How to Get a Life by Julietta Henderson

Author:Julietta Henderson [Henderson, Julietta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Family Life, General, Humorous, Women, Coming of Age, Urban & Street Lit
ISBN: 9781529936254
Google: iYTnEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2024-07-03T23:00:00+00:00

28

Danny

The next morning when we sat out on the patio drinking coffee, Lou offered to sort the multitude of new letters Pete had dropped off into some kind of order to make it easier for me.

‘Like triage,’ she said.

Like you wouldn’t believe, I thought, recalling a four-page marathon I’d read late into the previous night, with the occasional bit of something in my eye.

She began to work her way methodically through the bundles I handed over, skimming the contents of each letter, spending longer on some than others. Even though she was frowning, deep in concentration, it struck me that it was the first time I’d seen her look genuinely animated. I was clearly surplus to requirements, though, so I left her to it and took the opportunity to spread a couple of loads of fertilizer around Dom’s garden beds. When I was done, I moved the remainder of the bags to a more sheltered spot behind the shed and covered them with a plastic sheet and some loose bricks I’d found in my clear-out. It was a forty-minute job that had taken me three months to get to, and it certainly made me think.

Within an hour, Lou had sorted the letters into three neat piles lined up across both arms of her chair. Whatever her system was, it looked much better than the crumpled-up meal I’d made of things the night before when I was trying to work out where to start.

‘Talk me through it then.’

‘Well, my plan was to separate them into themes, but then I realized they were all too different so I changed tack. I’ve kept it simple, and gone with splitting them into the ones I think are going to be quite straightforward to answer and others that are going to take a bit more thought.’ She indicated two of the piles. ‘Then, in each of those groups I’ve filed them using the same concept – in order of easiest to most complex.’

‘And what’s that one then?’ I indicated the third and noticeably larger mound of letters, and saw her mouth twitch ever so slightly.

‘Oh, yes, well. These are the ones about love – difficult to live with, impossible to live without, by all accounts. When I abandoned the idea of themes I’d already sorted loads into this one, so I just kind of kept going.’ She ruffled the pile with her thumb, then gathered it up and handed it to me. ‘Everybody’s biggest problem, apparently.’

Apparently.

‘Let me know if you need any help solving that lot.’ Lou nodded at the letters in my hand and smiled wryly. ‘I’m joking, obviously.’

By the time I settled myself in my armchair with my notepad and peeled the first letter off the ‘easy’ pile, her eyes were closed. But there was still a trace of a smile around her mouth, and I was kind of glad my sister was going to be there beside me when I had to think about love.

It never is breaking news when I fall for a woman and, hands up, I’ll be the first to admit it happens a lot.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.