She remembered his hands on her, his mouth on her and the incredibly beautiful feel of him inside her.
She remembered how sweet it was when he called her “baby”.
She remembered him telling her, “I just want you.”
She remembered that he remembered the words he said to her, twenty years ago, the same words that were seared into her brain.
She remembered how much she loved it when he called her “Elle” because the Elle he knew was who she had always wanted to be.
She remembered swaying in his arms to a sad song and letting herself believe, if only for three minutes, that she might get her fairytale too.
And, lastly, she remembered the look on his face in her rearview mirror when she drove away.
But other than that, she was in a fog, mostly because she was trying not to remember.
* * * * *
It was the dead of night and Isabella was dozing, still unable to sleep, when she heard the phone ring.
She reached for it, put it to her ear and said, “Hello.”
“Bella?”
Isabella came up to an elbow and her heart thumped painfully in her chest when she heard Annie’s tone.
“Annie? What is it? Are you back from Greece? Is everything okay?” Isabella’s questions came out in a rush and her mind was racing.
God, she hoped Dougal was all right, they’d only just come back from their honeymoon.
And Fergus, he beat cancer, but Isabella heard that comes back all the time.
And Clarissa, she could be crazy, just like her daughter, anything could happen when you were always doing crazy things!
And Prentice… but Isabella didn’t go there.
Those questions were greeted with silence.
Isabella waited.
“Annie?” she prompted.
“Yes, Dougal and I are back from Greece.”
Annie stopped talking.
Isabella waited.
Then she pressed, “And?”
Another pause then, “It’s Sally,” Annie answered softly and Isabella’s thumping heart stopped dead. “She’s been knocked over by a car.”
Isabella lay still in her bed, her eyes unfocused, her mind filled with images of Sally.
Isabella hadn’t thought to worry about Sally. In her mind, Sally was invincible, protected by her youth and her shield of impenetrable cheerfulness.
Nothing could happen to Sally.
Especially not something so horrific as being hit by a car.