The Secrets of Married Women Read Online Free Page B

on daughters.’ She nods her approval. My dad gazes at her, beguiled.
    Sometimes, through my heartbreak, I can smile at my mother, in the way that you’d smile at a child. That’s in my moments when I accept that when we get old we somehow get stripped of rank, instead of getting the respect we deserve. And when I believe that dementia in some ways is kind, because at least eventually, when it gets really bad, they are too far gone to know. But I’m rarely this generous. Mostly I burn and I rail and I disbelieve there’s a God. And I grieve for the lively-minded woman she was, the friend I had. I can still hear her say, with her unsentimental bluntness that seemed to contradict her exterior reserve: ‘Shoot me and put me in a box if I ever get like that.’ And we said, oh-ha-ha, don’t worry, we will. Because it’s fine to joke about that stuff when you think it’s never going to happen. What we should have done was bag her off to doctors early on, have every test and scan under the sun to somehow pre-empt fate. But, as Rob will say to me, you can’t do that Jill. That’s not how life works . And I’ll say, I know. But a good daughter would have tried.
    My dad makes us tea in the kitchen. ‘Other than this episode today she’s been fine you know!’ he says brightly. ‘Almost like the old Bessie. The other day she even asked when you’d be home from school.’
    There is a moment where my dad seems to register what he has just said and he frowns, worried and a little freaked out.
    My heart sinks. ‘Oh Dad,’ I stare at the back of his bird-like brown hair that’s miraculously defied going grey. What was this? A normal, forgetful blip? Or is he losing his mind too?
    He puts his mug down, studies me for moments like he’s trying to recall me, then his chin wobbles and the tears come. ‘You don’t go to school do you,’ he says. ‘You’re thirty-five.’
    ‘Don’t worry, Dad. You’re just under stress.’
    He shoots a quick glance at my mother. ‘I’m not,’ he says. Because his first thought is you can’t take her away from me.
    I stay for a couple of hours, valiantly trying to cheer him. Then he waves me off at the door, looking at me with that pathetic little face that will forever be etched in my memory. My dad used to be a manual worker. Everything about him was virile and aboveboard, and, like Atlas, I imagined he could hold the world on those strapping shoulders and effortlessly run a marathon with it, breaking all records, setting new and impenetrable ones. I can’t accept him as raw-boned and in the poorhouse.
    I drive around the corner, pull over, and ring Rob. ‘Of course he’s not losing his mind too,’ my husband assures me, through my stammers and sobs. ‘He’s seventy-five Jill. He can barely take care of himself let alone your mam. You’ve got to forgive him the odd slip. Hell, I forget things all the time and I’m only in my thirties.’
    ‘Do you ever think your wife’s still a teenager?’
    ‘Only when you give me reason too. Which, come to think of it, is quite often.’
    ‘Bastard,’ I say, my sniffle being replaced with an ailing smile.
    ‘Cheer up now, okay?’ my hubby softly scolds me. ‘I don’t want you driving home upset or the next time I see you you’ll be wearing a toe tag on a gurney.’
    Rob’s ability to always bring me out of my crisis is like some giant safety net I know will always be there when I fall. ‘Well if I am, will you make sure they give me a nice-looking toe tag? Not one of those dismal ‘I’m dead’ toe-tags. A lively one that matches my nail polish.’
    ‘I’ll see what they have in stock.’ He laughs then says, ‘I love you.’
    Going home I’m stuck in yet another traffic jam on the Tyne bridge. I don’t feel like going to Yoga now, but I hate missing things I’ve paid for.
     
    ~ * * * ~
     
    In the mirrored studio of Better Bodies Gym, Wendy and I deftly try to extricate Leigh from a tricky Lotus position. Her