by Sarah Belle
Sylvia is here regularly, which is lovely. She’s earned the right to be a doting mother and grandma. We spend lots of time together and my new-found reliance on her is mutually beneficial. She met a nice man in the supermarket on one of her weekends down here. Colin is a retired baker who volunteers his time at a local horse refuge and has eyes only for Sylvia. This weekend he’s whisked her away to learn Latin dancing. His shirts are even more colourful than hers. Goes to show that it’s never too late to meet a soulmate.
And the tiny charm sitting unopened in its blue velvet drawstring bag from my tenth birthday? It was a cluster of silver stars with twinkling diamantes in each point. Maybe everything really is written in the stars. It has finally been put on the bracelet and is currently hanging off my wrist. It’s nice to have a little bit of Dad with me wherever I go. When baby Lily is older it will belong to her, our first heirloom.
Our house is in a quiet cul-de-sac with six other houses. We’ve met most of the neighbours, but there is still one family away on holidays. They are a nice bunch of people and everyone has come over to introduce themselves. Already we are popping into and out of each other’s house to borrow things or just for a cuppa. It’s pretty nice. I wonder how many of them are my old souls from 1961?
“Juliette, there’s someone here to see you,” Chris calls out from the house.
I climb up the hill with my big belly hitting the tops of my thighs and go to the front door where there’s woman about my height waiting for me. She has her back to me but I can see that she is slim, with curlyish light brown hair streaked with gold.
“Hello?” I say.
She turns around to the sound of my voice and the Earth moves from under me. She has slightly tanned skin, rosy cheeks and sparkly blue eyes.
“Hello, Juliette is it?”
“Ummm…yes,” Jesus, that was a brilliant reply.
“Hi, I live across the street. I’m sorry I haven’t been over to introduce myself, we’ve all been on holidays for a few weeks.”
“Oh, all of you?”
“Yes, my new husband and our children, Rosie and John. It was our honeymoon actually, but we took the kids. They look to be about your eldest boy’s age, won’t that be nice?”
“Yes, it will be.” My smile resembles that of the village idiot. “Would you like to come in for a cuppa? I was just about to have one myself, my legs need a rest from carrying all this extra weight.”
“I noticed you were pregnant, when are you due?”
“It’s a bit hard to miss really, isn’t it?” I laugh, “the twins will be with us in about two weeks.”
“Twins! How wonderful. That will keep you busy.” She places a hand on my tummy and her warmth ripples though me.
“Thankfully my mother in-law is incredible. She’s coming to stay with us for a while to help out. Come on in, let’s take a load off. I’m in desperately in need of a caffeine hit.”
“Amen to that, sister.”
Oh my God. Could she be? Is she?
“I forgot to introduce myself after all that. I’m Lily.”
Lily. Yes, you are Lily. Enthusiasm rises up in me, as though my soul has come back together again after losing pieces of it with Dad, Mum and 1961 Lily.
“Lily. You know, that’s the name we’ve picked out for one of the babies,” I say.
“Well, you obviously have good taste,” she smiles at me. Then she cocks her head to the side and looks at me. “I feel as though I know you, have we met before, Jules? You just look so familiar.”
“Maybe in a past life.” I joke.
Yes, it truly is written in the stars.
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ISBN: 9780857990587
Title: Hindsight
Copyright © 2013 by Sarah Belle
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Limited, Locked Bag 7002, Chatswood D.C. NSW, Australia, 2067.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention. ® and ™ are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises Limited and are used under license to the Publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in Australia, New Zealand, the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.
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