knows everyone and everyone else’s business, I will bump into Sally soon enough. But, by then, I hoped I’d be more up for the challenge. More prepared. Because, if I was being honest, the thought of seeing Sally again filled me with anxiety and dread and a great dollop of despair.
What would we say to each other after what had happened and after all this time?
It’s not as if the past year has changed what I saw or diminished what she was doing with my husband in our marital bed on the day I came home unexpectedly early. If anything, it has amplified it. It’s like that horrific moment has being preserved – frozen in time – until it can be properly addressed and Sally and I face both the consequences and each other in real time.
Yet seeing Sally used to fill me with joy. She was my best friend.
More than that, she was like the sister that I’d never had and always wished for.
I suppose that’s what made this whole thing worse. Even more heartbreaking.
Why couldn’t Charles have had an affair with his secretary instead?
Why did it have to be the woman whom I’d allowed to become my soul sister?
I suppose it was for all the same reasons that I’d once loved her too. Sally was an attractive and sophisticated woman. She was great company and she was always upbeat and fun. She never seemed to run out of interesting things to say or exciting things for us to do together.
When Sally decided to lose weight and get fit, we joined the gym together. When she needed new clothes and makeup, we went shopping together. When she decided to learn French, we signed up for evening classes. We confided in each other completely and talked for hours over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine in each other’s kitchens. We confessed our most intimate secrets. I now cringed at the thought of telling her that Charles and I rarely had sex.
When I reached the charity shop, I see another co-worker and friend at the counter and so I go inside. I walk along the sale rail and pick out a couple of sweaters, a pair of jeans and a warm coat, a thick wool scarf and then head over to the till. When Taryn sees me, her eyes light up and she gasps in surprise. ‘Lorraine! You’re back! And, oh my gosh, you look fantastic!’
‘Yeah, I just got back today. I need a few things to wear. How are you?’
‘I’m fine. Just the same as ever. You know how it is. Nothing ever changes here.’
I nod my agreement as she rings up my purchases and I hand over my bank card.
‘We’re still short staffed, if you want your old job back, it’s yours!’ she said, while bagging my new-to-me things and putting me right on the spot with her immediate job offer.
I panicked a little and shrugged. ‘Oh, erm—I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’
‘Sally doesn’t work here anymore. Just in case you were wondering. None of us liked what she did to you. Taking your husband. Moving into your house. If that helps?’
‘Maybe—’ I said, feeling a little flustered and trying to think of what to say in response and failing miserably. My jet lag was suddenly making me dizzy and giving me a headache.
‘Let me think about it and I’ll call you. Thanks, Taryn.’
I walked away not feeling as pleased as I might but feeling slightly horrified.
How easy it might be to slip straight back into my old life here?
Not all of it. Not back to being a housewife or a best friend. But the rest of it.
In many ways, being back here so abruptly, it feels like the past year has only been a dream.
That heading straight for the airport and arriving in Bangkok, then exploring Thailand, island hopping down the Andaman Sea all the way down to Malaysia; then having to convince Josh and Lucas – after they’d flown all the way out to Kuala Lumpur to bring me back – that I was still relatively sane and wanted to continue to travel, had only happened in my imagination.
But it did happen and because of it I knew I wasn’t the same person anymore.
I wasn’t Lorraine Anderson, housewife. I’d become someone else entirely.
I was now Lori Anderson, a world explorer.
I’d crossed continents and sailed the oceans and seen the most amazing things.
Yet nothing here in this town seemed to have changed at all.
And there was undoubtably something strange and disconcerting about that fact.
I thought back to yesterday, when I’d been on a beautiful Caribbean tropical island, swimming naked in an emerald green lagoon fed by a waterfall, with a tiny butterfly sitting on my hand. The symbolism hadn’t escaped me. In the same way that a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, I felt that I too, in travelling, had emerged from a cocoon and found my wings.
And then, of course, I’d met and fallen in love with Ethan.
At a time when I never thought I’d ever find love again.
Whom I’d left reeling and alone in Grand Cayman.
Who still deserved an answer to the question he’d asked me on the beach yesterday.
Had it really only been yesterday?
I woke the next morning with an anxious jolt and in surprise at finding myself back in my old bedroom at my mother’s house in London. I’d been dreaming about being onboard The Freedom of the Ocean and so that’s exactly where I’d expected to wake up – in our cabin and in our small bed – with Ethan beside me. The creaking sound I’d heard in my sleep wasn’t caused by the ropes and the sway of the boat as I’d thought but by a tree in my mum’s garden.
I’d woken expecting Ethan’s big warm body to be stretched out next to mine, his long and tanned legs in a tangle with the sheet that had covered us in the chill of night. The sheet that would always end up discarded as soon as the sun had risen over the line of the horizon, sending pale pink shimmers of light through the small porthole above our heads followed by an intense yellow blinding light that quickly heated up our little cabin, until we lay splayed out and soaked with perspiration in our nakedness.
Then in our drowsy state, we would reach out to each other without opening our heavy-eyes and we would rouse each other with a tender touch, a sweeping finger, a tentative kiss from drowsy lips on hot sensitive skin. Then our breathing would quicken, and our tender touches would become something more urgent, and without a word uttered we would welcome this brand new day and greet each other, with a celebration of our lovemaking.
Realising I was quite alone and that the room was chilly and dark, I quickly grasped the reality of my new situation. My mind flitted over all that had happened over the last forty-eight hours. The island. Ethan’s brother. The news. The panic. The flight. Being back home.
I snuggled back under the duvet and sank into the warm comfortable mattress and let my head lay heavy on the soft pillow. A feeling of peace
