Page 20 of The Life We Almost Had

I wondered if she’d cry.

Chapter Eleven

Anna

Usually I loved spending time with my nan but today my mind was somewhere else. With someone else.

‘If you need to go and be with that young man of yours…’ Nan smiled kindly. Behind me I could sense Mum shaking her head in a don’t-mention-Adam way.

‘I’m not seeing him this weekend, Nan.’ I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see him again.

‘You’ll see him soon enough,’ Mum said briskly. She was trying to cheer me up but it still felt dismissive. ‘I’m going to make some sandwiches.’ She disappeared into the kitchen.

‘If you’ve had a falling-out with Adam, sort it out. Life’s too short.’ Nan’s eyes misted and I knew she was thinking of Grandad. It had been years since he had died but she still missed him. We all did. There was a pause while we were both lost in our own thoughts, gazing out at the garden, which was a riot of spring colour. Nan was looking directly at the tangle of yellow and pink flowers that fought for space in her pots, but from the expression on her face I knew she was only seeing her past. I wanted her to share that with me.

‘Nan?’ I tucked my legs under me on the sofa. ‘If you’d known how much it hurt to be without Grandad, would you still have fallen in love with him?’

‘Anna, you can’t choose who you fall in love with. I knew that very first night we met that I’d spend the rest of my life with him.’

‘Tell me again about your first meeting.’

‘You’re not testing my memory, are you?’ Nan narrowed her eyes. ‘Because despite what that doctor who doesn’t look old enough to have left school says, there’s nothing wrong with me.’

‘I just like hearing it.’ I was a hopeless romantic although I was feeling more hopeless than anything else, glancing at my phone again. Nothing.

‘I was a waitress and Grandad came in for his lunch. I served him faggots and gravy and he asked what time my shift ended. It had only just begun and so he sat there drinking coffee for five hours, waiting for me. At dead on five when I’d finished, he walked over to the jukebox and put on Elvis’s ‘Love me Tender’ and asked me to dance. It wasn’t the place for dancing, but we did, in between the tables, my boss glaring at me. Before the song had finished, I had fallen head over heels for your grandad.’

Listening to their story always made me emotional but today, more than ever, I felt Nan’s hope, her joy, her certainty. I felt it all in the way I had with Adam at the airport. How had we gone so wrong? I wiped my eyes.

‘Anna. If it’s meant to be, it will be,’ Nan said.

‘Here we go.’ Mum set a tray down on the coffee table, a plate piled with egg sandwiches. The smell made my stomach roll. Out of politeness rather than hunger, I picked one up and nibbled at the crust but I couldn’t eat it. My stomach was filled with an anxious sick feeling every time I thought about Adam, which was pretty much all of the time.

‘I’m not hungry.’ I stood. ‘I’ll go and change your sheets, Nan.’

‘You’re a good girl, Anna. I hope Adam realizes how lucky he is.’

I turned away quickly before she could read me. Adam probably felt many things but was lucky one of them? I just didn’t know.

‘Shall we pick up a takeaway on the way home?’ It was almost six by the time we left Nan’s; she was eating with Mrs Percival, the widow from next door. I wasn’t really hungry but we still had to eat. Crispy battered cod and chips doused with salt and vinegar might bring a smidgeon of comfort.

‘Let’s not think about food yet,’ Mum said.

‘But it’s nearly dinner—’

‘I said let’s wait and see.’

It wasn’t like Mum to snap but I couldn’t imagine how she felt seeing my nan slowly begin to slip away from her, knowing that from here on in, it would only get worse. I glanced at her profile as she drove. Her jaw set. Fingers gripping the wheel tightly.

‘Nan was good today, don’t you think?’ There hasn’t yet been a time that she hasn’t known me or Mum. Sometimes it was hard to believe there was anything wrong with her.

‘She was. I often think the doctor’s got it wrong. We all get forgetful, don’t we? Walk into a room to find we’ve no idea what we went in there for. Am I kidding myself, Anna? She seems fine, doesn’t she? Mostly.’ Her question drips with a desperation that makes my heart hurt.

‘She does, but if there comes a time she isn’t… fine… then we’ll be there for her. You and me.’

‘I do the best I can for both of you.’ Mum’s voice was quiet.

‘I know.’

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