that she was doing it all on her own, she was furious.
‘I have to do everything!’ she complained to her grief counsellor.
‘What else are you feeling?’
‘Worry. For Ferdia and Saoirse.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m pissed off that I’m working full-time and I’m basically a single mother.’
‘Anything else?’
‘There is nothing else.’
The few tears she cried during that first year were of frustration or exhaustion, never grief.
Eventually she got a nanny, choosing a man, so the kids would have a consistent male presence in their lives. It wasn’t enough to quiet her crushing guilt at her failure to be both a mother and a father to them, so she overcompensated, organizing far-too-frequent treats, always striving to be ‘fun’, but feeling like she was single-handedly pushing a giant stone up a steep hill.
During those months it seemed as if the weather was always misty and grey.
One ordinary afternoon, during the second year of Rory’s absence, she was in her car. She automatically reached across to hold Rory’s hand – they’d always been great hand-holders. When it wasn’t there waiting for hers, the full impact of his forever absence hit her. He’s gone. He’s dead. And I won’t get to squeeze his hand later today. Or tomorrow. Or ever again.
The shock felt like a physical blow and shunted her abruptly into a new phase of life without him. He was dead and she was ruined. She would never fall in love again. She had her children, her business and her friends, and they would have to be enough.
Trying pre-emptively to ward off disaster, she worked harder than she had when Rory was alive, travelling incessantly to and from PiG shops around the country. Now and again, a frantic feeling seized her with sudden force. It would come on without warning, a type of panic, a sense that there was something she’d left undone, which would have catastrophic consequences if it wasn’t addressed. While she tried to identify this urgent task, the juddering agitation tried to burst from her body, struggling against skin, too violent to be contained. At the height of the fear, a voice in her would howl, Oh, my God, Rory is dead.
Those were the only times she’d understand the truth and it was terrifying.
Even so, she rarely cried. She numb-walked through her life, now and again jolting against the appalling reality in a horribly bruising way.
‘Am I doing it wrong?’ she’d asked Johnny. ‘Being a widow?’
‘You’re doing it the only way you know how,’ he’d answered.
Because that was the thing about Johnny: no matter what she needed or wanted, he was always there.
THIRTY-THREE
‘I’m sorry,’ Liam said, for the hundredth time. ‘You won’t stay in Airbnbs because you have a moral objection. Because I love you, I won’t use them either when I’m with you. I didn’t actually lie. I just kept something to myself.’
‘But you said you agreed with me!’
‘Yeah, because I’d just met you. At the start of a thing, you’d agree with whatever the other person says.’ He hadn’t done anything that every person on earth hadn’t done at one stage or another. All the same … ‘I’ve disappointed you.’ He looked sick. ‘I hate that. But – I’m sorry to break it to you, Nell – I’m only human.’
She swallowed. It would have been far nicer to hold on to her starry-eyed version of the two of them, but maybe she had to grow up a little. ‘Okay. Is that the worst thing I’m going to discover about you?’
‘Definitely.’
She sighed. ‘Tell me about this week in Italy.’
‘Jessie’s rented a villa – I was there three years ago. It’s just outside a Tuscan village that’s so perfect it’s ridiculous. The villa has a swimming pool and its own olive grove, where you can literally eat the olives from the trees. There’s a pool table, an actual wood-fired pizza oven, and an old chapel in the garden. Best bit? Lots of hills all around – the cycling is amazing.’
‘Is it anywhere near Florence?’ Her knowledge of Italy was sketchy.
‘Yeah. About an hour’s drive. I can show you on the map.’
Suddenly excitement was fizzing in Nell’s veins. ‘Liam, could we go to the Uffizi? The art gallery? It’s got Caravaggio’s Medusa, Botticelli’s Primavera – paintings I’ve wanted to see since forever.’
‘Sure! Whatever makes my baby happy.’
‘Would Jessie be pissed if we went off for the day?’
‘You kidding? Jessie loves an outing.’
‘Oh, wow.’ Joy spread through her, right into her fingertips. ‘Liam, Liam.’ Her words were tripping over each other. ‘How about I get