As that would involve having both Jake back and a baby, I’m not sure it’s going to be possible.

‘This is a temporary glitch,’ I insist as I pull a little bit harder. ‘We’ll be fine.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ my mother gasps, her eyes watering.

I really hate her when I know she’s absolutely right.

Chapter thirteen

Chapter thirteen

‘She doesn’t get any better, does she?’ my sister observes.

‘You’ve only just realised?’

After my mother’s departure to interfere in her friends’ marital and urinary problems, Edie cooked a fabulous roast lunch that involved several chickens and enough carrots to keep a family of bunnies happy for a year. We’re now sitting in her lounge letting it slowly add inches to our waistlines.

After yesterday’s gales, it’s now pouring down with grey, relentless rain, which means the kids can’t go outside—not that kids seem to go outside anymore. All they ever want to do is watch television and play at killing people on the computer. Edie is making a token effort of trying to restrict the number of people that her boys can slaughter. As a result, I have two squabbling nephews hanging round my neck and a sleepy baby on my lap. Daisy is on the floor using a pretend iron to press her doll’s clothes and I’m amazed that my sister hasn’t seized on this talent and taught her to use the real thing on real clothes. She is listening to Bob the Builder on the CD player and Anna is lying across the rug watching The O.C. on the television at a volume that suggests she is hard of hearing. It’s like trying to have a conversation in the middle of a premier-division football match. And I know you’re not supposed to have adult-type chats in front of the children, but this lot never listen to a word we say. Really they don’t.

‘The terrifying thing is,’ my sister continues, ‘we’re getting more and more like her every year.’

‘Speak for yourself.’

‘Mark my words, one day you’ll be getting ready to go out, thinking you’re looking very funky, and staring back at you in the mirror will be Cecilia.’ Edie swigs her wine. ‘A short version of Cecilia.’

‘Is that really all the future holds for me?’ If I wasn’t depressed before, I am now.

‘Then you’ll find yourself saying the same things she does.’

‘Never.’

‘You wait until you have kids of your own…’

Tears threaten my eyes.

‘Oh bugger,’ Edie says. ‘I didn’t mean that. What a silly-arse thing to say.’

‘You’re my sister,’ I offer. ‘I’d expect nothing less.’