Second Chance - Jane Green [134]
For this, she realizes, is why you lose friends when you get a divorce. Not because, as she had always assumed, you are suddenly a threat, a glamorous divorcee who may steal all your friends’ husbands, but because in getting divorced you force people to question their own marriages. And we never know what goes on behind closed doors. We may assume that our friends’ marriages are strong and sacred, but when people listen to the reasons why you left and how you knew it was wrong, they realize that their own marriages aren’t so strong. And if it can happen to you, then certainly it can happen to them too.
It is so much easier to bury our heads in the sand, to pretend that everything is fine. Even when things are crumbling all around us.
What about grief? Holly thinks, swishing the vodka gently in her glass as she shivers, the cold starting to seep in through her winter coat. Will she grieve? She doesn’t think so, is sure she will feel the same as Julia, that she has done enough grieving during her marriage. As for loneliness, she couldn’t possibly feel any lonelier than she has felt the last few years.
Not that she’ll get out of it scot-free, of course not, but there is no denying that at her very core she feels the same thing Julia felt: relief.
Even Will doesn’t seem quite as relevant now. It is as if, by finally giving in to this attraction, her eyes have cleared again; she is able to see him for who he is, rather than as her saviour.
And who is he? Handsome, wonderful, sweet brother of Tom. The man who, she realizes, gave her the strength to get out; for in her obsession, she didn’t stop to think of the fear or stop to consider how frightened she was to live life on her own. She wasn’t scared of being bullied into submission as she always had been in the past.
Marcus stopped having power over Holly because she was too distracted to give it to him. And in detaching from her fear, she was able to detach from her marriage.
But all this obsessive thinking that Will might be the man for her, getting through these last few months only because she was lost in thoughts of Will, now seems unrealistic. He’s already talking about his next trip. He can’t wait for the sun, for Thai beaches and fat joints at sunset.
It’s a world she left behind many years ago, not a world she wants to be in now, not even to dabble in for a second. While it might be tempting to pretend to be a teenager again, the fact is she has children of her own, she is now a grown-up. There is no place in her world for Thai beaches and fat joints at sunset.
Holly sighs and tips the dregs of the vodka back, standing up and going inside to see what’s happening for dinner.
‘So what can I do to help?’ Saffron walks into the kitchen and leans over Olivia’s shoulder, reaching down to steal a carrot.
‘Are you…?’ Olivia turns around and looks at Saffron, then, with panic in her eyes, at Anna and Holly.
‘Oh God.’ Holly shakes her head. ‘You’re drunk, aren’t you?’
‘I am not!’ Saffron says, and were it not for the tiny weave as she sits down, the slight misfocus of her eyes, you might not notice.
‘You bloody are,’ Holly says. ‘Where did you get it? How much have you had?’
Saffron sighs and leans her head on her arms. ‘Not much,’ she mumbles into her arms. ‘Just a tiny bit.’
‘I’ll go,’ Olivia says, leaving to hunt for the source of the alcohol. She comes back a couple of minutes later, a nearly empty bottle of vodka in hand.
‘But we still have all the vodka.’ Holly frowns and opens the cupboard to prove it and, sure enough, the bottle of vodka that she and Will bought in town is still there.
Olivia groans. ‘Jesus,’ she says. ‘I can’t believe how sneaky she is. I’m just realizing that she said she left her purse in that gift shop and ran back to get it when we got to the car. She must have…’
‘Oh stop being such a killjoy,’ Saffron snaps. ‘Yes, that’s exactly when