Be Careful What You Wish For by Lorraine Murphy

Author:Lorraine Murphy [Lorraine Murphy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkubator Books
Published: 2023-08-19T16:00:00+00:00

20

TARA

It was strange getting on the train glammed up and with a cooked breakfast inside her. Tara yawned in the morning sunshine on the unusually quiet platform. Although exhausted, she couldn’t stop smiling. Her sister was in her apartment and the icing on the cake for the day so far was when the train arrived on time with many empty seats.

The night before was magic. Her smile widened as she realised – it was a sleepover. She’d never had a friend, and certainly never one who stayed over before. All those books she read as a lonely teenager, all the Hollywood movies that made her cry, they described sleepovers as the best fun a girl could have.

Cassie wanted to meet Mother. She said she wouldn’t tell her the truth about who she was, and Tara believed her, but that wasn’t the issue. Bringing anybody into her house would stress her mother out.

Tara cried the day Mother got her prognosis, especially because she should have been there to support her but had instead been in bed with a hangover. Oh, how she wished she hadn’t gone to the Partners Plus summer party. That had been a bad, bad decision.

Her mother was never exactly outgoing, but after Daddy RIP died it was like the house had been ripped apart. It took a long time to shrink the massive holes he left, the pipe he left on the fireplace, the newspaper left open on the horseracing, the remote controls always stuck down the side of his old brown armchair. To this day, she never sat in Daddy’s Chair. Nobody did. When he passed, a bit of both of them died too. He was the jolly one, and she used to wonder how he’d married someone as introverted as her mother, but he worshipped the ground she walked on, idolised her. “My Mary,” he’d say, “made me the happiest man in the world.” He’d pull her from whatever she was teaching Tara and waltz her around the room. She’d smack him playfully and then let him lead her, throwing her head back and laughing. Then he’d pick up Tara and together the trio would dance, like a very happy family.

There was no sign of Barry on the train this morning, which disappointed her a little. She didn’t fancy him with his funny eyebrows and fat neck, but she felt better when he was around. Trains ran every few minutes at rush hour, he could be on any one of them, or driving his car if it had made a miraculous recovery. Maybe he’d bought a new one already. She wondered if he was thinking about her too.

She messaged her mother.

Can I bring my friend to dinner tonight?

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