Yet hand in hand with that gratitude was a small glint of annoyance. Was she expected to remain a widow for the rest of her life, never to attend another function with somebody else at her side?
As the kettle clicked off, she rose from the window seat and went over to make her drink. She was being overly sensitive, she told herself, while filling a mug and then dunking a camomile teabag into the water. The invitation had been sent with all the right motives, because really there was no need for Hugh’s family to include her in any of their big occasions, or get-togethers. It was a kindness on their part to invite her.
As kind as they were, she sometimes wished she could cut the tie. Whenever she was with his family all they wanted to do was talk about Hugh and recall the times they’d spent with him. How for the much younger ones he’d been their hero, the one they lived up to. For the older ones, they had endless stories about pranks they’d pulled off together, invariably instigated by Hugh. They didn’t seem to realise how painful it was for Nina to listen to their tales.
Was she wrong to want to cut the tie? But if she didn’t, how could she ever move forward when they gave the impression that they didn’t want her to? Hugh’s mother would be appalled at the very idea of Nina ever meeting someone new. Not that there was any danger of that happening anytime soon. Which was why she had been silly to be annoyed by the omission of the wordsplus oneon the wedding invitation.
Taking her drink over to the window seat, she resumed the task of dealing with the rest of the mail. That was when she found the letter from the clinic in Cambridge where she and Hugh had been undergoing IVF. Opening the envelope, she unfolded the letter and braced herself.
She had known this day would come and that she would have to make one of the most important decisions of her life, but she still wasn’t ready. It was never meant to be like this. She and Hugh were supposed to do this together and only when they were absolutely sure they were doing the right thing.
Chapter Three
‘You’re never going to let me win, are you?’
‘You’d hate it if I did,’ Cassie said as she slipped her racket into its case.
It was Sunday morning and she and Ben had just finished playing a game of tennis. Neither of them had played for some years before moving to Hope Hall, but now they tried to squeeze in a game most weekends. By her own admission, Cassie was a poor loser and probably more competitive than she ought to be, but it wasn’t in her DNA to go easy on an opponent. Even if it was a game of Christmas Day charades with her family, she played to win and was not always a generous team player if she found herself on the losing side.
‘You mean you’d hate to lose,’ Ben said, using a small towel to wipe the sweat from his face.
Keeping her expression deadpan, she said, ‘I wouldn’t know, it’s never happened.’
‘Hah!Nina beat you the last time the two of you played.’
Cassie laughed. ‘Only just. And anyway, she has the advantage in that her legs are twice as long as mine.’
‘My legs are longer than yours, but you still thrash me.’
‘Awbabe,’ she said, leaning in to kiss him, ‘are you hurting?’
‘No,’ he said with an exaggerated pout, ‘I’m sulking.’
‘You never sulk, that’s much more my style. Come on, let’sgo and have a shower together and I’ll find a way to make you feel better.’
‘That’s low, trying to appease me by offering your body.’
‘Was that what I was doing?’ she said, pressing herself against him provocatively.
He kissed her. ‘God, I certainly hope so.’ Then taking her hand in his – Ben loved to hold hands with her, no matter where they were or what they were doing – he led them off the court.
They hadn’t gone far when Cassie spotted two neighbours approaching. They were dressed in pristine Lululemon tennis whites with large racket bags slung over their shoulders and carrying matching drinks containers. They looked for all the world as though they were about to play on Centre Court at Wimbledon in a veterans match.
‘Uh-oh,’ Cassie said in a low voice, ‘incoming Enforcers.’
‘Play nicely,’ Ben murmured.
‘Don’t I always?’ she said. ‘Hi there!’ she called out, cranking up her inner dial to maximum cheerfulness and all too aware that Ben knew just how two-faced she was being.
She’d nicknamed Cheryl Saunders and Joanna Adams the Enforcers because, together with their husbands, they had taken on the running of the residents’ committee and took it very seriously. Both couples were retired and in their late sixties and while Cassie was only too relieved she hadn’t been pressganged into having to take on any of the roles, such as chairperson, secretary, or finance officer, she couldn’t help but feel the two women relished their roles a little too zealously. They were constantly sending out emails reminding residents of the various rules they were all meant to abide by, like no excessive noise in the public areas after ten o’clock at night, no rubbish bags left by the wheelie bins, no taking of another resident’s parking space and definitely no smoking in any of the inside communal areas. None of which Cassie would dream of doing, but these twowomen made her want to revert to being a bolshy adolescent and break every rule in the book.
Cheryl, the taller of the two women and with a face that was unnaturally taut and smooth, greeted Cassie and Ben with a quickhellobefore saying, ‘Have you heard that the new owner of the apartment below yours will be moving in next Friday?’
‘That’s news to us, isn’t it?’ Cassie said, turning to Ben.
‘Any idea who’s bought the place?’ he asked.
‘According to the management company, it’s a woman moving here from Essex.’
