It catches my breath for just a few seconds, but I don’t even open it. I want to, but I can’t, so I just press delete.

Chapter Eleven

Wicklow, May 2018

‘Jack wants to go to the seafood restaurant as usual, but I’d love to try somewhere different,’ I say to Sophie as I drive through the Wicklow Mountains on my way home from school. ‘What do you think? There’s the new steak house near Bray if you wanted to come out this direction?’

It’s our monthly catch-up dinner with our two very closest friends and as always I’m looking forward to hearing all that’s going on with Sophie and Harry, especially now that we live a bit further apart geographically and it’s not as easy to meet up for coffee or chats during the week.

‘Jack’s such a creature of habit!’ laughs Sophie. ‘He would eat in the seafood place every month for the rest of his life if you let him! Does he still insist on washing the cars every single Saturday at nine thirty?’

‘Yes!’ I tell her, nodding in agreement. ‘Even if it’s blowing a gale or a hurricane, he’d still be out there with his yellow bucket and sponge in his wellies and waterproofs. Honestly, I think he’s getting worse! He just loves a routine and if he missed the ten o’clock news with a cup of tea in his hand the world would end!’

I hear Sophie’s hearty laugh echo through the Bluetooth system in my new gleaming white Land Rover Discovery, which I’m still getting used to as I manoeuvre through the winding roads. The new vehicle was a present from Jack that came straight from the showroom in celebration of my new role at the prestigious Holy Trinity School in Dublin and our new home near the picturesque town of Ardara, in County Wicklow.

‘That’s married life for you, Char,’ says Sophie. ‘I swear, Henry never once wore slippers in his life, well not since he owned a pair of Thomas the Tank Engines when he was a nipper. But now that we’re all sensible and married, he wears the most hideous velvet navy pair round the house and it makes me want to vom!’

I laugh as I imagine Henry, all six foot four of him, skulking around in his slippers on their fancy porcelain floors, all the time listening to Sophie rant about how much they make her sick! They’re a comedy duo for sure, and she’s bang on about how settled Jack is now that we’re also married.