by Cathy Kelly
‘Birdie, I can’t believe you’re behaving like this over something so silly.’
Birdie turned and looked at him with a combination of fraternal love and pity.
‘Howard, my dear, it’s not silly. It’s one of the most serious things in the world. I think you broke my heart a long time ago, but it’s only now that I have the courage to walk away. You weren’t a bad husband, just not the right one for me. So let’s cut our losses and we can go off with our broken hearts and fix them. You can’t have been happy either.’
She turned away for good this time, and she didn’t feel tearful or anxious. She wanted to find Grace and grab her by both hands and tell her, I did I, I did it! Because Grace would understand.
Howard groped his way to the stone wall and sat down. He realised he was shaking. This was not how he’d planned to spend the evening. By now, he should be back in the marquee with his cronies, breaking out more cigars and opening bottles of Armagnac. Instead, he felt utterly alone.
‘Do you remember our engagement?’ Stephen asked Grace, his voice low.
They were standing outside, looking up at the moon and the stars, marvelling at how clear a night it was. They’d seen their son leave with his bride, Katy and Michael beaming and waving as the wedding car flew down the drive, and now it was so strangely mild and clear that they’d stayed outside, looking at the fairy lights decorating the trees. Away to the side, the wedding party continued, people laughing and talking.
‘Yes,’ said Grace softly.
‘Let’s tell nobody tonight,’ she’d said all those years ago after Stephen had asked her to marry him. ‘Let it be just us for now.’
They’d headed back to the Eiffel Tower lift and squashed in again, with him against the wall and her leaning against him.
‘I love you,’ he whispered, bending close to her ear so that nobody heard.
In reply, she twisted her head and mouthed ‘Je t’aime’, which wasn’t the only French she knew, but were the words she liked best.
‘There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then, Grace,’ Stephen said as they stood watching until the lights of their son and new daughter-in-law’s wedding car disappeared from view. ‘Is it too much, too long?’
Grace considered this.
‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘We’re very different now, both of us. I don’t want to set us up for disaster or pain, or get the kids’ hopes up.’
‘Ah, the kids – as you call them – don’t care. They’re too busy with their own lives.’
Grace smiled. ‘I’m not so sure.’
‘They’re grown now and we’ve done our best with them, haven’t we?’ he said.
He moved till he was standing in front of her, then he took both her hands in his.
Grace felt a tingle of excitement at his touch. Perhaps this was crazy, but perhaps not …
She closed her eyes, and she didn’t see Fiona watching them.
‘Who’s texting you?’ asked Katy, leaning languorously against her new husband in the wedding car as it whisked them off to the hotel for the night.
‘Fiona. She says my parents are kissing!’
Katy giggled. ‘I knew our wedding would change everything – didn’t I tell you so?’
‘Yes, you did, you genius,’ murmured Michael, and pretty soon there was no noise from the back of the car, just the sound of two people moving so they could hold each other close.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my readers, without whom I’d still be writing on that second-hand kitchen table. Please keep talking to me: I love your emails and messages. Thanks to Jonathan Lloyd, Lucia Rae, Melissa Pimentel and all at Curtis Brown; thanks to my wonderful new family at Orion, especially Susan Lamb, Kate Mills, David Young, Gaby Young, Dallas Manderson, Breda Purdue, Jim Binchy and everyone who has welcomed me with such warmth; thanks to all my old friends in publishing: Karen-Maree Griffiths, Christine Farmer, Thalia Suzuma, Moira Reilly, Tony Purdue, Liz Dawson, Lynne Drew and all who have been such an important part of my life.
Thanks to all the wonderful booksellers around the world who sell my books and are such a vital part of the team. Thanks to Aileen Galvin and Terry Prone of The Communications Clinic, and thanks to Sarah Conroy for much more than organisation. Thanks to Trish Long of Buena Vista, with whom I never actually had that catch-up lunch, so all information about movies comes from my own long experience and none of hers (all hideous mistakes are mine), but we shall always remember turning up at a meeting in the same suit and how sisterhood is strong. Thanks to Chris Lennon for her wonderful advice on the fine art of being a headmistress. Again, all mistakes are mine.
Thanks to Senator Imelda Henry who generously gave a donation to UNICEF Ireland in order to have her darling mother Mollsie’s name used in the book; and thanks to Dara Car who donated to Cancer Research UK to have her name in the book. I tried hard to make both names gloriously lovely characters to say thanks. Thanks to my friends in UNICEF Ireland, both past and present, for all the incredible work they do for children around the world.
Thanks to my dear writer friends, who are true friends and without whom I might go mad. OK, madder.
Thanks to my beloved family, as always, and thanks to my dear friends – you know who you are and are always there for me. I don’t have enough room to list you and everything you do. You are all in my heart.
Finally, thanks to Dylan, Murray and John, and the Puplets, who make it all possible.
About the Author
Cathy Kelly is published around the world, with millions of books in print. A number one bestseller in the UK, Ireland and Australia, her trademark is warm Irish storytelling about modern life, always with an uplifting message, sense of community and strong female characters at the heart.
She lives with her family and their three dogs in County Wicklow, Ireland. She is also an Ambassador for UNICEF Ireland, raising funds and awareness for children orphaned by or living with HIV/AIDS.
Find out more at www.cathykelly.com
Also by Cathy Kelly
Woman to Woman
She’s the One
Never Too Late
Someone Like You
What She Wants
Just Between Us
Best of Friends
Always and Forever
Past Secrets
Lessons in Heartbreak
Once in a Lifetime
The Perfect Holiday
Homecoming
The House on Willow Street
The Honey Queen
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in 2014 by Orion Books.
This ebook first published in 2014 by Orion Books.
Copyright © Cathy Kelly 2014
The right of Cathy Kelly to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 5362 7
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