Emma Heatherington - The Legacy of Lucy Harte - A poignant, life-affirming novel that will make you laugh and cry

Will pulls out a seat and I do as I am told. I sit. He smells of posh cologne and flashes an uber-white smile. ‘I know this is a difficult day for you.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Just try and relax, Maggie. Thirty minutes late is not going to change the world. Have a seat and chill.’

Chill? Who does he think he is, Jay-Z? Who even says ‘chill’ these days?

Why is everyone staring? And what on earth does he know about my difficult day and its relevance to my life? I hadn’t told anyone that it’s my heart anniversary and I keep my private life very much private. No one even knows I broke up with Jeff. Well, apart from Bridget downstairs whose brother knows Jeff’s family and, yes, I told Diane who sits opposite me and… okay, so I may have told a few people. Maybe they all know more than I thought they do about me. But what the hell is going on?

‘I’m sure you have been wondering what this meeting is all about, Maggie,’ said Will. ‘I hope I haven’t been causing you sleepless nights.’

Sleepless nights? I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since Jeff dumped me. It’s not easy to sleep and stalk mutual friends on Facebook for clues on his whereabouts at the same time.

‘I haven’t been sleeping well lately but…’

The five faces are staring at me.

Will looks up at me from beneath dark knitted eyebrows that I notice are the exact same as his father’s. No, Will Sr’s are even thicker. But greyer. Why am I even thinking about eyebrows?

‘Maggie?’

‘I’m fine. Just the odd sleepless night, but yes. I’m… I’m fine,’ I say, screwing up my forehead. I think I have overused that word for one day but it’s all I can think of. I reach out my hands in front and clasp them together. I wish I had papers to shuffle, or a diary to check or something to do with my hands.

‘You don’t have to pretend you are fine,’ says Sylvia Madden, one of the CEOs, from across the table. ‘You have been through quite a lot personally lately and no one expects you to be fine.’

They are all staring at me. I need to get out of here. I don’t want to be here any more. I feel the room closing in.

‘I can’t do this any more,’ I say, but I barely recognise my own voice. I stand up. ‘I need to go… I need to quit. I can’t do it. Sorry.’

I am going to cry. Will shakes his head. He is smiling. Why is he smiling?

‘I understand why you would feel like giving it all up, quitting,’ he says. ‘But you’re not a quitter, Maggie.’

Now, I really am crying. Big sobs just like I was earlier when I was on the phone to my dad. I sit down again.

‘I have to… I just need some time to get through this.’

I manage to blurt out the words semi-coherently as Sylvia hands me a tissue across the table.

‘Yes, I can see that,’ says Will. ‘Your work has slipped since the promotion and having done some homework, we think you need a break, but only for a while, for health reasons.’

‘Slipped?’ I splutter. ‘I suppose that’s one way of putting it. I feel like a failure. I should probably go.’

I try to recall how my work has ‘slipped’ and I cringe at the realisation. Sure, I’d taken some days out after the break-up with Jeff and before that, when things weren’t going well with us, I’d had to leave early a few times and then there was the day when I broke down in the coffee room, but that was it really. Oh, apart from the day when I was showing a client around a property and I cried because he reminded me of Jeff and I might have flirted with him a bit more than was professionally advisable… crap. And that day last week when a potential buyer from America had to wait while I got sick in the bathroom of a boutique hotel I was showing him round after drowning the poor man in the stink of vodka from the night before. Oh shit.

‘Yes, it has been poor lately and not like the vibrant go-getter we know, Maggie,’ says Will, but he is still smiling. He is not mad. ‘Days off, working ‘from home’, late arrivals, missed appointments… but your health comes first and foremost and you are too big an asset to our team to take any chances on. You seem very stressed and upset so I’d like to offer you some time out, with a payment plan, of course, to get yourself together and when you feel like coming back, the door is always open.’

Stressed? Well, of course I am stressed. My husband left me for a younger model and seventeen years ago today I lay on an operating table and I’ve outlived any expectancy the doctors could have given me, and believe me, the reminder every year of another year of survival is a big burden and a huge heap of gratitude to carry around.

But time out… a payment plan? I think I am going to choke and the walls are moving towards me again. Why are they offering me this lifeline? I don’t deserve this.

‘Can I get you some water?’ asks Sylvia. I wish they would stop staring and smiling. Why do they have to be so nice? It’s making me worse.

I look up to see Will Powers Sr enter the room, apologising too for being late. Sweet Jesus, this really is serious. Very serious. To have both ‘Wills’ in the same room always indicates a crisis. In fact, it is a sight that’s enough to put the fear of God into any working member of staff.

Sylvia gives me the glass of water and I sink it in one. I didn’t realise I was so thirsty.

Will Sr pulls a chair out right beside me and clasps my cold, sweaty hand tight. I always admired him so much and he knows it and he has nurtured me through my whole time at the company, giving me opportunity after opportunity. I feel like I have let him down.

‘Maggie, we don’t want to lose you,’ he says gently, reminding me of my father. They are about the same age, but their lives are worlds apart. My dad drives a tractor while Will Powers Sr drives a Jaguar. My dad holidays in a caravan in Donegal while Mr Powers takes his wife on Caribbean cruises. Yet there is something about him that reminds me of old Robert back on the farm with his cows and sheep and love of a good old fry-up on the weekends and his current obsession with celebrity divorce.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Powers. I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you in any way. I know I have missed quite a few days and my work probably has um, slipped , but I can assure you that I will make it up to you. To all of you.’

Here I am, almost thirty-four years old, in my fancy suit and expensive shoes, at almost the peak of my career and I feel like a schoolgirl who hasn’t done her homework or who has been caught cheating in an exam.

‘You have let no one down,’ says Mr Powers. The others move their heads like nodding dogs. ‘And don’t be panicking and thinking we have called a crisis meeting which is all about you. We have a few major projects to discuss today, which is why we are all here together, but it is because you are so special to us that we wanted to show you our full support in helping you get through whatever it is you need to get through.’

I think of other incidents; the car accident I almost had when I arrived at work a little tipsy from the night before… the days I had turned up so hung over I could hardly string a sentence together … there were many little things I had chosen to ignore and now they had all come to the forefront, like an abominable snowball rolling down a hill towards me. The day I sent an email to a wrong client and put ‘x’ like a kiss at the end of it, again due to a boozy lunch, and the time I called another a wrong name throughout an entire meeting because my head was too fuzzy and full of anger with Jeff to have done any preparation.

And they are giving me a lifeline. Instead of telling me to clear my desk and never come back, they are giving me a chance to put my life back together. Wow.