Anna couldn’t tell whether she was angry or just surprised. She waited.
‘All these years, I’ve been hoping you’ll run into him again, hoping you might get some kind of fairytale ending out of it, and the man in question is my partner?’
Nia started to laugh and then Anna did, and it felt so good, to be laughing, the kind of laughing that hurt a little after a while. Nia put a hand over her mouth, trying to pull herself together, but it was impossible, and she gave in to it again, and the two of them sat there, side by side, uncontrollable, for some minutes.There were tears streaming down their faces, and for once, Anna thought, they were not borne of sadness.
‘And Jamie knew? I mean, of course he knew! That bastard!’
Anna thought back to that day in the kitchen, when Nia had been so strung out and stressed about new motherhood, how she and Jamie had decided to keep it between them.
‘God, he’s going to kill me for telling you,’ Anna said. ‘We made a deal.’
‘So, let me get this straight. You’ve kissed my partner?’
Anna remembered the date she and Jamie had gone on. It felt like a million years ago.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I have. But just the once, and it was, like, a different life. Are you angry?’
‘No,’ Nia said.
And Anna loved her friend so much for the fact that there hadn’t even been a second of hesitation.
‘But I don’t want you to have a fairytale ending with him any more,’ Nia added. ‘If you don’t mind.’
When Nia went home, she hugged Anna on the doorstep. ‘Don’t go out and get drunk on your own. I know I don’t know what you’re going through, but please let me help you. Just call me, okay?’
Anna nodded. She felt better than she had that morning, when she hadn’t been able to see a way through. She felt a little lifted, and that was down to friendship, and she was going to remember it. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For finding me, feeding me, all of that.’
‘For not minding that you’ve kissed my husband?’ Nia asked, her eyes bright.
‘This is going to run and run, isn’t it?’ Anna asked.
‘You’d better believe it.’
The flat felt empty again after Anna closed the door, but not desperately so. She had some toast and tea, and she read a chapter of a book she’d had on the go for ages. And just as she was thinking about heading upstairs to bed, at half nine, her phone rang. It was Ben’s daughter, Stella.
‘Hi, Stella.’
‘Hi. I just wanted to say hello, see how you’re doing.’
Anna felt her heart tighten like a fist in her chest.
‘I’m okay, Stella. Are you?’
‘Yeah, sort of. It’s just, it’s hard, isn’t it? I’ve been thinking about him all day, and you. How happy you made him.’
There was a pause, and Anna thought Stella might be crying.
‘He loved you so much,’ Anna said.
‘He loved you too.’
And then they both said nothing, and Anna could hear Stella’s music playing in the background, and she realised that she missed the noise and bustle of the girls being in the flat.
‘How’s Tess?’
‘Up and down. She got her nose pierced and Mum freaked. Can you imagine what Dad would have said?’
Anna thought about that. She thought he probably wouldn’t have liked it. He’d struggled with his girls growing up, the way she imagined all parents did. But what did any of it matter, in the end? What did a piercing matter, or a tattoo, when at any moment, you could lose someone?
