Best Friend to Wife and Mother?. Caroline Anderson

back. ‘No, Mum. Actually, none of you. I think I’d like to be alone for a moment.’

      They ground to a halt, three pairs of worried eyes studying her. Checking to see if she’d lost her marbles, probably. Wrong. She’d just found them, at the absolutely last minute. Oh, Nick, I’m sorry...

      ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ her mother asked, her face creased with concern.

      ‘Yes,’ she said, more firmly this time. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Sure about everything except what her future held. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything stupid.’ Or at least, nothing as stupid as marrying the wrong man would have been. Not that she knew who the right one was, or how she’d recognise him. She seemed to have a gift for getting it wrong.

      They were all still standing there as if they didn’t know what to do now their carefully planned schedule had been thrown out the window, but it was no good asking her. She didn’t have a clue. She turned back to the stairs, putting one foot in front of the other, skirts bunched in her quivering hands.

      ‘Shall I bring you up a cup of tea?’ her mother asked, breaking the silence.

      Tea. Of course. The universal panacea. And it would give her mother something to do. ‘That would be lovely, Mum. Whenever you’re ready. Don’t rush.’

      ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

      Her mother disappeared into the kitchen, the bridesmaids trailing in her wake as one after the other they came out of their trances, and she made it to the safety of her bedroom and shut the door before the bubble burst and the first tears fell.

      Odd, that she was crying when she felt so little. It was just a release of tension, but without the tension there was nothing, just a yawning chasm opening up in front of her, and she thought she was going to fall apart. Pressing her hand to her mouth to stifle the sobs, she slid down the door, crumpling to the floor in a billowing cloud of lace and petticoats, and let the floodgates open.

      * * *

      He had to get to her.

      He could only imagine what state she was in, but that look in her eyes when she’d glanced up in the car—

      He pulled up on the driveway of his family home, and after checking that the baby was all right and the catering was under control he headed through the gate in the fence into Amy’s garden and tapped on the kitchen door.

      Amy’s mother let him in, her face troubled. ‘Oh, Leo, I’m so glad you’re here,’ she said, and hugged him briefly, her composure wobbling for a second.

      ‘How is she?’ he asked.

      ‘I don’t know. She’s gone upstairs. She wouldn’t let us go—said she needed to be alone. I’ve made her a cup of tea, I was just about to take it up.’

      ‘Give it to me. I’ll go and talk to her. This is my fault.’

      ‘Your fault?’

      He gave her a wry smile. ‘I asked her if she was sure.’

      Jill smiled back at him and kissed his cheek. ‘Well, thank God you did, Leo. I haven’t had the guts. Here, take it. And get her out of here, can you? She doesn’t need all this hoopla.’

      He nodded, took the tea and headed for the stairs. Her bedroom was over the kitchen, with a perfect view of the marquee on his parents’ lawn and the steady stream of guests who were arriving for the wedding reception that wasn’t.

      Damn.

      He crossed the landing and tapped on her bedroom door.

      * * *

      Someone was knocking.

      Her mother, probably. She dropped her head back against the door and sucked in a breath. She wasn’t ready to face her. Wasn’t ready to face anyone—

      ‘Amy? Can I come in?’

      Leo. Her mother must have sent him up. She heard the knob turn, could feel the door gently pushing her in the back, but she couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. She wanted to stay there for ever, hiding from everyone, until she’d worked out what had happened and what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

      His voice came through the door again, low and gentle. ‘Amy? Let me in, sweetheart. I’ve got a cup of tea for you.’

      It was the tea that made her move. That, and the reassuring normality of his voice. She shuffled over, hauling her voluminous skirts with her, and he pushed the door gently inwards until he could squeeze past it and shut it behind him.

      She sniffed hard, and she heard him tutting softly. He crouched down, his face coming into view, his eyes scanning the mess her face must be. She scrubbed her cheeks with her hands and he held out a wad of tissues.

      He’d even come prepared, she thought, and the tears began again.

      She heard the soft click of his tongue as he tutted again, the gentle touch of his hand on her hair. ‘Oh, Amy.’

      He put the tea down, sat on the floor next to her and hauled her into his arms. ‘Come here, you silly thing. You’ll be OK. It’ll all work out in the end.’

      ‘Will it? How? What am I going to do?’ she mumbled into his shoulder, busily shredding the sodden tissues in her lap. ‘I’ve given up my job, I’d already given up my flat—we were about to move out of his flat and buy a family house and have babies, and I was going to try going freelance with my photography, and now...I don’t have a life any more, Leo. It’s all gone, every part of it. I just walked away from it and I feel as if I’ve stepped off a cliff. I must be mad!’

      Leo’s heart contracted.

      Poor Amy. She sounded utterly lost, and it tugged at something deep inside him, some part of him that had spent years protecting her from the fallout of her impulsive nature. He hugged her closer, rocking her gently against his chest. ‘I don’t think you’re mad. I think it’s the first sensible thing you’ve done in ages,’ he told her gently, echoing her mother’s words.

      She shifted so she could see his face. ‘How come everybody else knew this except me?’ she said plaintively. ‘Why am I so stupid?’

      ‘You aren’t stupid. He’s a nice guy. He’s just not the right man for you. If he was, you wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment, and nor would he. And it didn’t seem to me as if you’d broken his heart. Quite the opposite.’

      ‘No.’ There’d been nothing heartbroken, she thought, about the flash of relief in his eyes in that fleeting moment. Sadness, yes, but no heartbreak. ‘I suppose he was just doing the decent thing.’

      Leo’s eyes clouded and he turned away. ‘Yeah. Trust me, it doesn’t work.’

      ‘Was that what you did?’ she asked him, momentarily distracted from her own self-induced catastrophe. ‘The decent thing? When you married the wrong person for the wrong reasons?’

      A muscle bunched in his jaw. ‘Something like that. Are you going to drink this tea or not?’

      She took the mug that he was holding out to her, cradled it in both hands and sighed shakily.

      ‘You OK now?’

      She nodded. She was, she realised. Just about, so long as she didn’t have to make any more decisions, because clearly she was unqualified in that department. She sipped her tea, lifted her head and rested it back against the wall with another shaky little sigh. ‘I will be. I don’t know; I just feel—I can’t explain—as if I can’t trust myself any more. I don’t know who I am, and I thought I knew. Does that make sense, Leo?’

      ‘Absolutely. Been there, done that, worn out the T-shirt.’

      She turned to him, searching his face and finding only kindness and concern. No reproach. No disappointment in her. Just Leo, doing what he always did, getting her out of the mess she’d got herself into.

      Again.