On the screen in front of her, the flight tracker told her they had an hour to go until they reached their destination. An hour. The butterflies in her stomach were launching a full-scale offensive now. An hour to work out how she was going to get through a trip to a city that was the location of a marriage that should never have happened, to a man she was now planning to leave, and all of it in the sightline of her two daughters, who thought they were doing something wonderful for her. Brenda could actually feel her heart racing in her chest at the very thought of it. Why couldn’t she just be happy? Why wasn’t this enough? If only she could make herself content with what she had, then no-one would get hurt and she wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of breaking up her family. But… at what cost? The rest of her life spent unfulfilled and miserable? How could she possibly keep this façade of happiness going for a lifetime when right now she was struggling to see how she could make it through this week?
To her right, she saw that both Zara and Millie were sleeping, so she nudged her husband, on her left.
‘Colin, I don’t think I can do this,’ she whispered.
He paused the show he was watching on his TV screen – some lifestyle thing about (shoot me now, was Brenda’s first thought) historical gardens across the world – and took off his earphones.
‘Did you say something?’ he asked her.
‘I said, I don’t think I can do this. The trip. This is awful.’
He shared her pain by taking a sip of his red wine and adjusting the position of his lower limbs on his foot rest. ‘Och, Brenda, it’ll be fine. I don’t think there’s anything to get too worked up about. Let’s just take it a day at a time and try to enjoy it.’
Brenda wondered what the punishment would be for suffocating her husband at 30,000 feet with an airline pillow.
He pinged his headphones back on and Brenda took a deep breath and tried to focus her thoughts on something less homicidal.
This was exactly what she hadn’t wanted to happen between them. She’d wanted to leave while there were no hard feelings, while they were still friends who could say goodbye, without castigation or resentment on either side, but that was getting harder and harder to do. And it was her fault. When she’d let him persuade her to give them another chance, when he’d said he’d make more of an effort, that he would take steps to lift their relationship out of terminal decline, she should have refused and pointed out the obvious – if they hadn’t managed to build something wonderful in thirty years, they were hardly likely to do that now.
He’d made a nominal effort in the first couple of days. They’d even gone to the cinema on the Sunday night, after a lovely dinner in a little trattoria just off Byres Road. On the way home, they’d held hands and when they got back to the house, and it must have been the wine, she’d kissed him. In the kitchen. Without giving him prior warning. Just a spontaneous kiss. Then she’d then taken him by the hand, led him upstairs, and for the first time in months, they’d even had – pass the smalling salts, Mavis – sex. And it was… decidedly average and over in ten minutes. Maybe fifteen, if you counted the time it took him to get undressed and fold his clothes beforehand. Afterwards, he’d given her a triumphant, ‘See! I knew we could get back on the horse,’ and then gone to sleep.
Every minute of that night, and every minute since, her affection for him had eroded just a little bit more, and even though she hated herself for letting that happen, she didn’t seem to be able to stop it.
The lights in the cabin suddenly pinged on and there was a simultaneous announcement from the crew.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now commencing our final service before landing in Las Vegas in approximately fifty minutes…’ They then went on to say something about breakfast, but Brenda missed it because, beside her, Zara had woken up and was grinning at her now, her face so full of anticipation.
‘Has it all sunk in yet, Mum? I’m sorry we shocked you. Honestly, though, you gave me the fright of my life. I thought for a few moments that you were horrified and we were going to have to chase you through Glasgow airport and drag you back to the check-in desk.’
Brenda had never been much of an actress (except a week ago last Sunday, when she did what she hoped was a fairly convincing job of portraying someone who was enjoying having swift and silent missionary position sex with her husband), but her daughter’s happiness depended on this, so she went full-scale Meryl Streep. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. It’s just… well, you know I’m rubbish with surprises and this is such a huge, amazing one. It just threw me. I’m so grateful though, and so is your dad. This is the loveliest thing anyone has ever done for us.’
Zara stretched over and kissed her cheek. ‘You’re so welcome. You deserve it.’
‘Urgh, is there a whole emosh-fest going on with you two? Only they’re about to bring breakfast and you’ll put me right off my sausages.’
‘There are so many jokes in my head right now, but every one of them is really immature and Mum will be horrified, so I’ll keep my mouth shut,’ Zara told her sister, making Brenda chuckle.
If they’d done one thing right, it was raising their daughters to love each other. They couldn’t be more different, and yet, somehow they managed to overlook any flaws and just focus on the good stuff. But then, maybe they’d learned that close to home. Wasn’t that what Brenda had been doing in her marriage all these years? Overlooking the problems? It was a behaviour that worked well with siblings, but not so well if you wanted a fulfilling marriage that would deliver a lifetime of happiness.
Breakfast was served, and still Brenda had no clue what was ahead, other than an ominous promise of, ‘We’ve got so many surprises lined up, Mum. You’re going to have the best time.’
‘I’m already having a great time. Just being with you two is such a treat. You know how much I love you both, don’t you?’
It was Millie who replied. ‘Mum, you really need to stop with the soppy stuff. You make it sound like the plane is going down and we’re delivering last messages of love. And let me tell you, if we’re crashing, I love you both, but you’ll find me up in the cockpit with the pilot that gave that last announcement. His voice is the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.’
It was probably just as well Colin still had his headphones on and if he wondered why they were all laughing, he didn’t ask.
‘You know, Millie, when I grow up, I want to be just like you,’ Brenda joked, realising there was a grain of truth in there. There was no denying the personality traits that Brenda had passed on to Zara, or how proud she was of all the other lovely facets that made her elder daughter such a lovely soul. But Millie? Maybe the learning was supposed to go the other way with that one. The fearlessness. The openness. The absolutely unapologetic determination to enjoy life. That was the kind of person Brenda wanted to be.
‘Oh great. Smashing. Because one irresponsible nightmare with no shame isn’t enough in the family,’ Zara teased.
‘I’d argue, but she’s right,’ Millie concurred, draining her coffee cup.
The cabin crew cleared their trays, and after visits to the loos to freshen up, the sexy captain announced it was ten minutes until landing. Brenda’s butterflies had another fly around her abdominal cavities. Las Vegas. She was here again. She was here again. She was here again. And her brain couldn’t quite get off that loop. Dammit. She was here again.
The plane landed with a thud and some people around them began to clap. Brenda didn’t join in. Instead, she channelled Meryl Streep again. ‘How long are we here for, sweetheart?’ she asked Zara, knowing her daughter would have the itinerary memorised. There was probably a laminated paper copy in her carry-on case too. That trait came down from Colin. He never went anywhere without the full schedule encased in a waterproof, wipeable folder. Brenda had taken a week off as directed but she just wanted to check what day they’d be leaving so that she could brace herself for the mission of maintaining a cheery demeanour at all times.
‘We leave on Saturday, that’s the day after your actual anniversary. I know it seems crazy coming all this way for just five days, but at least it’ll be memorable.’
