I’m with Tash in her kitchen, the morning after seeing Helen and Caleb embracing outside his studio. I’ve been reading through the latest hard copy of my manuscript since dawn, scribbling all over it with red pen. I’ve realized recently that whenever anything’s troubling me—no matter how serious, or trivial—delving into my writing has become my way to deal with it. Or not deal with it, depending on how you look at things. Anyway, it helps, being able to lose myself in something. Whatever’s playing on my mind, I always end up finding some version of it somewhere on the page.
The kitchen is bright with chilly light and filled with those homely start-of-the-day scents—browned toast and brewed coffee and freshly laundered clothes. Simon and Dylan have already left the house, andnow it’s just me and Tash, grabbing half an hour together before she’s due in at the office and I open up at Pebbles & Paper.
“Did Caleb call you, afterward?”
I smile, grimly. “Yeah, at one a.m.” I didn’t pick up, and he’s not sent me a message since. So as to how his dinner went with Helen, I’m still firmly in the dark.
Tash winces. “Ouch.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know—maybe it was too much to expect, that she’d be out of his life so soon after they split up.”
“What, you think... he still has feelings for her?”
The idea of Caleb rediscovering his love for Helen at dinner last night—laughing at her jokes, flirting through dessert, not wanting to leave the restaurant—makes my chest contract and my heart spin. “I didn’t think so, but... he messaged me at one o’clock. So they must have gone out for drinks, and...” I sigh. “Who knows? Maybe.”
This is what comes, I think grimly,of risking your heart with someone who seems too good to be true.
“You could check his phone.”
I laugh, glumly. “Come on.”
She shrugs. “Why not?”
“If you reach that point, you’re better off not being together at all, aren’t you?”
Tash swallows, then looks down at her hands, spins her wedding ring a couple of times. “I don’t know. Sometimes... if you just need that reassurance...”
For some reason, the expression on her face takes me back to the argument she and Simon had in the garden at Dylan’s birthday party.
“Tash,” I say, softly, though my heart is thundering. “Did Simon cheat on you?”
She waits for what seems like minutes before answering, her forehead creasing like a mask beginning to crack. “Yes. Once. With thiswoman called Andrea, a few months after we got married. She worked with him.”
I swear under my breath, grab her hands across the top of the kitchen island. “God, Tash... why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was ashamed,” she admits, her voice suddenly reed-thin. Her hands are quivering slightly. “It was embarrassing. We were newlyweds. I felt humiliated. I just wanted to pretend it had never happened.”
I think of what she just said, about checking Caleb’s phone. “You don’t think Simon’s still—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “We worked it out. We got through it. And I actually think it was the right thing at the time, not telling you, or Mum, or anyone, because... Simon’s the most amazing dad to Dylan, and he’s a really brilliant husband, and... we chose to make it work, Luce. And every day, I’m glad we did.”
I’m pleased to hear her say that, obviously, but I’m not sure what she thinks that means for me. “So, what—if something’s happened between Caleb and Helen you think I should just... be cool with it?”
“Of course not. But you can be in charge of how you deal with it.” Her frown deepens a little. “You know, this is why I never really bought into that whole soulmates idea, Luce. I think love is a choice, not a feeling. I think it’s something you have to work really hard at.”
I smile faintly. “Didn’t you say a girl at your work read a magazine article about soulmates that sounded terrifically convincing?”
She shrugs softly, like everything I’ve just told her has put paid to that brief dalliance with sentimentality. “Must have just got caught up in the moment.”
I might not align with my sister’s pragmatic approach to love, but I have to admit, it does all sound impressively mature. I squeeze her hands. “It’s amazing. That you could forgive Simon, move past it.” It would be hard to argue that this wasn’t a good thing—because if she hadn’t, Dylan wouldn’t exist.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she says quickly, not quite meeting my eye. “If he’d had a long-term affair, that would have been different. But I’m hardly perfect myself. I’ve done my fair share of... crappy things in the past. I guess I just tried to remember that... people make mistakes, you know? Good people can do bad things sometimes. Life isn’t black and white. It’s a million shades of gray, except nobody seems to accept that these days.”
“So what you’re saying is, don’t be too hard on Caleb?”
“Well, hear what he’s got to say at least, then go from there.” She looks up at me, eyes suddenly shining with sentiment. “I love you, Luce. I’m so lucky to have you.”
To my surprise, she starts to cry. It must be the emotion of talking about Simon and Andrea, so I go over and wrap my arms around her, kiss her hair, and tell her I love her, too.
