The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

bubble was popped like the deflated balloons lying limply on the sofa, my world falling to pieces like the cake trampled into the carpet. Of course there’d been signs – many of them, in the previous months – and more arguments. Jacob had worked late or at weekends more and more frequently, and there had been a general sense, unvoiced but felt by both of us, that we’d slowly grown apart as we’d grown up. But when the end came, it left me reeling. Crystal Williams, the woman now sitting in my driveway, waiting to spend the weekend with my children, is a beautiful thirty-five-year-old barrister with creamy caramel skin, a stunning home in Charlton Kings, and the most extensive shoe collection of anyone I know.

I should hate her – she shagged, and eventually stole, my husband as he worked on a three-month garden redesign for her, after all – and at first I did, with a passion. But the hatred slowly dissipated, and it has, miraculously, now gone completely. They’re still together, she and Jacob, happy and settled in her gorgeous house, and the kids … well, I’m still loath to say they love her, but I think they do, just a little. They fell for her accent first (she’s originally from Barbados, and speaks, they say “just like Rihanna, Mum!”). But she’s also kind to them, generous but not in an ostentatious or over-the-top way and, although she apparently has no desire to have children of her own, she has willingly accepted my offspring into her life and home as often as they want to be there, as part of Jacob, the man she genuinely seems to love. A few months after the split she rang me, asked if we could meet, told me how ashamed she was, but also how in love. She was so humble, so deeply apologetic, so bloody nice, that despite myself I could feel the burning anger I felt towards her for hastening the end of our marriage begin to cool almost immediately. After all, if it hadn’t been her, it would have been somebody else, eventually; it might even have been me who’d had the affair, who’d left first. That’s the truth of it, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.

So now we rub along just … fine. It’s fine. I’m still single, of course, but that’s fine too. For now, at least.

‘Bye Mum! See you on Sunday.’

Finley has wrapped his arms around my waist, face upturned. I kiss his forehead and squeeze him tightly until he yelps and squirms from my grasp. Eloise takes his place and I kiss her too and then wave them off, the Land Rover pulling slowly out of the driveway just as Brenda and Barbara appear at the gate. They pause to wave and smile, then walk up the drive to where I’m still standing by the open front door. Brenda is clutching a bottle of cava and Barbara is holding a covered baking tray, which I very much hope holds some of her divine chocolate brownies.

‘Evening! Brownies!’ she says.

‘Yesss!’ I say. ‘You never let me down! Come in, come in.’

I shut the door and we head for the kitchen, both of them talking at once.

‘I’m ready for a glass of that bubbly, Brenda. Crack it open!’

‘I’m starving. What shall we order tonight? Oh, Beth, the Kings Head is going to start doing a weekly quiz night next month, have you heard? The Busy Bees have to enter. We’d be brilliant, don’t you think?’

I laugh, open the cupboard, and take out three glasses, then relieve Barbara of her tray. It’s still warm to the touch and the contents smell mouth-watering.

‘Indian? I’m easy though. We’ll order straight away, shall we? I’m hungry too. And yes, a pub quiz sounds fun. Haven’t done one in years. You’re on for a Busy Bees team if I can get Robin to babysit.’

The Busy Bees is the name Brenda came up with for the three of us – Beth, Barbara, and Brenda – not long after we all met. As I stand at my front door, looking out, Barbara lives next door on the left and Brenda on the right. They’re both a bit older – many of my friends are older than me these days, which doesn’t bother me at all, although some would, I suspect, look for a deep psychological meaning behind the fact that I’m drawn to women of around my absent mother’s age – and both are single, and we all just … well, clicked, I suppose. They’re kind, and good fun, and our regular get-togethers are always a hoot. We own three of just eight properties in The Acre, a small, new development just off the top of Prestbury High Street, where I moved after Jacob and I sold our marital home on the other side of town after the split. Brenda moved in just three weeks after I did, and Barbara about a month after that, so we’ve all been here a year or so now, and I love it. The house is spacious and bright and ultra-modern, four bedrooms and an open-plan kitchen and living area; outside, it has a smart paved driveway and a small but pretty south-facing garden, and it’s perfect for me and the kids. Prestbury’s great too, just two miles from Cheltenham town centre and a short drive from work, but with its own mini supermarket, a couple of hair salons, three pubs and, of course, the world-famous racecourse just down the road.

Now I smile as my friends settle themselves on the high-backed bar stools around my kitchen island, clinking glasses. Brenda, who will turn sixty this year, is sporting her trademark red-framed spectacles, her short stylishly cut grey-blonde hair with its long fringe sweeping across her forehead. She manages a boutique in the trendy part of town called The Suffolks, one of those elegant little shops full of cashmere wraps and floaty silk dresses – lovely but way out