Three Women Read Online Free PDF

had learned to steer well clear of all the manoeuvring involved and instead enjoyed reading the Sunday newspapers flung on the couch beside her and sipping at her coffee. She loved days like this, when the family were all together, Tom and the kids in their jackets and gear, with even Bailey, their Labrador, out in the garden, caught up in the middle of it all as they finally managed to hoist the boat up on its wheels and got ready to move it down to the nearby fishing harbour. The work and fresh air would give them all an appetite. She was happy to stay here, content and cosy, keeping an eye on the food and just relaxing.
    She must have dozed off, because when she woke Bailey was pushing to sit down on the rug in front of the fire and Tom was throwing a log of wood on the grate.
    ‘It’s windy out there,’ he laughed, ‘but we got her launched and took her for a bit of a run, then we got her moored.’
    Jack looked wrecked, with bloodshot eyes, his skin sweaty and pale.
    ‘He’s seriously hungover, Mum,’ teased Erin.
    ‘We were all at Danny’s farewell do. He’s heading to Perth on Monday. He thinks he’s got a job lined up there.’
    ‘Well, I hope it all works out,’ Nina smiled, knowing that Jack would really miss Danny, one of his oldest schoolfriends.
    ‘You’ll be lost without him!’ interjected Erin, flinging herself on the couch beside Nina and grabbing the magazine part of the newspaper.
    ‘How long till dinner?’ yawned Jack.
    ‘About thirty minutes,’ Nina said, knowing full well that, like the dog, her son would be asleep in a few minutes.
    She set the table in the kitchen and spooned out the stew on to their plates before calling the others to eat.
    ‘Where’s Luke this weekend?’ she asked, as Erin helped to put the potatoes out in a bowl.
    ‘Mum, he’s my boyfriend,’ she laughed, ‘but that doesn’t mean that we are tied together … He’s just gone to Liverpool for the weekend to a match with a few guys from work.’
    Nina bit her tongue. In her day couples spent all their time together, but nowadays they seemed to live their lives separately, each doing their own thing with their own friends half the time and being together when it suited them. She and Tom both liked Luke Gallagher. He was kind and charming, and fitted in well with their family. But it was up to Erin to decide his importance in her life, not them.
    Finding the right partner was, to Nina’s mind, the most important thing in life. She was so lucky to have met Tom and fallen madly in love with him on almost their first date. The feeling, luckily, was mutual and after a pretty passionate romance they had got married within about eighteen months, once Tom had passed all his exams and accepted a job in Grattan’s Engineering Company. They had lived in a small house in Harold’s Cross for the first few years of their marriage, until Tom got promoted. Like all couples, they had had their fair share of ups and downs, joys and disappointments – especially the heartache of discovering that they couldn’t have children, which had been an absolute blow to both of them. But somehow they had managed to recover and decided to try to adopt a baby if they couldn’t have one of their own. First Erin came along and then their little boy, Jack, both welcomed into their lives with so much love. They became a family – a proper family. She and Tom were both still mad about each other and theirs was a good marriage. She had watched friends’ marriages fall apart over the past few years as their families grew up. Even her best friend Vonnie and her husband, Simon, had got divorced eighteen months ago and now barely spoke to each other. It was heartbreaking.
    * * *
    Bill had brought along a bottle of their favourite Merlot and they all sat down around the table, Jack sticking to a large glass of iced water and Erin refusing any wine, grabbing a can of Sprite from the fridge instead, as she was driving. They ate and chatted