Second Chance - Jane Green [54]
You would never know any of it. Looking at Anna right now, sitting cross-legged on the floor as Violet – who, like all children who come into contact with Anna, has fallen completely in love with her – hangs around her neck squealing, you would think that she is beautiful, poised and perfect. You would think that nothing in her life could ever go wrong.
‘Hi.’ Sarah’s voice is listless as she comes into the room and sits on the sofa, dark shadows under her eyes, her hair still mussed.
‘We brought some photos of Tom.’ Paul thinks about going across the room to hug her, but something about her is so shut down he knows he’ll be rejected, and he stays where he is, unsure of what to say.
‘I know. Maggie said so.’
‘Would you like to see them?’
‘Sure,’ she says. Paul hands them to her and she starts to sift through the photographs. A ghost of a smile hovers over her lips as she stops at a picture of Paul, Holly and Tom, all of them with braces on their teeth, at Paul’s fifteenth birthday party.
‘God, look at that hair!’ Sarah says. ‘I never knew Tom had long hair. He looks awful!’
‘We all looked awful,’ Paul says, grateful that Sarah finally seems to be engaged. ‘Look at Holly’s shocking-pink lipstick. I think she thought it was sophisticated.’
‘Tom was so skinny,’ Sarah muses, tracing his arm in the photo with her forefinger. ‘You’d never think he’d become so buff.’
‘Buff?’ Paul asks.
‘Fit. He was forever in the gym. He got this thing about Ironman contests. Crazy stuff where you bike 112 miles, swim 2.4 miles, then run 26.2 miles. He did one in Florida and was training for another.’ She shakes her head. ‘He was so fit. So strong. That’s what I find so hard to believe. I mean, I could understand almost anyone else not surviving, but Tom? How could Tom not have got himself out of there? How could anything take Tom down?’
There’s an awkward silence, neither Paul nor Anna knowing what to say, and after a while Sarah turns to the next picture and bursts out laughing. ‘Tom was in the army?’ she splutters.
‘TA,’ Paul says sheepishly. ‘Was the thing to do at the time.’
In the kitchen, getting a tray of tea ready to take inside, Maggie sits down heavily at the table.
‘Thank you,’ she looks up at a concerned Anna, ‘this is the first time Sarah has sounded anything like herself. Those photos are what she needed right now.’
‘What about you?’ Anna says gently. ‘What do you need right now?’
‘Oh I’ll be fine,’ Maggie says with a false brightness. ‘I’ll just finish making this tea and I’ll be right out. If you could just take Pippa outside to pee that would be wonderful.’
Anna leaves, but she turns just as she reaches the doorway to see Maggie collapsing in her chair. Anna hovers, unsure of whether to go back, but she knows Maggie thinks she is alone, thinks Anna has left the room; she knows Maggie would never allow herself to drop her composure in front of anyone.
It is absolutely quiet. There are no more tears, there surely can’t be a drop of water left in her body, but Anna watches as Maggie leans her head on her arms on the kitchen table and groans softly as she rocks back and forth.
And Anna sees that this matriarch of what is left of her family, this strong, stoic, wonderful woman is finding the pain may be too much for a human being to bear.
As she listens to Maggie’s quiet groans, she understands that Maggie honestly doesn’t know how she can get through the rest of her life knowing she will never see her beloved son, her firstborn, again.
Chapter Eleven
‘What’s the matter with you today?’ The receptionist at the animal shelter walks into the sitting room with a sandwich at lunchtime and collapses on the sofa as Olivia looks up in surprise.
‘What do you mean? Nothing’s the matter. Why?’
‘You’re acting like you’ve got ants in your pants,’ Yvonne says. We think it must be a man.’
‘What?’ Olivia attempts