She will go to college provided, Gabby thinks wryly, she isn’t derailed by a potential modelling career. Oh God, please let that not happen. Gabby has had to handle too much in the past two years but that might actually derail her. She smiles.
Matt appears, holding Henry up for Gabby to plant a kiss on his cheek. How could she ever have contemplated a life without Henry? No matter how her life is going to turn out, Henry will never have been a mistake. She fell in love with her daughters the moment they were born, but the love she has for Henry, a mother’s love for a son, is unlike anything she has ever known. She can’t bear to think she might have missed out on this.
Claire and Tim are in the other room. It is a slow journey back for Gabby. Things are not the same with her and Claire, and may never be exactly the same, but they are trying. The four of them have had dinner together once or twice, and those evenings go a long way to healing the rift. More than anything, Gabby has perhaps learned not to rely on friends in the way she once did, and that saddens her. When she had problems in the old days she would turn to Claire. Nowadays, she turns to her mother.
Her mother, who was always so busy sorting out the problems of the world that she never had time for her own daughter, is now the one person Gabby trusts to advise her, listen to her problems, offer a shoulder to cry on if need be.
Gabby carries the last of her plates herself, one for her mother, one for herself. She sits on the sofa next to Natasha and leans her head briefly on her mother’s shoulder as her mother smiles and strokes her hair.
It feels natural now to allow herself to be held in her mother’s arms, to have her hair stroked, to be kissed. She wonders if her mother has changed, has softened in her old age, but suspects that it is she herself who has changed. The fiery resistance Gabby used as her armour when she was young has vanished. Life is too hard to get through alone, and it was her mother who stepped up when everyone else had gone.
Alanna squeezes up on her other side, the three of them looking around: at Elliott pouring out the Scotch for a toast, at Olivia and Monroe chatting, at Matt sitting cross-legged on the floor while Henry zips around him in circles, huge smiles on both their faces.
Natasha turned out to be a good mother, after all. Gabby watches her son and her elder daughter, as her younger daughter entwines her fingers with her own. I hope, she thinks, watching all the hope and possibility in Henry’s smile, I hope I turn out to be a good mother for my children. I hope I can give them everything they need. I hope I can raise them to make good choices, to be good people, to go into the world treating others with kindness and respect.
I hope our year of insanity – for this is how she and Elliott have come to refer to their separation, in terms thinly veiled with humour – I hope our year of insanity hasn’t damaged them, or destroyed their belief in the power of a strong relationship.
She looks up then, aware that she is being stared at, and Elliott, standing by the fireplace, gazes at her, his eyes filled with love. He just smiles, and she knows it’s all going to be fine.
Somehow, what they least expected – what they least wanted – has brought them full circle. A little family. Her little family.
Acknowledgements
As always, my extraordinary publishing team and home at St Martin’s Press, and my family at Penguin in the UK. Louise Moore for so much love and support over all these years together, and Jen Enderlin, who has swept into my life and dusted out all the corners, with so much wisdom, brilliance and talent.
My agents – Anthony Goff, who has blessed me with sage advice and true friendship for such a very long time, and the incomparable Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, for whom I am truly grateful.
My friends – you know who you are.
Michael Palmer, who so graciously and kindly offered up his wonderful old farm in New Hampshire for me to use as a writing retreat. Without Michael, this book would not have been written, and that’s no exaggeration.
The friends who helped enormously in coming up with the story, and those that supported me throughout.
Glenn Ferrari, Alberto Hamonet, Dusty Thomason, Randy Zuckerman.
To the many people who were open and honest enough to share their heartbreak and their stories with me.
Finally, my husband, Ian. Who is truly the only man I want to walk with, side by side, as we continue the journey.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Block D, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Gauteng 2193, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published 2013
Copyright © Jane Green, 2013
Cover images: window © Philip Lee Harvey/Getty Images; crouching woman © BJ Formento/Getty Images; bedsheets © PhotoAlto/Frederic Cirou/Getty Image; rocking chair©Blasius Erlinger/Getty Images; other chair © Andreas von Einsiedel /Alamy
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes
ISBN: 978-0-141-96731-8
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
PART TWO
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
his book with friends