past month, Vinnie and Tom had talked of little else: the swimming pool, the kids’ movies, hanging out with their cousins. They’d literally been crossing days off the calendar in the kitchen.
Bottom line, the next four days were precious and the least she could do was try to enjoy them.
‘We have our own telly!’ Vinnie yelled from the interconnecting room. ‘Literally our own actual telly!’
‘And our own key!’ Tom raced into Cara and Ed’s bedroom to wave the card at them, then scooted away again. ‘We’re grown-up now.’
You had to hand it to Jessie, Cara acknowledged. This was exactly the right age for the lads to have their own space. Vinnie was ten, Tom was eight: they were thrilled with their independence yet reassured by their proximity to herself and Ed.
‘Nearly time for dinner,’ Ed announced. ‘This is your three-minute warning.’
Bracing herself, Cara stepped before the full-length mirror. This wrap dress was … grim. Even with the sucky-in pants. But at least it fitted. Her jeans had cut into her for the entire drive from Dublin, a pain that was almost pleasant because it felt suitably punitive. She could have eased the discomfort by putting on her ‘fat’ jeans before they’d left, but that would have been like opening the floodgates.
And – her blood froze – what if the ‘fat’ ones were too tight?
Oh, those wonderful days at the start of the year when she’d quietly shed eleven pounds in six weeks! Being a long-term veteran of extreme eating plans, she knew a lot of that had been water. But she’d been in the groove, as if a switch had been flicked and she was in not-eating mode. Everything had stayed good until the evening of 13 February when the kids were in bed. Suddenly some sort of euphoria flooded through her, an ecstatic relief: it was reward time.
‘Ed? Honey? Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Did you get me chocolate to show you love me?’
‘Yeah,’ Ed said warily. ‘You said it was okay.’
Poor Ed. He had no understanding of the civil war that raged inside her. Again and again she issued blanket bans on any sugar in the house. Sometimes she’d make Ed round everything up and throw it all out – it was too painful to do it herself. But maybe a day or a week later, she’d be pleading with him to give her whatever he’d saved because he’d learnt by now always to save something.
One time, when Ed was out, she’d gone into Vinnie’s room and raided his stash. Her behaviour had horrified her: she was behaving like a drug addict, powerless to stop.
But she’d green-lit a Valentine’s Day blow-out. Ed had been instructed to buy a big box of fancy chocolates, which she intended to devour without guilt. The plan had been to get right back up on the starvation horse on 15 February, but she’d found she couldn’t.
The last eight weeks had been a series of lost battles. Every day had started full of resolve, but at some stage she’d have a narky customer or a moment of happiness that deserved to be celebrated and she’d eat something nice. Then she’d write the day off as a failure, deciding she might as well go wild and start again tomorrow.
But she had to be thin for the Easter weekend with Ed’s family – there would be swimming, fancy dinners, lots of socializing. However, control eluded her and it was only five days ago that she’d finally managed a single sugar-free twenty-four hours.
It was too late. All the weight she’d lost in those quiet, cold January days she’d put back on. She was now almost a stone heavier than she’d been on that February night. She was horribly ashamed of herself. She’d have given her left leg to get out of this weekend – an illness, a migraine, anything would do.
There had even been a brief, insane moment when she wondered how a person broke their own ankle – it lasted an instant, barely a flash – but the flood of relief at the thought of hiding at home while everyone else went to Kerry was glorious.
‘Time to go downstairs,’ Ed said.
‘I just need to …’ She jiggled a mascara wand on her lashes.
‘Honey, no need for any of that grooming.’ Ed was in high spirits. ‘This weekend is family. Relaxed.’
‘I need to distract attention from my size.’
‘Don’t say that. You’re beautiful.’
‘You need your eyes examined.’
‘And you need your head examined. Seeing as you’re getting gussied up, should I