’m hungry, and I know the words for hot guy. The rest is going to have to be body language. That’s universal.”
“Do you think you’ll have sex?” Meena pulled at another slice of pizza, catching the cheese that trailed in strands. “You’ve done it, right?”
Audrey shrugged, not wanting to admit what a total letdown sex had been. She had no idea why so many books were written about love and passion. There was obviously something wrong with her. “It’s like going to the gym. You can get physical without having to engage the brain. Not that I exactly have a brain to engage.”
“Stop it! You know that’s not true. So you’re saying sex is like being on the treadmill? What happened to romance? What about Romeo and Juliet?”
“They died. Not romantic.” Audrey nibbled her pizza. “Also, that Juliet had no street smarts whatsoever.”
“She was only thirteen.”
“Well, I can tell you that even if she hadn’t drunk that poison, she never would have made it to old age.”
Meena giggled. “You should write that in your exam. So do you want to revise?”
“You don’t mind? It’s not like you exactly need to.”
“I do need to. And I love being here with you. You always make me laugh. What do you want to start with? Physics? I know that’s really hard for you because of all the symbols. It’s hard for me, too, and I don’t have dyslexia. Whenever I open my book I’m just one atom away from a brain explosion.”
Audrey knew that wasn’t true, but she was touched by her friend’s attempts to make her feel better. “I think I’m getting there, but ask me some questions and we’ll find out. Shall we have some music?” She finished her pizza and reached for her phone. “I revise better to music.”
“I love coming to your house. Everything is so relaxed here. Where’s your mum tonight?”
“Out.”
“With Ron?” Meena watched as Audrey chose a track and pressed Play. “Now that’s romantic. All those years widowed, missing your dad, and now she’s in love again. It’s like a movie.”
“Widowed” sounded so much better than “divorced three times.”
Losing a husband in tragic circumstances attracted sympathy and understanding. Being divorced three times attracted suspicion and incredulity.
Audrey figured that with the way her life was, she was allowed a little poetic license. And since she and her mother had moved to this part of London only two years before, no one was likely to find out the truth.
“I love this song. Revision can wait.” She slid off her chair. “Let’s dance. Come on, meaner-Meena, show me what you’re made of.”
She turned up the volume and danced around the kitchen. She swayed and bumped to the music, her hair flying around her face. Meena joined her, and soon they were whooping and laughing.
For ten glorious minutes Audrey was a teenager without a care in the world. It didn’t matter that she was going to fail her exams and that the rest of her life would be ruined. It didn’t matter that her mum preferred to drink than spend time with her daughter. All that mattered was the pump and flow of the music.
If only the rest of her life could be like this.
Grace (#ulink_26853147-8bc7-5eb0-abc6-8303a3b7e86d)
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Monica pulled up outside the hospital. “You’re shivering.”
Was she? Grace felt removed from everything, even the reactions of her own body. It was hard to believe that three days had passed since that night in the restaurant. “I need to do this on my own, but thanks. You’re a great friend.” She stared down at her feet and realized she was wearing odd shoes. One navy. One black. Visible evidence that she was falling apart. “Losing it” as Sophie would say.
“I still can’t believe it. I mean, David. You two are the perfect couple. And he’s such a family man. He takes Sophie swimming every Saturday and does backyard barbecues.”
“This isn’t helping, Monica.” Should she go home and change her shoes? They offended her sense of order.
“I’m just so angry. I could strangle David with my bare hands.” Monica thumped the steering wheel with her fist. “How could he do this to you?”
How? Why? When? Her brain was stuck in a loop.
What had she done? What hadn’t she done?
She’d thought she was the love of David’s life. The one.
Finding out that she wasn’t overturned her entire memory bank. What was real and what wasn’t?
“Apparently, he’s bored with his life.” Her mouth felt dry. “And since I was a large part of his life, I guess that means—”
“Do not tell me you’re boring,” Monica spoke through her teeth, “because we both know that’s not the case.”
“He said I organize every part of our lives and it’s true. I like predictability and order. I’ve always seen that as a good thing.”
“It is a good thing! Who wants a life full of chaos? Don’t do this to yourself, Grace. Don’t make it about you. The truth is you’re so competent, you’ve bruised his ego.”
“I don’t think so. David is very secure and sure of himself. I think I’ve made him feel—redundant. But it’s not a manhood thing. He isn’t like that.”
“Don’t you believe it. He’s having a full-blown midlife crisis. His little girl is leaving home, and suddenly he feels old. He’s faced his own mortality—literally, in the last few days—it’s classic.”
Grace stared out of the window, remembering David’s face that night at dinner. “He hasn’t bought a sports car or dyed his hair. He hasn’t given up his job. The only thing he seems to have changed is the woman in his life.”
Images played through her head, as if she’d accidentally clicked on a porn site on the internet. She wanted to cover her eyes. Reboot her brain. Cold, she tugged her coat around her.
Monica turned the heat up. “You have no idea who it is?”
“No.” Grace looked at her friend. “How could I not have known this was going on?”
“Because David is the last man on the planet you’d suspect of having an affair, so you weren’t looking. You need to ask him right out who it is.”
“The hospital staff say he mustn’t have any stress.” And she knew, deep down, she was postponing the moment when she’d have to hear the details. A name would make it real.
Monica snorted. “He mustn’t have stress? How about you? He’s a man who chose to tell his wife he wanted a divorce during a dinner to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Any other woman probably wouldn’t have resuscitated him when he collapsed.”
“It crossed my mind not to.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have admitted that. “What does that say about me?”
Monica reached out and took her hand. “It says you’re human, and thank goodness for that.”
“I stood there and couldn’t move—I don’t know how long it was—” Her heart had been beating frantically while his had been failing. “I thought I couldn’t do it.”
“But you did,” Monica said gently.
“What if I walk into his room and she’s there?”
Monica swallowed. “Surely David wouldn’t be that tactless?”
“He’s in love with another woman. I think tact has gone out of the window.” She twisted the edge of her coat with her fingers. “At dinner he kept rubbing his jaw. I thought he needed to see a dentist, but it turns out that can be a sign of a heart attack. I missed it.”
“Please tell me you’re not blaming yourself for that!”
“David was so stressed about hurting me, it brought on a heart attack. Even breaking up with me, he was inherently decent.”
“Grace, please. He was a heartless rat bast—” Monica broke off and lifted her hands in apology. “Sorry, but I can’t bear to hear you make excuses for him. How is Sophie taking it?”
Acid gnawed at her gut. Maybe she should see a doctor. “I haven’t told her yet.”
“What? Grace, she—”
“She needs to know. I’m aware. But telling her that her father had a heart attack and was in the hospital seemed like enough at the time. She’s upset and worried sick. I couldn’t bring myself to make it worse. She idolizes him. They’ve always been close.”
“You have to tell her, Grace.”
“I was hoping it might all get fixed and I wouldn’t have to.”
“He’s had an affair with another woman. Would you fix it if you could?”
“I don’t know.” It was a question she’d never thought she’d have to ask herself.
“You can’t, Grace. You’d never be able to trust him again. You need to boot him out. That’s what I’d do if Todd ever had an affair.”
Grace’s head spun. This was an aspect she hadn’t considered—that everyone around her would have an opinion. Whatever she did, she’d be the focus of gossip and judgment and she knew from experience that people tended to think that their way was the only way.
“I need to go.”
“Tell him how much he has hurt you. Tell him how you’re feeling.”
She didn’t want to be told what to do.
The fact that she felt the need to get away from Monica made her feel lonelier than she ever had in her life before. “If I cause him stress and then he dies, it’s my fault.”
Guilt. Blame. Responsibility.
An ugly sludge of emotions churned inside her, the same ones she’d felt when her parents had died. She knew you didn’t have to be directly involved to feel responsible. She’d had to live with those feelings, and David was the only one who knew.
David, who was no longer there for her.
David, who would now share secrets with someone else.
Losing that particular intimacy was the most painful thing of all.
A steady stream of people flowed through the revolving door at the entrance to the hospital, and Grace watched, wondering what their stories were. Were they visitors? Patients?
After he collapsed in the restaurant, David had been taken to the nearest hospital and rushed straight to surgery to have a procedure on his coronary artery. Or was it arteries? She couldn’t remember. Grace had sat on a cold, hard chair in a drafty corridor, feeling as if someone had lifted her out of her comfortable life and dropped her in a prison cell.
At some point during the night the doctor had found her, but his words had flowed past Grace like a river rushing over rocks. She’d heard blockage and a few other technical words that had meant nothing to her. She’d tried to pay attention, but her mind had refused to focus for more than a few minutes before wandering back to the fact that David wanted a divorce.
“David should tell Sophie,” Monica said. “He’s the one having the affair.”
Grace forced herself to move. “I’ll deal with that part later. He could be discharged tomorrow.”
“So soon? Please tell me you’re not thinking of taking him home.”
Grace paused with her hand on the door. “I don’t know. I’m taking this minute by minute.”
“Do you think he’ll want to stay—”
“—with her? I don’t know that, either. But if he wants to come home, I don’t see that I have much choice.”
“Of course you have a choice!” Monica exploded with rage and then subsided. “What can I do? I feel helpless.”
“You are helping.” In fact, she wasn’t helping, but that wasn’t Monica’s fault. There was nothing anyone could do. “Thanks for the ride.”
Grace slid out of the car and walked slowly into the hospital. It was the loneliest walk of her life.
Monica was right. They needed to tell Sophie. They couldn’t put it off any longer.
“Hi, Mrs. Porter.” The nurse in charge of the cardiac care ward greeted her from the desk. Grace had virtually lived at the hospital for the past few days. It was hardly surprising that they all knew her.
“Hi, Sally. How is he today?”
“Doing better. Dr. Morton saw him this morning, and she promised to drop by and talk to you both once you arrived. I’ll let her know you’re here.” She reached for the phone, and Grace walked into David’s room.
His eyes were closed, his skin pale but even a heart attack didn’t stop him being handsome.
She remembered what he’d said about feeling as if the best days of his life were behind him. The memory was like a sharp stab. What he’d really been saying was that there was nothing left to look forward to. The life with her wasn’t enough for him.
Forcing herself forward, she walked to the chair next to his bed.
David opened his eyes. “Grace.”
She put her bag on the floor. “How are you feeling?”
“Terrible. I guess you’re thinking it’s just punishment. They put in a stent, did they tell you?”
Had they? Maybe. She hoped he didn’t ask her any other questions, but fortunately at that moment Dr. Morton walked in. Elizabeth Morton had a daughter in Grace’s class, so they knew each other from school events.
“Hi, Grace. How are you?”
“I’m good, thanks.” As well as can be expected for a woman who has just been dumped by her husband of twenty-five years. Did Dr. Morton know? How far had word spread? Grace tried to remember who had been in the restaurant that night.
“I’m the patient.” David made a feeble attempt at a joke. “You’re supposed to be asking me how I am.”
Was it her imagination, or did Dr. Morton’s smile cool slightly as she looked at him?
Oh God, Grace thought. She knows.
The thought of female solidarity should have cheered her, but it didn’t. She hated the thought of people gossiping about her. It was so personal. Humiliating.
Everyone would be wondering why David Porter had chosen to leave his wife. They’d be looking at her and speculating. Did she nag? Was she bad in bed?
Maybe they all thought she was boring, too.
She could feel droplets of confidence evaporating like water in sunlight.
“You can go home tomorrow.” Dr. Morton flipped through the notes. She was clinical. Efficient. “We’ll send you a date for a follow-up.” She gave some general advice and then added, “This is a question I find some patients are embarrassed to ask, so I always give the answer anyway. Sex.” Her face was expressionless, but Grace knew she’d never be able to meet her at the school gates without remembering this conversation.
She didn’t want Dr. Morton to talk about sex, but it seemed her wishes no longer counted for anything.
Grace gripped the edge of the chair until the plastic dug into her hands.
“You should take it easy for the next month.” Dr. Morton went on to elaborate, and Grace tried to shut it out.
She emerged from her trance to hear Dr. Morton saying, “After that, you’re good to go.”
Grace felt her anger rise. He was good to go, but what about her?
David squirmed. “Thank you.”
“Don’t look so gloomy. People recover well from this and go on to live good lives.” The doctor outlined plans for his discharge, and then left the room with a final nod toward Grace.
“No sex for a month,” Grace said. “I guess that’s going to be tough on whoever it is you’re sleeping with.”
She saw the shock in David’s eyes and then the spreading color in his cheeks.
“You’re angry. I understand.”
“You understand? You can’t do this and still get to be the nice guy, David. This wasn’t an accident, or some random thing that happened to us that you regret. You chose this path. You knew what this would do to us. To me. But you did it anyway.”
Because he’d wanted it.
It wasn’t the first time someone hadn’t loved her enough to fight temptation.
Feelings she’d worked hard to subdue swirled to life inside her.
“I didn’t plan it, Grace. I was unhappy, and she was there and—Well, it just happened.”
It was the worst thing he could have said to her.
“What happened to self-control, David?”
He shifted in the bed. “You don’t have to tell me how important self-control is to you. I already know.”
“But I didn’t know how unimportant it was to you.”
“Grace—”
“You didn’t tell me you were unhappy. You didn’t give us a chance.” The more she thought about it, the more she realized she wasn’t just angry, she was furious. It was almost a relief. Anger was fuel, and easier to handle than grief and confusion.
“Everything you say is true, and I feel terrible.”
“I feel terrible, too. The difference is that you deserve to feel terrible, and I don’t.” She stopped. He looked so pale she was afraid he might be having another heart attack.
How could she care so much about his welfare, when he’d given no thought to hers?
It seemed that love defied logic.
“Grace—”
“Do you know what it’s like to be in love with someone, and to assume they feel the same way, and then to discover that it was all fake? It makes you question everything.” She heard the catch in her own voice. “All those memories we made together, I’m wondering how many of them were real.”
“They were real. They are real.”
“What’s real is that at some point you started feeling differently and you didn’t share that with me. I made a chicken salad with low calorie dressing.” She unloaded the bag and slapped the containers on the table next to the bed.
“You’ve had a few messages. Rick from the golf club called. He sent you his best wishes.”
“Right.”
He hadn’t even mentioned the fact that she’d resuscitated him. Not that she wanted thanks exactly, but a small amount of praise for keeping a cool head in an emergency and saving his life might have been nice.
Thanks, Grace. It was kind of you to bring me back to life after I said you were boring. Glad you didn’t exercise the option to leave me to die.
He watched her cautiously. “Did Stephen call?”
“Yes. He sends his best wishes and told you not to rush back to work. Lissa said she’d call around with a few things from your office. You left your bag there, and your laptop.”
“That’s kind of her.”
“Yes.” Grace was fond of Lissa. She’d been a few years ahead of Sophie in school and Grace had taught her French and Spanish. Lissa had struggled academically after her father walked out, and Grace had been delighted when she’d graduated high school and David had given her a job at the newspaper as a junior reporter. It was good to see her doing well.
She wondered if Stephen and Lissa knew about the affair.
“We need to talk to Sophie.”
There was alarm and panic on his face. “I’m dreading that part. Do you think it would be better coming from you?”
“You said you were tired of me doing everything, so no, this is one thing you can do yourself. And you’re the one who has given up on our marriage, so you’re in a better position than I am to explain it to our daughter. Do it tonight, when she comes to visit. She needs to know we love her and that your decision has nothing to do with her.”
“Tonight?” He lost more color. “I’m not feeling great, Grace.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want her finding out from someone else.”
“No one else knows.”
“You’re a journalist, David. You of all people should know how hard it is to hide information.”
He gave her a long, meaningful look and in the end she was the one to look away.
Damn him.
Grace curled and uncurled her fingers. Damn him for choosing this moment to remind her of the information he’d kept hidden. To remind her what she owed him.
“No one knows,” he said. “We’ve been careful.”
“Careful?” She imagined him creeping around. “Were you sneaking into motel rooms and paying cash? Did you use condoms?”
His cheeks turned dark red. “That’s a personal question.”
“I’m your wife!”
“Yes, I used condoms. I’m not stupid.”
Maybe not stupid, but thoughtless and careless with her feelings and their marriage? Definitely. She wanted to take a shower and scrub herself all over.
“Did you at any point think about me?”
He looked exhausted. “I thought about you all the time, Grace.”
“Even while you were having sex with another woman? That’s not a compliment.” She took a deep breath. “What’s her name?”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Grace—”
“Tell me! You owe me that much.”
He looked away. Licked his lips. “It’s Lissa.”
“Lissa?” She stared at him and then felt a rush of relief. She didn’t know a Lissa. It wasn’t someone she knew personally or was going to bump into. “Where does she live?”
David turned his head, and his eyes were tired and sad. “You know where Lissa lives.”
“I don’t. The only Lissa I know is—” She stopped. “Wait. You don’t mean—Lissa? Our Lissa?”
“Who else?”
“Oh God.” Grace’s legs suddenly refused to do their job and she sank onto the chair. “She’s like a daughter to us. To me,” she corrected herself. “Obviously to you she’s something different.”
Grace remembered the day Lissa had graduated from high school. After all the support Grace had given her, it felt like a double betrayal.
“She’s a child!”
“She’s twenty-three. Not a child.”
She couldn’t absorb it. She hadn’t thought things could get worse, but this was so much worse.
Sick, she stood up and almost stumbled over the chair. She had to get away. “You need to find somewhere to go when you’re discharged. I don’t want you home.”
“Where am I going to go?”
“I don’t know. Where were you thinking that you’d go? Or were you planning on putting Lissa in our spare bedroom? One big happy family, is that it?”
He looked ill. “I’ll find a hotel.”
“Why? She doesn’t want you in sickness? Only in health?” Grace snatched up her bag. “I’ll drop Sophie here later. You can tell her the good news.”
“It would be better to do this together. We need to keep this civilized.”
“I don’t feel civilized, David. And as for telling Sophie—you’re sleeping with someone she considers a friend. You’re on your own with that one.”
She walked out of the room, managed to smile at the nurses at the desk and then dipped into the stairwell. Everyone else seemed to have taken the elevator and the echo of her footsteps somehow emphasized her loneliness. She made it as far as the first floor before control left her. She sank onto the bottom stair, sobbing.
Lissa? Lissa?
Grace thought about Lissa’s beaming smile and the way her ponytail swung when she walked. She wore jeans that looked as if they’d been painted on her, and tops that showed off her lush, full breasts.
It was so sordid. What would Lissa’s parents say? Grace was on a charity committee with her mother. She’d never be able to look her in the eye again.
How could David do this to her? To them? They were a unit. A family. And he’d torn that apart.
She was so lost in a world of misery and memories it was a moment before she heard the sound of footsteps and realized someone was coming down the stairs toward her.
She stood up quickly, brushed her hand over her face and walked down the last flight of stairs.
Sophie would be home from school soon. Grace needed to be there to make her something to eat, and to support her when her father blew up her life.
Audrey (#ulink_e275f064-2fb6-537e-9904-f49265dded07)
“How did your exams go, Audrey, dear?”
Audrey adjusted the temperature of the water and directed the spray so that it ran over the hair and not near the eyes. If there was such a thing as an exam in hair washing, she’d ace it.
“They weren’t great, Mrs. Bishop.” She’d started working in the salon for a few hours on a Saturday when she was thirteen. She’d done it to give herself an excuse to leave the house and had been surprised by how much she enjoyed it. The best part was chatting with customers, and they were startlingly honest with her. After five years, many of them felt like family. “The thing I hate most is when you come out of the exam and the other kids are all talking about what they wrote for each question and you know you totally messed it up. Is that temperature right for you?”
“It’s perfect, dear. And I’m sure you didn’t mess it up.”
Audrey was sure she had. She knew for sure she’d gotten at least two of the questions muddled up on that last paper. She’d got confused between discuss and define.
Whichever way you looked at it, exams sucked but at least they were done now.
She pumped shampoo into her palm and started lathering Mrs. Bishop’s hair. The woman’s hair was thin on top, so Audrey was very gentle. “I’m not going to do a second shampoo, Mrs. Bishop, because your hair is a bit dry. I’m going to use a moisturizing treatment if that’s okay.”
“Whatever you think, pet. You’re the expert.”
“How is Pogo?” Audrey struggled with facts when they were in a textbook, but she had no trouble remembering the smallest detail of people’s lives. She knew all about their pets, their kids and their illnesses. Pogo was Mrs. Bishop’s Labrador, and the love of her life. “What did the vet say about the lump?”
“It was nothing serious, thank goodness. A cyst. He removed it.”
“That’s good. You must be relieved.” Audrey rinsed carefully.
“What will you do now your exams are over? Will you work here full-time this summer? We’re all hoping you do.”
It was tempting. Audrey loved the people and she enjoyed the work. For some of the women who came to the salon, their ten minutes at the basin with Audrey was the only time they relaxed during the week. Her high point had been when customers started asking for her because her scalp massage was so good.
No one had ever said Audrey was good at anything before.
But staying at the salon would mean living at home, and Audrey couldn’t wait to leave.
“I’m going traveling.”
She sprayed the treatment onto Mrs. Bishop’s hair and massaged gently.
“Oh, that’s bliss, dear. You always use just the right amount of pressure. You should do a massage course.”
Audrey used her fingertips on Mrs. Bishop’s forehead. “The clients would probably all be dirty old men.”
Mrs. Bishop tutted. “I don’t mean that kind of massage. I mean real massage. For stressed people. There are plenty of those around.”
“Yeah, I should probably start with myself.”
“You’d be fantastic. You could do makeup, too.” Philippa Wyatt, who came in every six weeks to have her color done, joined in the conversation from her chair in front of the mirror. Her hair had been segmented and was currently wrapped in tinfoil. She looked like a chicken about to be roasted.
“How are the preparations going for the wedding, Mrs. Wyatt?”
“My daughter changes her mind every five minutes. One minute the cake is going to be fruit, and the next it’s sponge.”
“I love sponge.” Audrey finished the head massage and rinsed off the product. She wrapped Alice Bishop’s head in a warm towel, changed her gown and guided her back to the basin.
“Thank you, dear.” The woman pressed a note into Audrey’s hand.
“That’s too much! You don’t have to—”
“I want to. It’s my way of saying thank you.” She sat down in the chair, and Audrey pushed the note into her pocket and stuck her head around the staff room door.
“Ellen? Mrs. Bishop is ready for you.”
Ellen owned the hair salon. There was a lot Audrey liked about her, not least the fact that she didn’t make Audrey split her tips. You earned it, you keep it, she always said.
“Right.” Ellen was finishing a cup of coffee. “Want to grab lunch together later? Milly can cover for us.”
“I thought I’d go for a quick walk. I need to clear my head after all those exams.”
It was a half-truth. The other half of the truth was that the fridge had been empty again and Audrey hadn’t realized until it was too late. Her mother, in a drunken state, had thrown everything away claiming it was “off.”
It wouldn’t hurt not to eat for a day, but she didn’t want to draw attention to it.
An hour later she grabbed her bag and took a walk to the local park.
It was teeming with people enjoying the sunshine. Some sat on benches, others sprawled on the grass, shirtsleeves rolled back.
Several were eating lunch. Huge slabs of crusty bread, fresh ham, packets of crisps, chocolate bars.
Audrey’s stomach growled.
Had anyone ever been mugged for a sandwich? There was a first time for everything. She could grab it and run. A whole new definition for fast food.
Maybe she should use the tip Mrs. Bishop had given her to buy food, but she was saving everything she earned to put toward her escape fund.
Trying to ignore the food around her, she pulled out her phone and carried on her search for summer jobs in Paris.
That morning she’d narrowed it down to two.
A family who lived in Montmartre wanted an English-speaking au pair with childcare experience. Audrey had never looked after children, but she’d looked after her mother and she figured that more than qualified her for the job although she still had to work out how to convince a potential employer of that without revealing more than she wanted to.
She lifted her head and stared across the park. There was a faint hum in the distance and she could see someone cutting the grass. It was June and the air was sweet with the scent of flowers.
In the distance she could see the running track. Audrey used it sometimes. She liked running. Maybe it was because it felt as if she was getting away from her life.
She imagined herself wandering around Paris in the summer sunshine with two adorable children in tow. Or they might be two annoying children. Either way, the life she could see ahead of her was so much more appealing than the one she was living now.
No more wondering what state the house would be in when she arrived home.
No more worrying about her mother. That would be Ron’s job.
Audrey felt dizzy at the thought of handing over responsibility and being liberated from it all.
The man on the grass closest to her put his half-eaten cheese sandwich down.
Not reaching out to grab it required more willpower than Audrey knew she had.
She slipped her feet out of her shoes and turned back to her phone.
A dental surgery needed someone to answer the phones and book appointments. True, Audrey didn’t speak French but there would be advantages to not understanding the inner workings of dentistry.
She was about to close the app when a photograph caught her eye.
She lifted the phone closer and peered at the text.
A bookshop on the Left Bank was looking for someone to help out part-time during the summer.
Audrey let out a snort of laughter. Working in a book-shop? If a worse job existed, she couldn’t think of it. She hated books. She hated reading.
She was about to scroll past the job when something caught her eye.
Did that say accommodation included? Yes, it did.
Audrey stared at her phone. That side of things had been worrying her. How was she going to find somewhere to live when she didn’t speak French, didn’t know Paris and had limited funds?
Her pulse raced forward, taking her imagination with it.
A job with accommodation would solve all her problems. Still, a bookshop? She saw now that it was a used bookshop. Did that mean it was full of books people had given away? That was a concept she could get behind.
What sort of person would they be looking for?
Someone brainy and serious. Audrey was neither of those things, but she could fake it if necessary. She was used to presenting a fake self to the world. She’d tie her hair back. Maybe buy a pair of glasses to make herself look more intelligent. Try not to talk too much or crack jokes. That way she’d be less likely to reveal her real self.
“Hey! Audie!” Meena appeared in front of her. “I was wondering if you’d be here.”
Meena worked at the supermarket in the high street and sometimes they managed to coincide their lunch break.
“You’re late.”
“I was being verbally abused by a customer who couldn’t find his favorite brand of canned tomatoes.”
Audrey didn’t see how a can of tomatoes could be the cause of friction, but she did know people got all revved up about different things. “Tomato rage.”
“Don’t even joke about it. I was afraid he was going to throw it at me, and it was a multipack. That would have been the end of me.” Meena sat down next to her and opened her lunch box. “Where’s your lunch?”
“I ate it.” Audrey put her phone on her lap. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know.” Meena investigated. “Pakora, rice, yogurt—that’s to absorb the heat from the chili.”
“It smells good. What’s in it?”
“Vegetables and love.” Meena grinned. “That’s what my mum told me. When I was little I thought you bought love in the market, along with carrots.”
“I can’t believe your mum makes all that for you every day and works as a doctor.”
“Yeah, well, home-cooked food is a big deal in my house. Mum says she finds cooking calming. I do, too. Sometimes I think my whole family is glued together by food.”
Audrey felt no envy that her friend had a place at Oxford University, but she envied Meena her family. “Is your sister still good at French?”
“My sister is okay but my cousin is better. She gets top marks in everything.” Meena ate a spoonful of yogurt. “It’s annoying how good she is at languages.”
“There’s a job I want to apply for, but my French isn’t good enough. Do you think she’d help?”
“Yes. If she doesn’t, I won’t help her with physics.” Meena leaned across, trying to read Audrey’s phone. “What’s the job?”
“It’s a bookshop in Paris. The pay is crap, but it comes with a studio apartment.”
With the money she’d saved from working in the hair salon she’d be able to afford to get herself to Paris and keep herself for two weeks, maybe three if she ate only one meal a day. Then she’d need to find a job.
True, she didn’t know anything about the Left Bank or the Right Bank and would definitely get them muddled up because knowing her left from her right was one of her biggest struggles, but she’d find a way.
“Wait.” Meena stopped chewing. “You’re going to have your own apartment and a job in a bookshop? That’s cool. But if your French isn’t good enough to apply for the job, how are you going to manage when you get there?”
The same way she’d lived her whole life. “I’ll muddle through.”
“You’re so brave. What do they want you to do?”
“I was hoping you could tell me that. Your French is pretty good, too.” Audrey thrust the phone toward her friend, and Meena read it quickly.
“You need to write a piece on why books and reading are important.”
“Crap.”
Meena wiped her fingers. “I thought you hated books and reading.”
“I do. I prefer movies.” Her secret passion was watching animated movies, but she’d never admit to anything so childish. “Obviously I’m not going to tell them that. Does your cousin like books?”
“Yes. She’s always reading.”
“Great. So if she could write why she loves books, in French, I’ll send that off. Can you ask her tonight?”
“Sure.” Meena peered into her lunch box. “Why does my mum make me so much food? If I ate it all I’d be the size of a small office building. Every day I have to throw it away in case she finds out I didn’t eat it all and gets offended. I don’t suppose you want some, do you?”
“Sure.” Audrey had to stop herself from falling face-first into the lunch box like Hardy and his dog bowl. “Anything for a friend.”
She consumed the rest of Meena’s food and tried to figure out a way to persuade Meena’s mother to adopt her.
She was on her way back to the salon when her mother texted.
Come home. It’s an emergency.
Audrey stopped in the doorway. Ellen was cutting hair. Milly answering the phone. The salon was heaving with people. And there was Mrs. Dunmore, who always booked on a Saturday because she liked Audrey to wash her hair.
She glanced at her phone again, torn.
Her mother’s idea of an emergency was running out of gin.
Saturday was the busiest day of the week at work. She was part of a team. She wasn’t going to let them down.
She switched off her phone and walked into the salon.
By the time she eventually arrived home, her mother was waiting for her at the front door, her face ravaged by grief and her breath smelling of alcohol.
“Ron and I have broken up.”
Audrey’s heart hit the ground. “But the wedding is in a week. What happened?”
She walked into the house and closed the door, keen to keep their problems firmly inside.
“I drove him away. Everybody leaves me. No one loves me.”
Audrey struggled to stay calm.
It was her worst nightmare. She’d put all her faith in Ron. “What did you fight about?”
“Nothing!”
“It must have been something.”
“I can’t even remember.” Linda waved her hand. “Something small. I said it was obvious that he didn’t love me and that he might as well just leave right now, so he did.”
“Did he—” Audrey swallowed. “Did he actually say he wanted to break up? Maybe he just needed some air.” She needed air all the time when she was around her mother. “Have you called him?”
“What’s the point? He was always going to leave at some point, so maybe it’s better that it’s now.” Her mother sank onto the sofa. “You’re right, I have to take control of my life.”
Audrey felt a flutter of hope. That was something, at least. “Right. We’ll make an appointment with the doctor. I’ll come with you, and—”
“I started with your room.”
“What?”
“Your room was a mess. Normally I overlook it, but I decided that from today we’re both turning over a new leaf.”
Audrey’s heart started to pound. She wasn’t the one who needed to turn over a new leaf.
“You tidied my room?”
“Not only tidied. I had a clear-out. You’re an adult now, Audrey. You don’t need all that rubbish around you. I filled two black sacks with things you should have thrown out years ago.”
Audrey stared at her mother, and a horrible premonition washed over her.
Surely her mother wouldn’t have—
She couldn’t—
She left the room at a run, taking the stairs so fast she stumbled twice.
Please no, no, don’t let her have done it.
She pushed open the door of her room and stared at her bed. “Mum?” Her voice was hoarse. “Where’s my teddy bear?”
Grace (#ulink_56fcc04c-fd7b-57bc-bab0-fbfa01704417)
When Grace’s parents died, it had been impossible to escape the sympathy. It had wrapped around her like tentacles, squeezing and squeezing until she couldn’t breathe. There was speculation, too, of course, about what exactly had happened on that night, but no one voiced their thoughts directly to her. Everyone had handled her carefully. They’d tiptoed, sent her anxious glances, whispered among themselves—is she doing okay?
It was the same now.
“One sourdough loaf?” Clemmie bagged it up and handed it to Grace with a pitying look. “How are you doing?”
“Great,” Grace lied.
She’d learned a lot about herself since David had left. She’d learned it was possible to smile while crying inside and make cheerful conversation even when you wanted to tell someone to mind their own business.
“You’ve lost a bit of weight.”
Grace paid for the bread. “Slimming down for the summer.”
“It must be so hard.”
She’d seen that same look in people’s eyes ten times a day in the weeks since David had left her. She used to love this small town that she and David had made their home, but now she hated it. In a city she could have disappeared, but here she stood out like a red wine stain on a white carpet. Everyone knew, and each encounter left another tiny cut in her flesh and her feelings, until she felt as if she’d walked naked through a thornbush.
If David hadn’t been the editor of the newspaper, his transgression probably would have made the headlines.
Editor leaves boring wife.
In the days after it had happened even the children in her class had avoided eye contact. None of them had asked her how her Valentine’s date had gone. They’d been particularly well behaved, as if trying to avoid her attention.
Several of them probably had Lissa as a babysitter.
They all assumed the affair must be the worst thing about it, but for Grace the worst thing was losing David.
Being left wasn’t a gentle thing. It was a vicious wrench, a tearing of flesh and feelings. Occasionally, she glanced down at herself and was surprised to discover she wasn’t bleeding. Such a trauma should at least leave a bruise, surely?
She missed the sound of his voice, his familiar solid presence in the bed next to her. She even missed the parts that had annoyed her, like the fact he always forgot his door key. Most of all she missed his gentle humor and wise counsel. She felt like a climbing plant that had lost its support. Without something to lean on, she was lying in an unsightly tangle, unable to unravel herself.
Her thoughts were an endless conveyer belt of what-ifs. What if she’d worn sexier underwear? What if she’d ar ranged more nights away in hotels? No, that wouldn’t have helped. He already thought she was too organizing. She could have encouraged him to arrange nights in hotels, except that then she knew it wouldn’t have happened. Part of the reason she organized things was because David didn’t. He preferred to be more relaxed and spontaneous, but Grace knew that didn’t get you a hotel booking on a busy day.
Would Lissa remind him to take his cholesterol medication?
She’d probably be too busy encouraging him to take Viagra.
“She was in here yesterday.” Clemmie lowered her voice in that way people did when they were talking about something scandalous. “I still can’t believe it. I mean Lissa. No offense, but there’s something a bit disgusting about it.”
Why was it that people said “no offense” before going on to say something clearly offensive?
“I have to go, Clemmie.” If it hadn’t been for the fact that Sophie was about to finish school, she would have contemplated moving.
“I mean, it’s obvious what he saw in her.” Clemmie was undeterred by Grace’s attempt to curtail the conversation. “She’s a pretty girl and no guy is going to say no to that if it’s on offer, is he? I blame her.”
I blame him.
The David Grace had married never would have had an affair, but she no longer knew the man she was married to. He was a mystery to her.
It was depressing to be part of such a desperate cliché, and mortifying to think everyone was talking about her.
“Here—” Clemmie dropped two doughnuts into a bag and handed them to Grace. “No charge.”
To top it off, she looked like a woman who needed to drown herself in sugar.
Sophie was sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework when Grace arrived home. “Hi, Mom.” She’d lost that open, trusting happy smile that had been part of her personality. Now there was caution, as if she did a quick audit to check if life was about to slap her again or if it was safe to smile. “Did something happen? You look pale.”
“Forgot to put my makeup on.” Grace put the loaf and the doughnuts on the table. As a child she’d learned to hide her feelings. She’d been a master of secrecy. So why was she finding this so hard? “There’s chicken in the fridge and I thought I’d put together a salad.”
“Delicious.”
The phone rang as Grace was rinsing tomatoes. She glanced at her phone and spilled half the tomatoes in the sink.
“It’s your dad.”
Sophie’s jaw lifted. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
She’d always been a daddy’s girl, which had made it harder when disillusionment took the shine off that relationship. Sophie hadn’t cared much when she’d discovered Santa didn’t exist, or the tooth fairy, but she’d almost broken when she’d found out her daddy wasn’t the man she’d believed him to be.
Grace rescued the tomatoes and sliced them with more violence than was strictly necessary. “He’s still your father, honey.”
She remembered feeling the same shock when she’d discovered the truth about her own parents. The puzzlement and disappointment of realizing they were human and flawed. Somehow you expected your parents to know better than you did. To be able to rise above the failings that afflicted other people.
It was frightening to realize adults didn’t have it figured out, because if your parents didn’t have the answers, then who was a child supposed to rely on?
“I don’t need reminding. It’s all I think about.” Sophie pushed her homework to one side and laid the table. Since that awful day when David had come out of the hospital, she’d hovered around Grace like a protective force field.
It was touching, but it also added stress because Grace had to watch her every move and every reaction. In front of Sophie she had to hold it together. No matter how angry and upset she was with David, she couldn’t share that with her daughter.
Sophie’s reaction had been worse, far worse, than Grace had anticipated. Although David had told her the news, Grace had insisted on being there because she hadn’t trusted David to handle Sophie’s emotions in a sensitive way. In the end he’d stumbled his way through it, as clumsy as a drunk knocking over chairs in a bar. He’d mumbled something about how people changed over time, and had started to say that he and Grace had grown apart but then he’d seen something in Grace’s expression and confessed that it had been his decision and his alone. When he’d started talking about Lissa, it had been hard to figure out who of the three of them was the most embarrassed. It had been excruciating.
For days afterward their daughter had raged around the house, ricocheting between anger and tears. It was disgusting. Gross. She was going to have to leave school. Everyone would be talking about it. She never wanted to see her dad again.
After a few days of continual sobbing, Sophie had returned to school, vowing never to trust a man in her life.
Together they’d stumbled and shivered their way through the next few months.
The only bright light in their dark days was that Sophie had been accepted into Stanford.
Grace showed only her pride and her joy. Dismay and fear she kept hidden.
How would she cope? What would she do when Sophie left, too? She was facing a life that looked nothing like the one she’d planned for herself. It was like hiking in the wilderness with no map.
David had moved in with Lissa the night he’d been discharged from hospital, and they were now sharing her small one-roomed apartment on the other side of town.
“I’ve decided I’m not going to travel this summer.” Sophie mixed dressing for the salad.
“What? Why? You’ve been looking forward to it.”
“I’m not leaving you.” Sophie tossed the salad violently, as if each leaf had personally offended her. “Unless you’d consider still going to Paris?”
“Alone?”
“Why not?” Sophie rescued a leaf that had landed on the table. “People travel alone all the time.”
Grace hadn’t traveled alone since she was eighteen. All the trips she’d taken in the last twenty-five years had been with David.
Should she feel embarrassed about that? Maybe she should have traveled alone. But why would she when the thought of traveling with David was so much more appealing? And it wasn’t as if they could afford multiple holidays.
“This trip was ridiculously expensive. Even if I cancel the hotel, I’ll still lose a fortune on the flights.”
“Then why cancel? You deserve a treat. I really think you should go, Mom.”
But it wouldn’t be a treat. It would be a cruel reminder of what she’d lost. She’d be imagining how it might have been if they’d done it together. She’d assumed they’d be making memories together. It hadn’t occurred to her that those memories wouldn’t include David.
“Maybe I’ll do something else later in the summer.”
Sophie put the salad in the center of the table. “If you don’t go, I don’t go.”
When had Sophie become this stubborn? “You’ve been planning it for months. Things have changed for me, but they don’t have to change for you.”
“Seriously?” Sophie clattered plates. “My father is sleeping with my friend, and you think things haven’t changed? Everyone at school knows, and most people think it’s disgusting and gross, which, by the way, it totally is. I mean, this is my dad and I’m having to think about—” She shuddered. “Never mind. Teachers keep asking me how I’m doing. Hello, humiliation.”
Every word she spoke inflicted more damage to Grace’s wounded heart.
For the first time in her life she came close to hating David.
“We’ll get through this.” She was surprised by how strong she sounded, and Sophie looked surprised, too.
“I don’t get how you can be so calm.”
“I’m doing my best in difficult circumstances, and that’s all anyone can do. You need to carry on and do all the things you were going to do before this happened.”
Sophie slid into her seat and pushed the salad toward Grace. “No.”
It was scary to acknowledge that a small, needy part of her wanted her daughter to stay home for the summer. Don’t leave me. But she wasn’t going to listen to her inner child.
“We’ll argue about it another time.”
They sat down to eat. Grace was relieved to see Sophie eating normally again. For weeks after David had left, she’d eaten almost nothing.
“I heard Sam is having a party. Are you going?”
“No.” Sophie sliced into chicken. “He’s still with Callie. And don’t look like that, because I don’t even care. I’ve chosen a career over relationships.”
“You can have both.” Grace helped herself to more salad and silently cursed David.
“A career is in your control. I am going to work my butt off in college and get a brilliant job. I am going to shatter that glass ceiling into so many pieces that all the men around me cut their feet on the shards.”
Grace put her fork down. “Don’t let what happened color your view on life. I don’t want you to miss out on love and family because of this.”
Sophie stabbed a piece of chicken. “Would you have married Dad if you’d known this was going to happen? I mean, you’ve been together forever and he’s thrown that away like it’s nothing. Was it even worth it?”
Grace thought back to the beginning of their relationship. The night that had brought them together. She and David were the only ones who knew the exact circumstances. She thought about the happiness they’d shared.
“I would. We had many happy years.” One day, maybe, she’d be able to look back with fondness. “And if I hadn’t met your dad, I wouldn’t have you. Sometimes you’re a pain, of course, but mostly you turned out pretty well.” She was relieved when her daughter threw her a grin.
Sophie stood up to clear the plates and paused, her attention caught by movement outside the window. “Dad is here!”
“No!” Grace stood up, too, heart pounding. “Why?”
“Probably because we didn’t answer the phone.”
The last thing she needed was an impromptu visit from David. It felt as if the universe was testing her, to see how far it could go before she cracked. “Go upstairs and do your homework, Sophie.”
Sophie folded her arms. “I’m not leaving you.” Her father walking out had made her draw closer to her mother. She had chosen a side, even though Grace had been careful not to encourage it.
She didn’t want Sophie to cut David from her life.
He hadn’t mentioned divorce since that awful night back in February, but Grace assumed he was going to raise it again at some point. Whatever happened, he’d always be Sophie’s father.
“Please, Sophie.”
“Mom—”
“Sophie!”
“Fine.” Sophie grabbed her laptop and headed for the stairs. “I don’t want to see him anyway.”
Grace thought about all the times Sophie had listened for her father coming home. She’d race through the house, filling it with her joyful yells, Daddy, Daddy.
She opened the door, hating the fact that she felt nervous. It seemed unjust that she should be the one feeling that way.
It had been weeks since she’d seen him, and her first thought was that he didn’t look like himself.
David was always clean-shaven, but today his jaw was darkened by stubble. On another man it might have looked as if he hadn’t bothered to shave, but on him it looked annoyingly good. The touches of gray in his hair looked good on him, too. He was broad shouldered and solid. The kind of man people leaned on in a crisis. She’d leaned on him. She wanted to lean on him now, but as he was the cause of this current crisis that impulse made no sense.
If he was suffering, it didn’t show. She, on the other hand, was fairly sure that her suffering was as visible as a drop of blood on fresh snow.
If he looked closely he’d probably see the nights she hadn’t slept, the tears she’d shed, the food she hadn’t eaten.
She made a note to always wear makeup from now on, even in bed. That way she couldn’t be caught out.
“Grace.” His voice was gentle. He might have been speaking to the victim of a traffic accident. I’m terribly sorry to be the bearer of bad news. “Can we talk?”
“You should have called.”
“I did. You didn’t answer. Please, Grace.” In that split second, she saw the old David. The David who had supported her through unspeakably tough times, the David who understood her.
She opened the door wider. “Five minutes.”
He stepped through the door and had the good manners to pause, waiting for her to direct him even though he’d lived here with her for twenty-five years. They’d bought the house together and when they’d picked up the keys he’d carried her over the threshold. They’d had sex in every room in the house, including the bathtub.
“Kitchen,” she said, and saw him glance into the living room as they passed the door.
“You moved the sofa.”
“The light was fading the fabric.” She didn’t tell him that she’d moved things around in the hope that she wouldn’t feel his absence every time she walked into a room.
He waited until she sat down before he sat, too.
“Where’s Sophie?”
“Upstairs, working.”
“How is she doing?”
“How do you think she is doing?”
“I don’t know. She won’t talk to me.”
For the first time she noticed he looked tired, too.
Too much sex, she thought bitterly.
“It’s been a shock for her. You have to give her time.”
David stared at his hands. “Hurting you both was the last thing I wanted to do.”
“And yet you did.”
He lifted his gaze. “Were you honestly happy in our marriage?”
“Yes. I liked the life we had, David.”
“Our life was safe and predictable, and I know you need that. But a marriage has to be more than a routine that doesn’t change. Sometimes I felt you wanted me as a support and a crutch. Not as a man.”
“You’re saying this is my fault?”
He spread his hands. “I’m not attributing blame. I’m trying to get you to listen to me and see that there are two sides.”
“Why? The time to have this conversation would have been before you had an affair and walked out.”
He rubbed his fingers over his forehead, as if he was trying to massage away the pain. She knew every one of his gestures. This one meant he was dealing with a situation for which there was no fix.
“Do you need anything?” He let his hand drop. “Money, or—”
Or what? The only thing she needed was sitting in front of her.
“I’m fine.” She still didn’t really know why he was here and then she saw him draw breath and knew she was about to find out.
He studied something on the kitchen counter. “Have you canceled the trip to Paris?”
“No.” Canceling would be the final acknowledgment that her marriage was over. Also, the moment she did it she knew Sophie would also cancel her own trip. She was still figuring out how to handle that.
“Right. Good.”
Good? Her heart skipped in her chest.
Had he changed his mind? That was why he’d come here tonight, to find a way to ask her forgiveness.
This was the first step toward reconciliation.
Would she be able to forgive him?
Yes, she probably would. They’d need to move away, of course. Leave this town and move to a place where no one knew them. They’d see a counselor. Find their way through this knotty mess. Rebuild their lives.
“You don’t want me to cancel?”
“I’ll pay you for my flight ticket. I don’t want you to lose the money. And I’ll take over the hotel reservation.”
Grace felt as if her brain was working in slow motion. He didn’t want to take her to Paris. He was offering her guilt money.
And suddenly she knew. God, she was so slow.
“You’re taking Lissa.”
He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Grace—”
“You want the tickets so you can take the girl—” she emphasized girl “—you’re having an affair with, on our anniversary trip.”
He looked almost as sick as she felt.
“I know it’s not the most tactful thing to ask you.” He looked desperately uncomfortable. “But it does make financial sense. You already booked the whole trip, and I know you’ll lose money when you cancel.”
She could imagine how the discussion might have gone with Lissa.
He would have fought it, she was sure of that.
I can’t expect my wife to give me the tickets she booked to celebrate our anniversary so that I can take my lover.
Maybe Lissa had been testing him, checking how far he’d go for her.
A part of Grace wanted to know the answer to that, too.
He was a man at war on the inside. Good versus bad. David, the good guy, trying to slide into the skin of bad guy and finding it didn’t fit comfortably.
“What have you turned into, David? What’s happened to the man I married?” She stood up quickly, frightened that her emotions would tumble onto the table between them. “Go. I said five minutes, and you’ve had your five minutes.”
His fingers curled and uncurled. “I know it’s been stressful for you, but it’s also been stressful for Lissa.” He slid her a look. Wild. A little desperate. “Some of the people in town don’t even speak to her anymore. She’s finding it upsetting. She’s young, Grace. She’s struggling to handle all this.”
Grace almost choked. “She’s struggling?”
“I’ve lost a lot, too. I’ve lost my house, my standing in the community and also my close relationship with my daughter.”
“She isn’t a pair of socks you’ve abandoned under the bed. You haven’t lost her. You chose something different.” Even as she said the words she was wondering what about me. Why wasn’t she on that list? Hadn’t she ever been important to him?
She looked more closely at him and saw that he looked haggard. Why hadn’t she noticed that right away? If anything he looked worse than she did. Maybe having a girlfriend half his age was proving harder work than he’d imagined.
“You need to leave now.” Before she picked up a skillet and clocked him over the head with it. That would give him the best headline he’d ever had in his time as editor. Shame he wouldn’t be alive to read it.
He stood up. “Let me pay you, Grace. I don’t want you to lose money.”
“I won’t lose money, because I’m not canceling.”
It was difficult to know which of them was most surprised.
David couldn’t have looked more dazed if she had clocked him over the head. “You’re surely not planning on going?”
“Yes, I’m going. I’ve been looking forward to it for ages. Why would I cancel?”
“Because—” He seemed lost for words, even though words were his job. “You don’t— You never— You travel with me. I’m the one who takes care of the passports and—”
“I can carry my own passport, David. And yes, in the past we’ve traveled together but you now have a new traveling companion, so I’ll travel alone. If Lissa needs a trip to Europe, you can arrange your own.”
“I— This isn’t like you.”
“Maybe we don’t know each other as well as we thought.”
“Maybe we don’t.” He took a deep breath. “Can I see Sophie?”
“No.” She’d discovered a layer of steel inside her that she didn’t know she had. “You’ll upset her and she has a test tomorrow.”
“I was the one who always reassured her before tests.”
“Maybe, but right now she doesn’t find your presence reassuring. Call her tomorrow, and if she feels like seeing you then she can. It’s her decision.”
She stalked to the front door and was relieved when he followed.
She’d half expected him to make a dive for the stairs.
He paused in the doorway, and his eyes were sad. “I know you’re never going to forgive me, but I didn’t want it to be this way, Grace.”
She gave him a little shove and closed the door between them, not because she wanted to be rude, but because she didn’t trust herself not to break down and cry.
She’d always believed she could control the things that happened in her life and keep her world in the shape she wanted it to be. Discovering that wasn’t the case was as frightening and heartbreaking as losing David.
Tears poured down her cheeks. She couldn’t let Sophie see her this upset.
She waited until David’s car disappeared into the distance, called up to Sophie to tell her where she was going and then drove to the one person who always made her feel safe.
Mimi (#ulink_6a8ef8eb-303f-5f34-b4ae-e9cd1eb7d031)
Through her kitchen window, Mimi saw Grace flying down the path toward her cottage.
The edges of her coat flapped open and the rain had dampened her hair into curls so that each strand appeared to be fighting with the next, but what really caught Mimi’s attention was her expression. Everything she felt showed on her face.
Instinctively Mimi reached for her camera but then put it down again. She’d recorded many things over her lifetime, but she wasn’t going to record her granddaughter’s pain.
As a child Grace had learned to hide it with most people, but never with Mimi. It was as if she’d given her grandmother the key that opened the door to her soul. In that moment she looked so like her mother that Mimi was immobilized, her memory transported to another time. It was like seeing Judy again, like being given a second chance.
Some women weren’t meant to be mothers. Mimi was one of them.
It was all my fault, and I’m sorry.
Her silent apology to her daughter went unheard and when Grace lifted her fingers to brush tears from her cheek, Mimi saw only the differences. The nose was different. The mouth was different. Grace’s face was oval and thinner than her mother’s, although Judy’s appearance had altered toward the end.
Mimi clutched at the kitchen counter, steadied herself.
Why did life come with so much tragedy?
Right now she felt every one of her ninety years, and for a fleeting second she wanted to lie down and curl into a ball and let life do whatever it needed to do.
And then Grace drew closer, and Mimi knew that while she was still able to function, she would never give up and let life do its worst. And she would never abandon Grace.
It was a relief to discover that the fight, the anger that she’d thought had maybe left her along with much of her hearing and her previously perfect eyesight, was still there.
She opened the door, heard the hiss of the rain on tarmac and breathed in the smell of damp grass.
Winter had been nudged aside by spring, but the sun had yet to emerge from hibernation. Every day brought a dank wetness, and skies heavy with cloud. The cold made Mimi’s bones ache. She longed for summer when she could fold away the extra blankets she kept close.
“Grace.”
Grace tumbled through the door into her arms, and Mimi almost staggered. It was as if grief had made her heavier. She led her to the pretty blue sofa that made her think of Mediterranean skies and azure seas. She sat, and Grace slid to the floor and sobbed into Mimi’s lap.
She’d done the same thing as a child, Mimi remembered. When her mother had rejected her, embarrassed her, frightened her.
It was painful to watch, and she stroked Grace’s hair, feeling frightened herself.
She’d seen enough in her nine decades not to be shocked by much, but she was shocked by this.
Oh, David, how could you?
David, who she would have said was the most solid, predictable, dependable man she’d ever met. He’d almost made Mimi believe in marriage.
What would happen now?
Was this karma? Was Grace being punished for Mimi’s sins?
Seeing Grace so safe and secure had given her joy. She hadn’t anticipated this, even though she should have done because she knew how easily life could change direction.
“I hate him.” Like a child she sobbed, her tears drenching the thin silk of Mimi’s dress. “I truly hate him.”
“No, you don’t.” Mimi held her, stroking her shoulder. “You hate what he’s done.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing. At some point you’ll see that, but it might take a while.” David had been Grace’s rock. He’d given her the emotional stability she’d craved. Protected by his love, she’d thrived.
“I am never going to forgive him. She’s twenty-three. He has completely and utterly humiliated me. Everywhere I go, people are wondering about me. They’re talking about what I did wrong.”
“You did nothing wrong, Grace.”
“Then why did he leave?”
Such a simple question for a complicated situation.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not important. I’m never important.”
“That’s not true.” Mimi knew this was about more than David. “Your mom was sick. It was different.”
“Maybe the reasons, but not the result.” Grace’s words emerged in an uneven volley, between sobs. “I have to be cheerful and together for Sophie, and put on my best coping face whenever I leave the house.” She blew her nose. “People are looking at me wondering what I did wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Grace.”
“I must have done something, or he wouldn’t have left me for her.”
“Men sometimes do selfish things.” Mimi paused. “Women, too.”
She’d been selfish, hadn’t she?
It was something she didn’t like to admit to herself, which was why she’d never discussed it with anyone. Not even Grace. Her family saw only the facts—that she’d had a child.
They didn’t know the history of her heart.
Grace looked at her, her eyes bruised with grief. “He chose her over me.”
Mimi’s heart felt heavy in her chest. She knew this wasn’t just about David. “It’s not that simple.”
“Isn’t it? He is living with her. And now I have to go to Paris on my own.” The words were barely distinguishable between the sobs.
“You’re still going to Paris?” Mimi’s heart gave a little lift, like a bird catching a thermal.
“I don’t have any choice—” Grace hiccuped, sobbed, hiccuped again. “If I don’t go, Sophie won’t travel this summer. And I am not giving the tickets to David. I’m not that evolved.”
“Did he ask for them?” Surely even a man blinded by a new infatuation—she refused to believe it was love—wouldn’t do something so thoughtless and cruel?
“Yes. I told him I was using them.” Grace blew her nose. “And I can’t see a way out of it that doesn’t involve ruining Sophie’s summer.”
She would do it, Mimi knew, because Grace was an excellent mother. A far better mother than Mimi had ever been.
“You might enjoy it.”
“It would be a miserable trip. It feels like the wrong choice.”
“Paris is never the wrong choice. And staying here would be worse.”
Grace brushed her hand across her cheeks. “It was supposed to be a trip of a lifetime with the man I love.”
Mimi ignored the ache in her chest. “It can still be the trip of a lifetime.”
“Memorable for the fact that I’m alone in the City of Lights? Paris is for lovers.”
Mimi made an unladylike sound. “Paris is for everyone. Don’t romanticize, Grace.”
“I haven’t traveled alone since I was eighteen, and even then I stayed with the French family you put me in touch with.”
“Then it’s time you traveled alone again.”
“I booked an expensive hotel.”
“Quelle plasir,” Mimi murmured. “I don’t see the hardship. You will have to spell it out for me. Go! You might surprise yourself and have a good time.”
Grace’s expression said that the chances of that were zero. “You want me to do this for Sophie.”
“I want you to do it for you. You will do it and send David pictures so that he can see for himself what a fool he is.”
“I don’t know how to live without him, Mimi.” There was fear in her voice, and Mimi felt the same fear.
What if she couldn’t help Grace through this? She’d failed her own daughter. What if she failed her granddaughter, too?
She punched her way through it.
“You know what I’ve always said—a man is icing on the cake, that’s all. And with all the new research on the dangers of sugar, maybe you’re better off without.”
“You can’t possibly understand. You’ve never been in love. You can’t imagine what it feels like to lose it.”
Mimi felt pain slice through her. She knew exactly how it felt. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can’t survive without David. Life might be tougher, and different, but you will find a way.”
She’d found a way. There had been times when she’d thought that living without him might kill her, but it hadn’t. A broken heart, she’d discovered, was rarely fatal. Instead, it inflicted a slow, painful torture.
Mimi was too old to do many things but remembering was one skill she hadn’t lost. She often thought about him. Of dancing late into the night, strolls along cobbled streets wrapped in the darkness of Paris, long nights entwined together with the open window letting in the breath of wind and street noise.
Was he still alive? Did he ever think of her?
Did he consider her the love of his life or his biggest mistake?
Grace fumbled for her bag. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be doing this to you. You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”
“I’m providing a sympathetic ear and a shoulder, that’s all.”

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