Another Night, Another Day Read Online Free PDF

Karen locates the tin opener in the wrong drawer. I seem to mislay things all the time, she thinks. As she empties the beans into a saucepan, Lou tells her the full story. When
she’s finished, she says, ‘Enough about me. Was your Christmas OK?’
    ‘Oh, fine,’ says Karen brightly.
    Lou gives her a sideways look.
    Karen hesitates. She’s not sure she’s up to talking about this, plus she’s conscious her daughter is present. ‘I suppose I’ve been feeling a bit blue,’ she
says carefully. ‘And today was a big day, you know, for Molly . . .’
    ‘It can’t be easy, seeing her starting school.’ Lou cups her hands protectively over her belly.
    She’s got all this to come, thinks Karen, with a twinge of jealousy. I’d love to have the children’s first few years over again. An image of Simon holding a newborn Molly
flashes into her mind, but she pushes it away. ‘No, it isn’t . . .’
    Her recent exchange with Molly has underlined that her daughter is likely to pick up on their conversation. True to form, Molly pipes up, ‘Didn’t you
want
me to go to
school, Mummy?’
    Karen laughs. ‘Of course I did, sweetheart. It’s only that Mummy will miss you.’
    ‘But you’ll still
see
me.’
    ‘Of course I will.’ Karen and Lou exchange glances. Then Karen says, ‘Tell you what, Molly, would you like to watch a few minutes of CBeebies while Mummy and Lou have a chat?
You can have your lunch on the coffee table in there if you like. Special treat.’ She struggles to ignore the guilt she feels for allowing Molly to eat in front of the screen.
    ‘OK!’ Molly follows her into the living room.
    ‘I don’t know, sometimes I just really miss Simon,’ Karen admits back in the kitchen.
    ‘It’s only natural.’
    Karen sighs, reaching for the loaf and cutting two slices. However much Lou sympathizes, however perceptive she is, how can Karen explain that a voice inside her head is telling her that she
should not be feeling this way? People keep saying time heals, she thinks, but my heart seems to break more with each passing day.
    ‘What about your mum and dad?’ says Lou. ‘How did it go with them?’
    Karen senses she’s trying to be diplomatic by changing the subject, but this is another topic she finds hard.
    Still, if I can’t talk to Lou about it, who can I? she cajoles herself, putting the bread in the toaster. Lou must witness all sorts of upset as a counsellor, and she’s seen me at my
worst – she was there when Simon died. Karen pauses on her way to the fridge. ‘You know they’ve just moved back here?’
    Lou nods.
    ‘Mum’s had to sell their villa, which is such a pity. They’d been planning to spend their retirement in the Algarve, and we had some lovely holidays out there over the
years.’ Karen smiles as she recalls the whoops and laughter of Simon playing with the kids in the paddling pool; her father’s cry of ‘Coo-ee! Drinkie time!’ that announced
he was poised to pour their evening aperitifs; she can almost smell the Ambre Solaire . . . Then her smile fades as she considers her parents’ current difficulties. ‘Mum was finding it
increasingly hard to cope with Dad’s Alzheimer’s virtually single-handed and living abroad.’
    ‘I can imagine.’
    ‘So now Dad’s in this home in Worthing.’
    ‘How’s he finding it?’
    ‘It’s not really a case of how
he’s
finding it. I’m not sure he knows quite where he is any more.’
    ‘Does he still recognize you?’
    ‘He rarely recognizes anyone. Not even Mum.’ Again Karen sighs. Slowly but surely my father is disappearing, she thinks. He’s only a shadow of the dad I once had. The gleam in
his eyes he used to have on seeing me, the excitement on hearing my latest news – both have shrunk so they are barely perceptible. His concern for anyone else these days is sporadic,
fleeting, and his ability to retain new facts and stories, or converse at length about people and places, has gone