Mimi had decided not to press her. After all, it was less than two weeks until Christmas. If the anniversary of her own husband’s death was approaching, Mimi would probably be drinking excessively too. Meanwhile Andrea was continuing to race Jill to the bottom of the wine bottle. The best Mimi could do was pour them several glasses of water so they wouldn’t both have headaches tomorrow.

It was when Jill signalled the waiter for a third bottle that Mimi decided to try one last time to get Jill to open up.

‘Are you okay, Jill? You know you can talk to us, right?’

Jill fixed her eyes on Mimi’s face and then they dropped to Elliot who was back in Mimi’s arms, fast asleep. ‘Do you two think I’m a good mother?’ she asked.

Mimi leaned forward. ‘Of course you are,’ she said at the same time as Andrea’s perhaps a little too effusive exclamation. ‘Are you kidding, you’re a great mum!’

‘Why do you ask?’ Mimi said.

Jill poured herself another glass of wine and took a large drink before responding. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Just something on my mind.’

‘What’s going on?’ Mimi pressed. ‘Something has you rattled.’

But Jill’s face was shutting down again. ‘It’s nothing, I was being silly. But there is one thing I should tell you. Callie came to see me last week after school. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything, if it would make it worse if I betrayed her confidence, but I realised it’s more important that you know. She was very upset about something. I think you were right that there’s something going on.’

‘Oh,’ said Mimi.

Andrea clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘I forgot to tell you that I finally got the chance to try and talk to Callie too. It was only yesterday but with everything else going on with Violet next-door, it feels like it was days ago. Umm, it didn’t go well.’

‘Damn, really?’

‘Yeah. It was like she was really angry with me, but I don’t know why.’

‘And what did she say to you, Jill?’

‘Not a lot. But she was crying and I felt like there was something she wanted to tell me, but she didn’t know how.’

Now Mimi felt like crying herself. What an emotional bloody lunch. If Callie wouldn’t talk to her parents, wouldn’t talk to her grandmother and wouldn’t talk to her aunt, who would she talk to?

*

Darren

‘Didn’t think I’d be hearing from you so fast.’