still don’t know why I’m going, really. If you’d prefer, I’m quite happy to stay home.’
‘You don’t get out enough as it is,’ said her mother, her fingers hunting down a fat capsule. ‘You should enjoy it when you get the chance.’ She dropped the pill on her tongue, washing it down with a swig of tea as she foraged for another.
‘I guess going out just doesn’t bother me all that much,’ she said with a shrug.
‘Then it should. It’s not natural for a young woman to shut herself away from the world when she should be out there enjoying it and meeting people.’
‘I’ve got a job. I meet plenty of people.’
Her mother took another sip of tea, picking up the last few pills.
‘You’re not still pining over that Bryce, are you?’
Philly pulled a face in response, putting the now empty dish over on the bedside table. Of course it had hurt, being dumped for another woman like that just before their wedding—another woman she’d discovered he’d been seeing for a year, another woman he’d made pregnant. She’d felt stupid, naïve and desperately hurt. Most of all she’d felt cheated of the child she was so desperate to have, a child he’d so freely given someone else, and for a while she’d longed to have him back. For a while.
‘No,’ she said on a sigh, knowing it was true. Abandoning her one week before their wedding had come as a huge shock. He’d let her down badly and knocked her confidence for a six but she wasn’t exactly without blame over the failure of the relationship herself.
She’d fallen in with his plans for marriage, indeed his plans for everything, because it had suited her to do so. And while she’d believed she loved him, she knew now that she’d talked herself into it because she’d so desperately wanted it to be right, to make forming a family with him and having his child right.
But it hadn’t been right. She would have been marrying him for all the wrong reasons.
‘Marriage to Bryce would have been a mistake; I know that now,’ she said, squeezing her mother’s hand. ‘He did us both a favour by walking away when he did.’
Her mother nodded. ‘He just wasn’t the one for you. But the right man is out there, you mark my words. Look at Monty; he took out dozens of girls before he found that one special woman. Annelise was so sweet. They were so happy together.’
Her mother sighed wistfully, and together their gazes drifted to the framed photo standing in pride of place on her dressing table. The smiling couple, beaming their happiness and their pride as together they held up their newborn son for the camera.
It was happiness that had been tragically short-lived. The very next day, on their way to show off the new arrival to his grandmother, all three lives had been wiped out, victims of foul weather conditions and a horrendous light plane crash.
Philly drew in a breath and turned to her mother, still transfixed by the photo and clearly thinking, remembering, as two tears slid a crooked path down her hollow cheeks. Then her mother sniffed, still looking at the photo.
‘I’d just love to see you settled, dear, bef…’ Her words trailed off mid-sentence but she didn’t have to finish them. Philly knew what she’d been going to say—the unspoken words hung fat and heavy in the air, weighed down with the inevitability of what was to come.
Before I die.
Something squeezed tight in her chest.
Less than twelve months to live. Her mother deserved some happiness, something to look forward to. Something that promised a future that would take her mind and thoughts beyond the doctors’ sad prognosis. Something to help her—not forget, she could never forget—but maybe just ease the pain she was feeling at the premature deaths of a young family who’d had everything to live for.
Instead she was giving herself up to the disease, accepting her fate almost as if she was looking forward to being reunited with her late husband and especially Monty, his beautiful wife and the grandchild she knew by this one lone photograph.
The doctors had been sympathetic when the drugs just didn’t seem to work any more in arresting the disease. ‘She has to want to live,’ they’d said. ‘People often need something to live for, a reason to survive.’
Philly had failed her. She’d promised to give her mother a grandchild but now, with a failed relationship, an aborted marriage behind her and not even eligible for IVF, she’d run out of options. Sure, there was a chance she might find a boyfriend in that time, but there was no way she was likely to settle down and form a family within the next twelve months—no way she was going to be able to brighten her mother’s last few months with the promise of a child.
But then, what real chance did she have of even finding a boyfriend? Every time she’d thought about men or dating lately only one man had sprung to mind. Every guy she met paled in comparison. He was better looking, better built, more intelligent and had a charisma that reeled her in.
She shook her head. Work must really be getting to her if Damien DeLuca kept crowding her thoughts. Sure, he had great genes but if she kept comparing every guy she met with him she was never going to find anyone who made the grade. And she couldn’t even say that she liked him—he was far too arrogant and autocratic—though he sure had plenty going for him besides.
What would he be dressed as tonight? Probably a pirate with his looks. A buccaneer, swashbuckling and dangerous, in a soft shirt, ruffled at the sleeves and open over his chest, the stark white a contrast against his dark hair and tanned olive skin, and tucked into tight black breeches…
Her mother tugged a tissue from the box on her bedside table, pulling Philly out of her thoughts with a jolt. Her nervousness at attending this costume ball must be getting to her. Now she was imagining all sorts of strange things.
‘Oh dear, I am getting maudlin,’ her mother said, blotting away her tears and then blowing her nose. ‘Don’t listen to me. I’m just tired.’
‘You get some sleep then,’ Philly said, squeezing the older woman’s hand gently and kissing her softly on the cheek before she picked up the empty cup.
‘I won’t be late.’
She shouldn’t have come.
From behind her sequinned mask she took one look inside the door, saw the myriad of characters in the lavishly decorated auditorium, the mirror balls spinning crazy colours against the bizarre outfits of the crowd dancing to the loud music, and knew she should have stayed at home.
What was she doing here anyway?
Standing in the lobby, tossing up whether or not to enter the party, she didn’t know. Yes, it had been nice to dress up, to put on something pretty rather than shrug into her sensible work wardrobe for a change—Lord knows it had been long enough since she’d taken so much care with her appearance. But what did she hope to achieve by it?
Who did she think she was trying to impress—Damien? Fat chance. In terms of being a woman, he didn’t know she was alive and he probably didn’t even care. The way he’d tried to make her feel so inconsequential when she’d given that presentation…It was pure fantasy to think that she might make an impression on him tonight.
As
