Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [158]
He knew, too, that his grief was changing shape. Tears still came easily, and nights were still often interminable. His pain was still real, still sometimes very physical. But there was a future now that perhaps hadn’t been there a year ago.
Now he could see years ahead of him, and looking at them, imagining them, was not so painful as it had been. It would never go away, but it would get better, and keep getting better, until it was something he had in just one part of himself, instead of all through him, a part he could put away when he needed, and access again just as easily. But not the greater part of him, which was, he was surprised to learn, intact. And he had her children. And he would have their children. And she would never not be with him, because they would be with him.
SATISFIED THAT EVERYTHING DOWNSTAIRS WAS AS IT SHOULD BE, Lisa went upstairs in search of her sisters. Following the commotion, she opened the door to Hannah’s room just in time to see Amanda and Hannah executing a Diana Ross and the Supremes–esque dance move, hairbrush mikes in their hands, to “Today I Met the Boy I’m Gonna Marry.” Jennifer was sitting on the edge of the bed watching them and smiling. She rolled her eyes at Lisa when she saw her.
“What are we listening to?!”
“Ed made it for some cousin of his, for his wedding. It’s a wedding mix tape. It’s got the best stuff on it. He said we should play it while we got ready.”
“Another mix tape—that boy is a real eighties throwback, you know.”
“I know.” Now Amanda was handing her a glass of champagne. There was an open bottle on Hannah’s dressing table. “But it’s great, isn’t it?”
Lisa laughed. It was. The music and the bubbles in the champagne and the walk around the garden—everything was fizzing up in her stomach, and the feeling was exhilarating and warm and…lovely. This was a childhood Christmas Eve magnified about a million times. She hadn’t expected to be so uncynical and so jittery and so…exciting.
“Let me take those curlers out. You must be suitable pre-Raphaelite by now. Come here and sit down.”
Jennifer stood behind her and started to pull out pins, gently unrolling the foam cylinders. Big round curls bounced around Lisa’s face as she stared at herself in the mirror.
“You okay?” Jennifer dropped her hands to gently squeeze her sister’s shoulders.
“I can’t wait.” They shared a knowing glance.
Amanda tapped Jennifer’s bottom with the hairbrush. “Oy. Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“You know what. The knowing glance thing. We hate it, don’t we, Hannah?”
“What do we hate?” Hannah was fiddling with her unfamiliar stockings now, feeling very Moulin Rouge.
“The whole ‘we’re the big sisters, we know it all’ thing. They’ve done it to us our whole lives….”
“Huh?”
“Well, no more. I’m now, officially, in a serious relationship. So you’ve either got to stop with the knowing glances, or start including me.”
“No way. That’s only one of out three, Mand. You’ve got to have a proper job and a mortgage before you’re really included.” Lisa winked at Jennifer in the mirror. “That right?”
“Right.”
Amanda stuck out her tongue at them both.
“Where are the serious relationships, by the way? And the answer had better not be at the pub.”
“At the pub.”
“Really?”
“Really. Actually, the excuse for leaving was that they’ve gone to pick up the buttonholes. But since the florist is two shops down from The Lamb, I imagine a little Dutch courage might be on the agenda.”
“And they’ve taken Cee Cee on this little jaunt….”
“No…Cee Cee is watching Charlie and Lola on a loop downstairs.”
“So it’s just the four of them? And no chaperone?!”
“Uncle Vince is with them.”
“Blimey. We’ve got no chance.”
“Chill out. The wedding isn’t for another…hour and a half. They’ll be back.”
“I’m sure they’ll be back—well, pretty sure they’ll be back—it’s the state of them when they get back that worries me.”
“Don’t