by Kate Hewitt
Dried flowers—she saved just about every bouquet she’d ever been given or bought herself—were stuck in various vases or wine bottles, perched on windowsills or bookshelves. And clothes… clothes were everywhere. Sweaters, coats, scarves, dresses, and skirts. Rachel was the kind of person who tried on three outfits every morning before deciding on one, and left them all around the house, lying where they had been discarded.
“Sorry, if I’d known you were coming, I would have tidied up,” Rachel muttered as she liberated a sofa cushion from two sweaters and a pair of high heeled boots.
“You never tidy up,” Esther returned, trying to sound light and, as usual, not quite managing it. Why did she always have to be so stern?
“True enough, I suppose. Do you want a cuppa? Or something stronger?”
“I don’t even know.” Esther sank onto the sofa and leaned her head back. “I just couldn’t face going back to the vicarage. Mum and Dad are lovely, but…” She sighed. “There’s only so much concern you can take.”
“Duly noted. I won’t ask a thing. I was just heating up a curry, if you want some.”
Rachel was notorious for never cooking. She’d once boiled a pan of water and let it all evaporate, not noticing until the pan was blackened and the kitchen full of smoke. None of her sisters, of course, let her forget it. “That sounds lovely, thanks.” Rachel went into the kitchen and Esther closed her eyes, a wave of tiredness crashing over her. She could practically fall asleep right there, and she thought she might have when she was prodded awake by Rachel holding a large glass of red wine.
“Thought we might as well. And here’s the curry.” She proffered two plates that smelled heavenly. “Tikka masala or chicken korma?”
“Korma, please.” Esther straightened, rubbing her hands over her face. “You’re a star, Rach, thanks.”
Her sister made a funny face as she sank onto the sofa opposite with her own glass of wine and plate of curry. “It’s not much.”
“It is.” Esther and Rachel hadn’t been all that close in recent years. They hadn’t been distant, either. They’d just… been. A lot of her life had become like that, Esther realized as she took a rather large sip of velvety-smooth wine. She’d just been going through the motions, the days, on and on, ploughing through until tragedy had jolted her awake. And, in truth, part of her wished she could retreat back into mindless hibernation, the busyness of merely doing.
“So, is it very difficult, being back with Mum and Dad?” Rachel asked after they’d eaten their curries in silence for a few minutes.
“I wouldn’t actually know. I haven’t spent all that much time there.” Esther grimaced. “I’m avoiding them, to be honest, because I know how worried they are about me. They’re not difficult, not like that. They just care so much.” And sometimes that hurt, especially when she was feeling so wretched inside.
“We all care,” Rachel said quietly, a hint of a smile in her eyes. “That’s the thing with family. We just don’t stop.”
Esther managed a wry smile back. “I know, and I appreciate it, really. Deep down inside.”
“Deep, deep down inside.”
Esther let out a little huff of laughter. “Exactly. Why don’t we talk about something a bit more cheerful, like your wedding?” she suggested. A few more sips of wine and she was almost feeling mellow.
Rachel made a face. “Do you really want to talk about that?”
“Don’t you?”
“I suppose, but…” Rachel shrugged. “It seems like the last thing you need to hear about is bridesmaid dresses and flower arrangements.”
With a guilty pang, Esther realized she hadn’t really asked Rachel about her wedding plans that much before. She’d given vague glances at bridal magazines and let the talk of dresses and menus during her mother’s Sunday dinners wash over her. She’d been too busy with her own worries, her own grief. It seemed selfish now. It was selfish.
“How’s it all going, anyway?” she asked. “It’s only… what, three more months?”
“Three and a half. July fifth.”
“So things are coming along, then?”
“I guess.” Rachel, normally so bubbly, seemed both unenthused and strangely reluctant to part with any details of the big day.
“Have you picked out a wedding dress? I know you were looking…”
“Not yet. I’m hoping to go down to Manchester in a couple of weeks.”
“And bridesmaid dresses, as well?” She, Anna, and Miriam were all going to be bridesmaids. “I hope they’re not going to be too naff or revolting.”
Rachel let out a gurgle of laughter. “Because that would just be the look I’m going for. Naff and revolting.”
Esther smiled, enjoying the banter they’d once taken for granted, back when they’d been younger. “You know what I mean.”
“I do, because I’ve looked at more wretched dresses than I can remember, and most of them have been both naff and revolting. But I think I’ve settled on something simple—navy blue, which I don’t think you’ll mind. I was going to suggest we all go to Manchester for the weekend to try them on, and I’ll look at dresses for myself as well, but I didn’t want to presume…”
“Presume?”
Rachel shrugged, her gaze sliding away. “You just seem to have a lot going on…”
“Rachel, I’m back to living with our parents. I don’t have anything going on.”
Rachel brightened. “Then you’ll go?”
Would she? She didn’t really do girly weekends, and truth be told, neither did her sisters. Rachel was the girliest one of them all, but she tended to do that kind of stuff with her friends rather than flesh and blood.
“I’ll go,” Esther said, feeling reckless all of a sudden. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe she just really needed a break. A break from herself, if that was even possible. But why not shake things up a little? Even if it involved lurid cocktails and even more lurid dresses.
“Brilliant!” Rachel smiled, looking excited. “How about next weekend?”
“Any weekend but that one,” Esther answered with a grimace. “I’m going to Helen’s wedding.”
“Oh, right. That should be a good ‘do.” Rachel eyed her askance. “And Will…?”
“We’re going together.”
“Oh.” Esther watched, bemused, as both surprise and hopeful suspicion flitted across her sister’s face. Rachel was remarkably easy to read. “It doesn’t mean anything,” Esther told her. “We’re just keeping up appearances because it’s still so early.”
“Fine, but why don’t you use it as a chance to talk? Properly, I mean? Because, honestly, Esther, I’m not sure you even know why you guys split.”
Esther looked away, a suspicious lump forming in her throat. Where had all these wretched hormones come from? “I do know, Rachel, it’s just not that easy to put into words.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem as if Will knows.”
“Why? Did he talk to you?” The words came out sharp.
“No, but the man looks as if he’d been poleaxed, Esther. As far as Dan or I can tell, he had no idea this was coming.”
“That’s because he’d be happy to just keep muddling along,” Esther snapped, “and that was part of the problem.” But only part, and if she was honest, it wasn’t even the biggest part. Still, it was the easiest one to wave like a red flag. Distraction techniques, which was kind of awful.
“Have you told him that?”
“Yes.”
Rachel shook her head slowly. “Are you sure this isn’t some kind of seven-year itch?”
“I’m not remotely itchy.”
“Then what?”
Esther sighed heavily. Why couldn’t anyone understand? She knew why, of course; because she wasn’t telling anyone the full truth. And she didn’t want to. Even so, a little compassionate quiet would not go amiss.
“Sorry,” Rachel said. “I’m being pushy, and I said I wouldn’t. How about another glass of wine?”
“I can�
��t. I’m driving.” Esther heaved herself up from the sofa. “And I should check in with Mum and Dad before they decide to ring the Good Samaritans.”
“They mean well.”
“They always do, and I don’t think I’d want it otherwise, but…” Esther sighed again. “It doesn’t always make it easier, does it?”
“No,” Rachel agreed. “It doesn’t. But it’s not an easy situation, is it?”
No, Esther thought as she climbed into her car a few minutes later. It certainly wasn’t. And she didn’t see it getting easier anytime soon.
Chapter Five
Esther stood on the fringe of the crowd of wedding guests clutching a glass of lukewarm champagne that was almost as flat as she was feeling. There was nothing worse than being at a party where everyone was having loads of fun and she couldn’t dredge up so much as a smile. Well, she reflected, there was a lot of worse things, actually. This was just the sour cherry on the top of her crappy cake. And ultimately she couldn’t blame anyone but herself.
The last week and a half had been about nothing more than going through the motions—work, home, and back again. She’d had dinner with her parents a couple of times, which hadn’t been as tense as she’d feared. It never was. Roger had kept up his usual affable conversation, and her mother had made her favourite foods without any fussing, while Esther had been monosyllabic. Honestly, she didn’t deserve them. She didn’t deserve anyone.
Tears pricked her eyes and Esther blinked them away resolutely. She hadn’t cried since the separation, despite the near-constant threat. Now, sitting on the edge of a happy crowd, on her second glass of champagne, the threat felt a little stronger, but one she was still determined to avoid at all costs. Because if she gave into it… well, who knew what would happen then?
She glanced at Will, who was weaving his way through the crowds towards her. He scrubbed up nicely in a navy-blue suit he hadn’t worn since her aunt’s funeral five years ago, and he kept tugging at his tie. It would have made Esther smile, once. Now it just made her sad, but then everything was making her sad. She was tired of it, and annoyed with herself for being so wretchedly hormonal.
It wasn’t as if she was pregnant anymore. In fact, she’d never been pregnant, not really. The baby had never developed; her womb had been empty. A blighted ovum, her GP had said at the follow-up appointment. Usually a woman miscarried earlier than Esther had; apparently her body hadn’t got the memo and still kept thinking she was pregnant even when there had been nothing there.
“You want another drink?” Will stood in front of her and nodded towards her now empty glass. She hadn’t even realized she’d finished it.
Although she probably shouldn’t, Esther shrugged and handed him her empty glass. “Why not? But something else, perhaps. The champagne’s gone flat.”
“All right.” Will turned away, as silent and stoic as he had been this whole trip. The two-hour drive to Newcastle had been conducted in rather grim silence, with Will staring straight ahead as Esther looked blindly at the barren hills rolling into the distance, dotted with a few sheep, some gambolling lambs. Neither of them had said a single word.
A few months or years ago, the silence wouldn’t have bothered her. She would have stretched her feet out on the dash and made a few idle comments. Will would have smiled, that quirk of his lips she’d found so sexy, right from the first moment she’d met him. She wouldn’t have questioned anything, and part of her still longed for that blissful ignorance, before she’d been awakened to the lack in their relationship, and more crucially, the terrible lack in herself.
“Here you go.” Will handed her a drink and after the first sip Esther realized it was a Tom Collins, her favourite cocktail. She hadn’t had one in ages, and she probably didn’t need the extra alcohol now, but she knocked half of it back in one go. “Thanks.”
Will was nursing the same pint of bitter he’d had all evening. He never drank anything else. He stood next to her, as he had for most of the reception, and stared straight ahead. They wouldn’t dance, of course. They wouldn’t even think of dancing. And normally that would be okay, she wouldn’t mind. She wouldn’t want to dance, and she didn’t really want to now, and yet… something was missing.
“Do you want to dance?”
“What?” Esther turned to him in shock, nearly spitting out a mouthful of gin and lemon. She almost thought she’d fantasized him asking. Will was so not a dancer. They hadn’t even danced at their wedding.
“Do you want to dance?” He didn’t sound particularly enthused by the idea, and his jaw was locked tight as he nodded towards the dance floor. “Beats standing here like a pair of lemons, don’t you think?”
Esther glanced from him towards the dance floor, heaving with people who were demonstrating their finesse, or lack of it, with the whip and nae nae. She’d already watched several giggly grandmothers doing an exuberant Macarena, wiggling their jiggly hips with enthusiasm.
“I…” She hesitated, wondering at her own reluctance. She’d just been bemoaning having to stand here watching everyone else have fun, and now Will was giving her another option. “I suppose,” she said, and finished her drink before putting the glass aside. “Why not?”
They’d just stepped onto the dance floor when the music changed from the pumped-up techno of “Watch Me” to the heartrending and rather sappy strains of “The Wind Beneath My Wings.”
Will looked, for a second, as if he wanted to bolt from the floor. Couples were coming together all around them like it was a Year Seven disco, arms locked around waists, hands on shoulders, hips swaying as Bette Midler belted it out.
Did you ever know that you’re my hero…
Now, instead of safely on the side, they were standing in the middle of the dance floor like lemons.
“Well?” Will held his arms out and Esther stepped closer to him, placing her hands lightly on his strong shoulders as his arms came around her waist and like everyone else they started to sway.
This wasn’t so bad. Neither of them were dancers, heaven knew, but in some ways this was easier than attempting to dab or something equally ridiculous.
Then Will pulled her a little closer, so their hips nudged, and despite everything, or perhaps because of it, heat and longing both flared inside her. Instinctively her hands tightened on his shoulders, and Will noticed, his eyes narrowing as he gazed down at her. Esther dropped her gaze and focused on their shuffling feet.
She felt the longing well up inside her, but for what she couldn’t say. Impossible things, she supposed. For Will to be different, for her to be different, for life to be different. Yet nothing was—except maybe she was, because she felt so flattened, so unable. Usually, she picked herself up and kept moving, but now she felt as if she was standing in the middle of a road, waiting to be mown down. She was exasperated with herself, and yet she still couldn’t seem to move.
They swayed silently, bodies brushing, the room feeling as if it were fading in and out. Esther breathed in the smell of Will—old-fashioned aftershave and a hint of lanolin, from being with sheep all day. As she dared to raise her head again, she saw he’d nicked his jaw when he’d shaved that morning, and he’d also missed a bit by his ear. Awkwardly, she caught his gaze, saw the heat in his eyes, and felt jolted. Was he noticing the same kinds of details about her? Was he looking at her the way she was at him, remembering when things had seemed simple, had felt easy? Could it ever feel that way again?
The song felt as if it were going on forever, and Esther didn’t know whether she wanted it to end or not.
Eventually the song did end, replaced by an eye-wateringly loud pop song, something neither of them recognized. They stepped apart almost guiltily, or perhaps that was just her.
“Do you want another drink?” Will asked.
“I really shouldn’t.” She was already fairly sozzled, and she felt now that she needed her wits about her. Everything was starting to feel heartrendingly complicated, the longing and the loneliness, the guilt and the
grief.
“Suit yourself.”
And now there they were, standing on the side, a pair of lemons. “Maybe we should just go,” Esther blurted, and Will cocked an eyebrow.
“Helen and Nate haven’t left yet.”
“I know, but…” Esther shrugged. Helen was still high-kicking her heels on the dance floor, and Esther suspected the reception would last into the wee hours. “We’ve been here for a while.”
“True.” She couldn’t tell anything from Will’s tone. “Fine.” He jerked one powerful shoulder. “Let’s go.”
“We should make our excuses to Helen first.” Belatedly Esther realized that hadn’t been the best choice of words. They wended their way through the gyrating crowd, bumping awkwardly with overenthusiastic dancers, before Esther managed to tap her friend on the shoulder.
“Helen…”
“Oy!” Helen grabbed both of her hands and spun her around before Esther could stammer her goodbye. The room spun, as did the alcohol in her stomach. In the blur around her she saw Will, standing still and stony, reminding her of one of those monoliths on Easter Island. Completely intractable and fairly out of place.
“Come dance,” Helen called to him, and then she was grabbing his hand, clearly three sheets to the wind, or perhaps even half a dozen. Will toppled more than moved, nearly losing his balance as Helen yanked on his arm and then somehow they were all dancing to that inane but catchy song “Call Me Maybe,” and Esther, for some odd reason, was belting out the lyrics along with everyone else, even though she hadn’t realized she’d known them, and she certainly wasn’t the sort of person to sing along to, well, anything. She really was drunk.
Will wasn’t dancing so much as shifting from foot to foot, but at least he was trying, although why that mattered Esther couldn’t even say. Then he caught her eye and gave her the tiniest quirk of a smile, and her stomach turned right over. She felt young again; she remembered, and she felt.