‘Are those sandwiches for anyone?’ she asked, seeing a few triangles of bread on a plate.
‘No, dear. Have them. Do you want to know what’s in them so you can enter it into your little app?’ My sister had been keeping track of every single thing she ate via an app for years, along with her exercise, sleep and pretty much anything else you could track. Carbs were generally a sworn enemy. I guess today she’d called a temporary ceasefire to hostilities. She’d once tried to get me to do the whole app thing too, but frankly it looked exhausting.
‘No, that’s all right.’
‘Oh… OK. Here you go,’ Mum said, putting them on a smaller plate while clearly trying to keep the astonishment out of her voice. ‘There’s tea in the pot if you want some.’
‘Thanks,’ Sally said, taking a bite of one sandwich and taking it with her to finish as she poured tea into a bone china mug.
Dad gave me a puzzled, but pleased, look.
OK. Who was this woman and where was my sister?
‘I’ll go and put these bits in the car,’ Seb said, taking the food my mum had piled into two paper bags as he told Scooby to stay. Dad said something about giving him a hand, and, in a move fairly astute for a couple of blokes, it seemed that they had decided their absence might be appropriate for the moment. I looked across at Mum who gave a tiny shrug.
‘You all right, Sal?’ I started.
‘Yes, fine.’ She smiled, taking the second sandwich. That was literally the most carbs I’d seen her eat in one go in about three years. Something was up. ‘He seems nice.’
‘He is.’
‘I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.’ She looked out of the window, down the garden. ‘We don’t really talk much any more, do we?’
I shrugged. ‘I’m not seeing him. We’re just friends. And you and I talk plenty. Life’s busy.’
‘Hmm.’
In my mind, I’d circled back to the book club thing. And also because I didn’t really know what else to say.You’re acting really weirdseemed a little blunt, even from me. ‘I am sorry about the book club, you know. I hope it hasn’t caused you too much trouble rearranging things.’
Sally waved a perfect manicure at me. ‘Don’t worry about it, Lots. Actually, I’ve dropped out of it.’
‘Oh… really?’
‘Yes. It was just getting a bit complicated with my shifts and trying to get to the meetings after a long flight was going to be exhausting.’
‘Couldn’t they arrange them for when you were off?’ I asked, frowning. ‘They must have realised you’d be tired after stepping off a long-haul flight.’
Sally curved her hands around the mug of tea. ‘Actually, I think they did it on purpose. I’d given them my shift schedule and when they sent me the book club dates, they all clashed.’
‘Oh, love.’
Sally gave a one shouldered shrug, then smiled up at us. ‘Me dropping out of it wasn’t exactly my idea, if I’m honest.’
‘What do you mean?’ I frowned.
‘They kind of uninvited me.’
‘Oh Sal. I’m sorry.’ My stomach twisted. Not doing stuff because you don’t want to is one thing, but I hadn’t meant other people to get flak because of it.
‘No, Lottie. Don’t look like that. It’s fine. Actually, you did me a favour.’
‘I did?’
‘You did.’ She reached out and took my hands, curling her long elegant fingers around mine. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t listen when you tried to tell me before that you felt they weren’t very friendly on the times you’d sat in for me.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘No. It’s not.’ There was a strength in her voice that I hadn’t heard in a long time. At least not when it came to something that affected other people. ‘I should have listened. You’re my sister and I dismissed your comments. I chose to put them above you and assume that it was just you.’ She looked up for a moment, away from me. ‘Dad, stop hiding in the hall. You’re not intruding on anything.’
