There was such hope in her eyes that Anna dutifully walked across the room and inspected her nephew yet again. She supposed he looked as much like Spencer as any baby could. He had the blond hair (albeit the merest hint of peach fuzz), the blue eyes, and he certainly knew how to make himself heard and command the attention in any room he was in.‘I suppose he does.’
Gayle smiled again. Anna was starting to think that the baby was a magical being, a changeling. His presence seemed to have wrought an amazing transformation on his grandmother. Anna smiled back at Gayle and it felt good. Hopeful.
She couldn’t wait to tell Brody. Gabi was very loyal, but Gayle had now become enemy number one in Gabi’s eyes since the vol au vents incident. It would take a while for her to warm up to the idea that re-establishing a closer relationship with Gayle could be a good thing.
But Brody… Brody would see it straight away. He would celebrate quietly with her. Quietly, because she couldn’t imagine him doing anything noisily or hastily. He always seemed so self-contained, so steady.
Not for the first time recently she wondered who he was when he wasn’t her shoulder to cry on, what he did for a job, for example. She knew he liked the outdoors and lived in a remote area, so maybe he did something like farming or forestry?
Anna watched while Gayle alternately fussed over little Spencer and instructed Teresa on the finer points of using both the top of the range breast pump and the video baby monitor she’d brought with her, but after a while Anna checked her watch. ‘I’m going to head off,’ she said. She’d been here a couple of hours and it was probably time to reduce the crowd Teresa had to deal with.
‘Well, it’s been lovely to see you,’ Richard said. Gayle even looked up from fussing over Spencer and agreed, smiling. Wonders would never cease.
Teresa showed Anna to the door and they hugged. ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ Teresa said as they pulled away from each other.
‘I won’t.’
‘I’ve always felt that, in family terms, our husbands were the main events in the Barry family,’ Teresa added. ‘So we “also-rans” have to stick together.’ She gave Anna another squeeze. And as Anna started to head towards her car, Teresa called out, ‘See you next Sunday?’
Anna stopped and turned, frowning.
Teresa elaborated. ‘Lunch at Gayle and Richard’s.’
‘Didn’t we say we were only doing lunch once a month from now on? And the next one isn’t until the day before Spencer’s birthday. That’s weeks away.’
Teresa looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, yes… But I thought we’d kind of reverted to the old pattern anyway.’ Anna’s frown deepened, and taking it in, Teresa carried on talking. ‘I mean, I just assumed you couldn’t make it the time before last.’
‘The time before last?’ Anna asked, her voice thin.
Teresa looked sheepish. She glanced back towards the living room, where they could hear Gayle’s over-loud baby talk continuing. ‘We went over for lunch on the second.’
Anna went cold. ‘Are you telling me that family lunches have been continuing every fortnight without me?’
‘No. I mean, I don’t know… It was just that one time. Maybe Gayle invited us because she was taking pity on me, because I was heavily pregnant, and she was saving me from cooking?’
‘But didn’t you say you’re going next week too?’
Teresa sighed. ‘Well, you know she wants as much “baby time” as possible.’ She looked down for a moment, studying the paving stones of her driveway,before meeting Anna’s gaze again. ‘I don’t think this has been engineered, Anna, honestly I don’t.’
Anna nodded and smiled, but her jaw felt tight and she knew the warmth hadn’t reached her eyes. She turned and walked towards the street where her car was parked.
WHEN BRODY STARED at the notebook on his desk early on Sunday morning, everything inside him said,Run!He wanted to shoot out the back door of his cottage, across the yard and into the safety of his workshop. He wanted to feel a chisel in his hand, lose himself in the mindless shaping of wood.
But Brody didn’t run. Instead, he pulled out his desk chair and sat down. He sat there for a minute or so and then, when he was ready, he opened the notebook lying on the desk, picked up his fountain pen and pressed the nib against the page.
Write,he told himself.Write something. Write anything!
The nib began to move. A word began to form.
Pain.
Brody wasn’t sure where it had come from, but it had come. Not a word he wanted to read, particularly. Not a word he really wanted to think about. But it was a word, so both triumph and discomfort swirled within him. He made the pen move again.
Grief… Guilt… RAGE.
Brody stared at what he’d just written. He did feel angry, he realized, but he didn’t know who with. He tried again.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…
