Sarah Morgan - One Summer In Paris

“Your room was a mess. Normally I overlook it, but I decided that from today we’re both turning over a new leaf.”

Audrey’s heart started to pound. She wasn’t the one who needed to turn over a new leaf.

“You tidied my room?”

“Not only tidied. I had a clear-out. You’re an adult now, Audrey. You don’t need all that rubbish around you. I filled two black sacks with things you should have thrown out years ago.”

Audrey stared at her mother, and a horrible premonition washed over her.

Surely her mother wouldn’t have—

She couldn’t—

She left the room at a run, taking the stairs so fast she stumbled twice.

Please no, no , don’t let her have done it.

She pushed open the door of her room and stared at her bed. “Mum?” Her voice was hoarse. “Where’s my teddy bear?”

Grace

When Grace’s parents died, it had been impossible to escape the sympathy. It had wrapped around her like tentacles, squeezing and squeezing until she couldn’t breathe. There was speculation, too, of course, about what exactly had happened on that night, but no one voiced their thoughts directly to her. Everyone had handled her carefully. They’d tiptoed, sent her anxious glances, whispered among themselves— is she doing okay?

It was the same now.

“One sourdough loaf?” Clemmie bagged it up and handed it to Grace with a pitying look. “How are you doing?”

“Great,” Grace lied.

She’d learned a lot about herself since David had left. She’d learned it was possible to smile while crying inside and make cheerful conversation even when you wanted to tell someone to mind their own business.

“You’ve lost a bit of weight.”

Grace paid for the bread. “Slimming down for the summer.”

“It must be so hard.”

She’d seen that same look in people’s eyes ten times a day in the weeks since David had left her. She used to love this small town that she and David had made their home, but now she hated it. In a city she could have disappeared, but here she stood out like a red wine stain on a white carpet. Everyone knew, and each encounter left another tiny cut in her flesh and her feelings, until she felt as if she’d walked naked through a thornbush.

If David hadn’t been the editor of the newspaper, his transgression probably would have made the headlines.

Editor leaves boring wife.

In the days after it had happened even the children in her class had avoided eye contact. None of them had asked her how her Valentine’s date had gone. They’d been particularly well behaved, as if trying to avoid her attention.

Several of them probably had Lissa as a babysitter.

They all assumed the affair must be the worst thing about it, but for Grace the worst thing was losing David.

Being left wasn’t a gentle thing. It was a vicious wrench, a tearing of flesh and feelings. Occasionally, she glanced down at herself and was surprised to discover she wasn’t bleeding. Such a trauma should at least leave a bruise, surely?

She missed the sound of his voice, his familiar solid presence in the bed next to her. She even missed the parts that had annoyed her, like the fact he always forgot his door key. Most of all she missed his gentle humor and wise counsel. She felt like a climbing plant that had lost its support. Without something to lean on, she was lying in an unsightly tangle, unable to unravel herself.

Her thoughts were an endless conveyer belt of what-ifs. What if she’d worn sexier underwear? What if she’d ar ranged more nights away in hotels? No, that wouldn’t have helped. He already thought she was too organizing. She could have encouraged him to arrange nights in hotels, except that then she knew it wouldn’t have happened. Part of the reason she organized things was because David didn’t. He preferred to be more relaxed and spontaneous, but Grace knew that didn’t get you a hotel booking on a busy day.

Would Lissa remind him to take his cholesterol medication?

She’d probably be too busy encouraging him to take Viagra.

“She was in here yesterday.” Clemmie lowered her voice in that way people did when they were talking about something scandalous. “I still can’t believe it. I mean Lissa . No offense, but there’s something a bit disgusting about it.”

Why was it that people said “no offense” before going on to say something clearly offensive?

“I have to go, Clemmie.” If it hadn’t been for the fact that Sophie was about to finish school, she would have contemplated moving.

“I mean, it’s obvious what he saw in her .” Clemmie was undeterred by Grace’s attempt to curtail the conversation. “She’s a pretty girl and no guy is going to say no to that if it’s on offer, is he? I blame her.”

I blame him.

The David Grace had married never would have had an affair, but she no longer knew the man she was married to. He was a mystery to her.

It was depressing to be part of such a desperate cliché, and mortifying to think everyone was talking about her.

“Here—” Clemmie dropped two doughnuts into a bag and handed them to Grace. “No charge.”

To top it off, she looked like a woman who needed to drown herself in sugar.

Sophie was sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework when Grace arrived home. “Hi, Mom.” She’d lost that open, trusting happy smile that had been part of her personality. Now there was caution, as if she did a quick audit to check if life was about to slap her again or if it was safe to smile. “Did something happen? You look pale.”

“Forgot to put my makeup on.” Grace put the loaf and the doughnuts on the table. As a child she’d learned to hide her feelings. She’d been a master of secrecy. So why was she finding this so hard? “There’s chicken in the fridge and I thought I’d put together a salad.”

“Delicious.”

The phone rang as Grace was rinsing tomatoes. She glanced at her phone and spilled half the tomatoes in the sink.

“It’s your dad.”

Sophie’s jaw lifted. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

She’d always been a daddy’s girl, which had made it harder when disillusionment took the shine off that relationship. Sophie hadn’t cared much when she’d discovered Santa didn’t exist, or the tooth fairy, but she’d almost broken when she’d found out her daddy wasn’t the man she’d believed him to be.

Grace rescued the tomatoes and sliced them with more violence than was strictly necessary. “He’s still your father, honey.”

She remembered feeling the same shock when she’d discovered the truth about her own parents. The puzzlement and disappointment of realizing they were human and flawed. Somehow you expected your parents to know better than you did. To be able to rise above the failings that afflicted other people.

It was frightening to realize adults didn’t have it figured out, because if your parents didn’t have the answers, then who was a child supposed to rely on?

“I don’t need reminding. It’s all I think about.” Sophie pushed her homework to one side and laid the table. Since that awful day when David had come out of the hospital, she’d hovered around Grace like a protective force field.

It was touching, but it also added stress because Grace had to watch her every move and every reaction. In front of Sophie she had to hold it together. No matter how angry and upset she was with David, she couldn’t share that with her daughter.

Sophie’s reaction had been worse, far worse, than Grace had anticipated. Although David had told her the news, Grace had insisted on being there because she hadn’t trusted David to handle Sophie’s emotions in a sensitive way. In the end he’d stumbled his way through it, as clumsy as a drunk knocking over chairs in a bar. He’d mumbled something about how people changed over time, and had started to say that he and Grace had grown apart but then he’d seen something in Grace’s expression and confessed that it had been his decision and his alone. When he’d started talking about Lissa, it had been hard to figure out who of the three of them was the most embarrassed. It had been excruciating.