‘Forget it, Lo,’ I murmur.
‘Josh, a family can be whatever you want it to be. It’s not about blood, or biology. You create your family. A love like that... it’s made, not inherited. You have our girls, and Polly’s boys, and Emma. Don’t you see?’
‘Better go,’ I whisper, blinking back fresh emotion. ‘I’m teaching in a bit.’
‘I saw Rach yesterday,’ she says, as I’m pulling on my coat and scarf. ‘She’s found a new house.’
‘That’s good. She okay?’
‘You should get in touch.’
My mind journeys back in time nearly twenty-two years. Darren doing his Superman impression.You get what I’m saying. Just give her some time.
‘I’ll wait till she gets in touch with me,’ I say to Lola.
A wry smile. ‘Still playing that game?’
‘I just don’t want her to think—’
‘She doesn’t think anything. But she does need all the friends she can get right now.’
76.
Rachel
June 2027
For our birthday, Josh invites me out to lunch. Nothing fancy, but nice enough to feel like an occasion.
Now that we live less than ten minutes apart, we’ve been seeing each other a fair bit, for coffee and brunch dates, dinner, movie nights. If Emma’s around, she tags along too. I love watching her and Josh spend time together, catching up and making each other laugh, swapping stories about me.
Today, though, it’s just the two of us. Which is equally lovely. Time and smiles shared across a table, still my favourite thing to do after nearly forty years of knowing him.
He is telling me about his holiday. He has just come back from a fortnight in the Bahamas, newly suntanned and enviably refreshed. He invited me to go too, when he first booked the tickets. Emma was adamant I should accept, even threatening to say yes on my behalf. But in the end there were too many reasons not to. The romance of the resort. The idea of people staring at us, lying on a beach together. The myriad complications of swimsuits and alcohol and two weeks alone with Josh while still, in my heart, knowing him to be the most handsome man in any room. Or poolside cabana, come to that.
He asks after Emma now, and I tell him she’s waiting to find out if she will gain tenancy with the Gray’s Inn chambers where she’s been working as a pupil barrister. The pressure to perform has been fierce; I don’t think she’s slept more than three hours a night for almost a full year. But soon my baby, who was once nobigger than a blueberry, could be defending criminals in a court of law for a living.
The waiter brings over our drinks and a basket of warm rolls. I take one and smother whipped butter on to it, though I have to break it into pieces, because my dentist has ordered me to stop tearing bread apart with my teeth.
‘Do you think you could ever put weight on?’ I ask Josh.
‘Er, I don’t think so. Not in the same way as other people. Why?’
‘I don’t know. I was thinking about how you always wear the same pair of jeans.’
Yes – always the same jeans and slate-grey T-shirt, dark hair persistently shambolic. Endearingly uncomplicated, doing his best to blend in.
‘You mean, the samekindof jeans. I have more than one pair, Rach.’
‘Well, it must be nice, anyway. Not to have to worry about it.’
‘Yeah, I’ll add it to my list of minor upsides.’ A pause. ‘Hey, you know my crime series airs in a couple of months?’
‘Of course. It’s on the calendar in glitter pen,’ I say with a smile.
‘There’s a premiere in London. Will you come?’
The smile fades a little. ‘Ah, I couldn’t.’
