For a summary of what's happened in previous chapters, please see author notes.

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July 2022

The sun warms the back of my neck as I lean back into the deck chair. At last finally a day of summer sun when it actually isn’t too hot to sit outside. There’s a blackbird chirping in the acorn tree at the end of the garden. I fell in love with it when I first came to view this house twenty years ago. My glass of lemonade is cool against the palm of my hand, and the ice clinks against the side of the glass as I tip it to my mouth.

‘Mum, look at this.’ My daughter, Rachel, calls out to me.

Well that’s a new record, five minutes of peace to myself before the kids start hollering. I sit up straighter in my seat.

‘What was that, darling?’ I ask, craning my neck.

Rachel pads out of the kitchen with bare feet onto the grass. The sun’s glinting on the top of her brown curly hair. She’s wearing a pair of tight blue shorts, and a plain white top. She’s holding onto her phone, staring at something with a wide grin on her face.

‘Look at this,’ she says thrusting the phone towards me.

I can’t make out what the picture’s meant to be of.

‘Sorry, darling, all I see is a load of funny shapes.’ It looks like some modern day Van Gough painting in my eye.

Rachel rolls her eyes. ‘Honestly Mum, you’re not that far gone. Look, its Joshua.’

I squint. But yes, I can make my son out now. He’s wearing funny shaped glasses, and pointing a finger to the ceiling. He must be in a night club. 

‘Who’s that he’s with?’ I ask, pulling the phone closer towards me.

‘Ah, the penny drops,’ Rachel says. ‘It’s some girl who he must’ve met last night. Or perhaps they’ve been seeing each other for a while and he just hasn’t told us.’

‘Really, do you think he’s met someone?’ I say, heart pounding in my chest as I examine the young woman in the picture who’s laughing and leaning into my son. She’s pretty, blonde hair falling to her shoulders, baby blue eyes. What lovely looking grandchildren they’d make, stop it.

‘Well he looks like he’s having a good time with her,’ Rachel says.

The photo vanishes from her phone and I blink. Did I do something to make it disappear? ‘Where’s the photo gone?’

Rachel laughs. ‘It’s a story Mum, so, it’s like this, when you post a story you only have a few seconds to view it before it moves onto something else, and it only stays up for twenty four hours.’

Her words float around inside my head. They mean nothing to me. ‘Well, that’s pretty ridiculous. Who was the woman who he was with, then?’

Rachel shrugs. ‘I don’t know. She wasn’t tagged in the photo.’

‘Tagged?’

‘Honestly Mum, I’m not giving you a lesson on Instagram here. Right, I’m off out to meet Chloe, I’ll see you later.’

Rachel pecks a kiss on my cheek.

‘Text me to let me know you’re there,’ I say.

‘Will do,’ she shouts as she heads back into the house.

I still can’t get rid of the butterflies in my stomach at the thought my son might’ve met someone. The last serious girlfriend he had was when he was at university. I was devastated when they split up; I really thought at the time that she was the one for him. We got on really well. Perhaps it does look like he’s finally ready to settle down.

I take a sip of my drink and lean back in my chair.