“Becca obviously came close.” Flora gripped the mug. “She ran marathons for charity, built a successful business, and did all that while running a home and being a wife and mother. And friend. Jack says you and Becca were friends from kindergarten. That’s a special relationship. When you know someone for most of your life, you know the real person. Everything about them. You know what they’ve been through, and you understand them. There are very few secrets. You see them the way they really are.”

“True.” But sometimes, Clare wondered, that wasn’t always a good thing.

“Really knowing a person—” Flora blew on her coffee “—that’s a gift, isn’t it? How many of us have a friend we can show our whole selves to and know we’ll still be loved? Usually we feel we have to cover up the bad bits. It’s like wearing makeup. We feel we have to present the very best version of ourselves all the time to be accepted. A real friend doesn’t expect you to be perfect. They forgive your flaws and love you anyway.” Something about her wistful tone made Clare think she’d never had that.

She felt a stab of guilt. She hadn’t forgiven Becca her flaws. Not this time.

A real friend doesn’t expect you to be perfect.

Had she been expecting Becca to be perfect instead of accepting her decisions and choices as part of who she was?

I know you wouldn’t do it, but you’re not me, Becca had said on numerous occasions and Clare had been forced to admit that she was often guilty of making judgments based on her own life experiences. Becca’s experience was vastly different to hers. Clare had been a much loved only child, given whatever she wanted within reason. Becca had never been given anything. She’d worked, and earned, and fought for everything she had.

“You have quite an idealistic view of friendship.” She kept her tone chatty. “What if a friend did something you thought was awful?”

“I suppose it depends on how awful, and how much it conflicts with your values. Hopefully I’d accept it as part of them. And I suppose it depends on the friendship. I’ve never had a friendship like the one you had with Becca. Losing someone who you’d grown up with, and really knew you—that is a terrible loss. Something you can’t replace.”

That was it. That was exactly it.

Flora, who didn’t know her, had instinctively identified the biggest issue for Clare—that she would never find another friend like Becca. Some people went through life picking up friends like dust on a flat surface. Clare wasn’t like that. She had a few friends in the village of course, but nothing like the depth of friendship she’d shared with Becca.