mother, that is, I was in Switzerland looking at a prototype for a tap that produced boiling hot, filtered water at the time. Ground-breaking, it was. Back then, anyway; everyone’s got it now. You can make tea, right out the tap, you know?’
‘I’ve seen them, yeah,’ I replied, still somewhat struggling to get past the bombshell.
‘It’s a lot of maintenance,’ he shook his head. ‘You’ve got to get the filter changed every couple of months, take the whole thing to pieces if it breaks. No, it’s not worth it. Not when you’ve got a fast-boil kettle. Anyway, back to your sister.’
‘You know, this all looks lovely,’ I interrupted him and nodded at everything in the trolley. ‘But given how much you want to make the renewal extra special, maybe we should get a caterer to do all the food? And drink? Maybe we just get an event planner to do the entire thing?’
Dad considered this for a moment.
‘You want me to get an event planner and a new suit?’
I nodded.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
Without a word, I grabbed a two-litre bottle of vodka from the shelf and placed it in the trolley.
‘Come on, Rosalind,’ he said, immediately putting it back. ‘You know better than that. Vodka is for Russians, alcoholics and students.’
Three groups of people he held in equal contempt.
‘Everything all right with the shed?’ Dad asked, making a wide left into the baked goods aisle.
‘I think there might be a leak in the roof,’ I said, eyeing a twenty-four pack of chocolate chip muffins. ‘Every time you hilariously hit it with the hosepipe at six a.m., I get dripped on.’
He chuckled softly to himself, missing my sarcasm completely. ‘There’s no leak,’ he replied decidedly. ‘Must be condensation. We’ll get you a dehumidifier.’
My phone vibrated against my hip with a message from my sister.
So?
Oh to be eighteen and not give a fuck. A second message buzzed through before I could turn it off.
1 in 4 pregnancies result in miscarriage. It’s more common than you think.
Jo hadn’t even started her first semester and she was already well into the ‘I know everything and you are deeply stupid’ phase of studenthood. I remembered it fondly. The wonderful day I sat Mum and Dad down and explained the horrors of the dairy industry all while Dad enjoyed a Mini Milk.
btw can you ask m+d if I can bring my gf to the wedding? She wants to meet u all, idk y
Jo had a girlfriend and expected me to tell our parents.
So, that’s how my day could get worse.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I hadn’t realized quite how far away Lucy had moved until it took me a bus, two trains, another bus and a fifteen-minute walk to get to her house on Sunday evening. Wandering down her road, following the little blue dot down a Google Map, I marvelled at all the restored Victorian houses. When I was younger, when we first all moved into the city together, I was obsessed with Georgian mews houses. I’d imagine what it would be like to live in a whole house, all by myself, with my husband and then maybe even our kids. There was usually a cat in the mix as well, sometimes a dog, depending on whoever filled out the man-shaped gap in my fantasy. Patrick was definitely a dog person but I already knew who would be taking it out for a walk in the rain when he was on a deadline.
Regardless of how far away it was, the house was a beauty, I thought as Lucy let me in, leading me down the narrow hallway, past the living room, through the kitchen and out into a carefully designed, dinky back garden. The lawn was perfectly mowed, the plants all pruned to perfection. Someone had spent a lot of time out there, making sure every blade of grass met its rigorously maintained size and colour, and I was almost certain that person was not Lucy.
‘This is very impressive domesticity,’ I told Lucy as she set a teapot down on the table between us.
‘Dave is proud of his garden,’ she confirmed, casting an approving glance over the flowerbeds. ‘Ever since I got pregnant, I haven’t been able to keep him in the house. I think he’s afraid if he accidentally bumps into my belly, the baby will fall out.’
I looked up at the painfully blue sky, dotted with little white puffballs here and there. What we really needed was a storm – the humidity had been rising for