Pastures New Read Online Free PDF

as two and coming back with Josh as a family … So many memories. And she was leaving them all behind. She was saying goodbye to her old life. She was saying goodbye to Jamie. A stab of guilt shot through her, and a sense of loss so overwhelming she was stunned by the force of it. Jamie was gone. It was just her and Josh now. She doubted she’d ever get used to it.
    Eyes full, she turned her back on the home where she had been happy for so long, and mechanically went back to the car, saying her goodbyes while hoping that Mary couldn’t detect the tears she was trying to hide. She started the car and sped off round the corner, Josh still waving and shouting goodbye till Mary was long gone. Then she allowed the silent tears to fall.

    Amy closed the door behind the last removal man. It banged shut with a horrible finality. Well, she’d done it. She and Josh were on their own, properly on their own for the first time since Jamie had died – in a new town, where they knew no one.
    ‘Can I go in the garden?’ Josh had just twigged that there was more to his new home than just four walls.
    ‘Of course,’ said Amy, smiling to banish her gloomy thoughts. ‘Let’s get our coats and have an explore.’
    Despite it being only early September, there was already an autumnal chill in the air, and the impressionof summer being over was further enhanced by the smell of bonfires. The leaves weren’t quite turning yellow, but it wouldn’t be long. Amy shivered as she watched Josh running wild in their new garden. A pang of longing shot unexpectedly through her, and tears came to her eyes.
    ‘Why are you crying, Mummy?’ A little hand came and found hers.
    ‘I was just thinking about how much Daddy would have liked it here,’ Amy said. She had always been open with Josh about everything, despite Mary’s feeling that children should be protected from too much heartache.
    Josh looked at her thoughtfully.
    ‘But if Daddy’s in heaven, he can see where we are, and he’ll like it too,’ he replied.
    ‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ said Amy, laughing through her tears.
    Josh looked at her puzzled, but Amy just smiled at him.
    ‘It’s all right, Josh, you’ve just managed to cheer me up. Come on, let’s go and get some tea.’

    The next morning, Amy wasn’t feeling quite so sanguine. She had had a lousy night’s sleep on her landlady’s rather lumpy double bed. Josh had had a nightmare, and ended up in bed with her. It was a while since he’d done that. When he had been very little, just after Jamie had died, he’d come in with her every night, but she had gradually weaned him off it. Maybe themove had unsettled him again. Oh lord, was she doing the right thing?
    Amy had lain in bed worrying about that – and whether she had irrevocably offended Mary. She didn’t want to cut the ties completely – just loosen them a little. Was that so very wrong? What would Jamie have done in her shoes? She was still learning to appreciate that one of the worst aspects of her situation was making decisions alone, and realising there was no way she could truly know what Jamie would have thought.
    She turned over, determined to get some sleep, but then her mind went into overdrive about money. Her demons were back and running amok. Money. Her overriding preoccupation since Jamie’s death. She had thought they were reasonably well off. She had thought they’d made adequate provision. But the idea of either of them dying had seemed so remote that they had never got round to doing the obvious stuff. It had always felt as though there would be plenty of time for that.
    If only she and Jamie had got married, or written a will, as they always intended. Everything would have been so much more straightforward. But they hadn’t, so the taxman had come to claim both his share of the computer business Jamie had run with his partner, Giles, and their property. Added to which, Amy hadn’t appreciated how much debt the business itself was in