Why does it give us annoying inner voices telling us we’re too tall, toosolid-looking, an imposter in our careers, a bad mother for leaving the children in order to drive places at weekends to do cookery demonstrations? Why did I get mugged? Why do I have The Fear? Why can’t I fix myself?
I should have tried harder with the Eckart Tolle book.
Sighing, I lock the front doors and the back doors, check all the windows, pull shut the curtains on any window that still has curtains on it and with my small glass of wine in one hand, go upstairs to bed. The stairs creak about a quarter of the way up. I’d have to learn all the creaks of this new home. All houses make random noises and now noises scare me.
I peek in on the children. Teddy is back to being a little bear in her cave. Liam already has half the bedclothes draping the edge of the bed and Lexi is once againdoll-like in sleep, with that amazing dark hair fanned out over the pillow. I kiss them all goodnight, and murmurthank you, thank you. Gratitude. I am thankful. If you’re thankful, nothing bad can ever happen again, right?
In our room, only my own tiny bedside light left on the floor is still on. I find my sleeping tablets hidden away in my handbag. I need to find a good place to stash them here. Its too dangerous to have kids and sleeping tablets in the same house without a careful hiding place.
I take my tablet, lie down, close my eyes and wait for it to kick in, because when it kicks in, it is wonderful. When I sleep the sleep of the tablet, I do not have The Fear.
The broken collarbone should no longer hurt. But oddly, it does. When I panic, the panic seizes control of my chest and lodges there, like something malevolent. My chest hurts. My collarbone almost hums with aching.
I breathe deeply. It’s much harder now than it used to be.
People say breathing comes naturally but it doesn’t always.
I close my eyes.
They never caught him – why should he escape justice for what he did to me?
Shut up, I murmur. He wasn’t caught. End of story. It’s not going to happen now. Get on with it.
Shit happens. Your sister’s IVF fails continually. Your beloved father has alife-altering stroke. You have to learn to live with it.
Why doesn’t anybody ever putthaton Pinterest?
I wake on Sunday morning to the wonderful scent of coffee and the bounce of Teddy launching herself at me in the bed.
‘Wake up, Mummy,’ she shrieks.
My head feels as if it’s been removed and put back on the wrong way round: Teddy opens my eyelids herself.
‘No, Teddy,’ I moan, ‘that hurts. Mummy told you that hurts.’
Thepulling-eyelid method used to be her favourite way of waking both of us up when she was smaller. Certainly beats an alarm clock for efficiency. I pull myself into a seated position to find Dan, Lexi and Liam all beaming at me, while Teddy, her waking duties over, dances on the bed as if testing its suitability for gymnastics.
‘Because you worked so hard yesterday, Mummy, we brought you breakfast in bed,’ says Dan, giving me the sexy smile I fell in love with. He hasn’t shaved yet and his scratchy designer stubble and the dishevelled hair, a hint of grey at his dark temples, make him look entirelydo-able.
Relief floods me. Yesterday’s froideur is over. I love this man. Fancy this man, with one of his dark eyebrows raised slightly, giving me hints of what he can do to me when we are in bed alone. He can do this raunchy eyebrow thing because Lexi and Liam are behind him and can’t see it, and because Teddy is now bouncing around the big bed, fascinated only by how high she can go.
‘Careful, Teddy,’ I say automatically. I pull her down to me and give her a hug.
Dan is carrying a tray and from the look of it, it has my favourite things in all the world on it. Croissants, coffee, unsalted butter and a jar of what looks likehome-made jam. The jam must have come from a shop, I think, because my mother, who is an amazing jam maker, hasn’t made any since Dad’s stroke.
‘Thank you, thank you all. This is a beautiful treat, but the jam, where did we get that?’ I say to Dan.
‘A lovely lady in the coffee shop had left it for us,’ says Lexi quickly. ‘It’s so pretty. I had a pink lemonadefrom Italy! The man said I look totally different from you, but I was beautiful too.’ This is what she is most pleased about and I smile.
‘I had a doughnut,’ pipes up Liam.
‘Two doughnuts, actually,’ says Dan apologetically. ‘The lovely lady was a Miss Primrose. You met her yesterday with Teddy? The Italian guy in the café said she’d brought in some of herhome-made strawberry jam as she thought you’d like it. I’ve got to say, they’re friendly round here.’
The tears well up in my eyes: it’s a combination of the tiredness and seeing my beautiful family doing something so lovely for me. Not to mention the kindness of Miss Primrose, a lady I only met yesterday.
It all ripples into a ball in my heart and makes me want to sob with happiness, gratitude and love. I really am becoming the most emotional woman on earth. What is wrong with me?
‘Isn’t she lovely,’ I say tearfully. Dan notices this.
