Page 26 of How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart?
I am silent as I take that in. I’m not sure how travel is supposed to completely change your personality. You read about it all the time.She went to India, found yoga and suddenly came back dressed in linen and addicted to lentils, she went to Greece and found a fit waiter and discovered the workings of her clitoris.I went out Grace. I came back Grace.
‘Instead you brought us back nieces,’ Meg continues. ‘And it was gorgeous and wonderful, but suddenly you became a mother, you threw everything into it, and I adore you for it. But…’
‘But?’
‘Your life revolves around this. You work from home, you don’t go out, you became a martyr to the cause.’
Deep down I know why I do all of this. It’s all distraction. What else is there to do? Start a relationship with someone like Sam? But what if I lost him? I wouldn’t be able to deal with that so instead I invest what I have elsewhere. I have daughters; I want to give them everything while I can and do it right.
‘When was the last time you went out?’ she asks.
‘I swim. I went to soft play last week.’
‘Exercise and child-based endeavours don’t count.’
‘They do very good coffee at soft play with the Biscoff biscuits in the wrapper and it’s very reasonably priced.’
Meg glares at me from across the kitchen table.
‘I did some research. There’s a posh lido with a very nice restaurant we can go to. Let me treat you.’ She puts a hand in mine.
‘Can I wear this?’
‘No. Wear that out of this house and I’ll disown you.’
Reaching over, she takes a large sip of tea and then eats three chocolate digestives like a sandwich. She looks over at another one of my lists.
‘You know someone called Delphine?’ she says, spying a name at the bottom.
‘Oh, that’s Joyce Kennedy’s editor. As Joyce’s book did so well, she was thinking I might want to write something similar. My widow’s tale.’
Meg pauses. She’s a part-time journalist by trade who would probably be able to advise me best in all of this but she gets that to pour my heart out on a piece of paper is not my bag. To put all those words down into sentences and have them make sense to anyone else seems an unfathomable task.
‘That’s quite an emotional thing to do. Really think it through. It’s either cathartic or it can dredge up a lot of pain.’ She snuggles into me. ‘I could help you, if you wanted to do that.’
‘You would?’
‘Yeah, out of all the sisters I have the best spelling for a start.’
She smiles broadly at me.
I’m glad you’re here. You’re mildly sensible and you give good advice. I’m relieved they didn’t send Lucy.
‘Now, tell me who’s invited to this memorial thing,’ she asks me.
‘All the usual London lot. Family, mates. Doug. Linh’s coming down. Amsterdam mates. There’s a whole contingent of teachers Tom knew from Japan who are using it as a chance for a reunion. Oh… and Ellie flies in at the end of the week from Australia.’
‘The one who made you get your shit tattoo, Ellie?’
‘Yeah, did I tell you she had a baby? A little girl. She called it Kennedy.’
‘She gave her baby Tom’s last name?’
‘Right? I’ve told her I’ll meet her for dinner. Look, at me… I’ll be going out.’
‘We’ll have to make you look hotter than her, though, yes? I’ll lend you a good bra.’
‘You have those?’
