4
Connie
“So who did she go on a date with? Is he good enough for her?”
“I don’t know, and you’re not to ask.”
Connie put a cup of coffee in front of her mother. “When she walks through that door, you’re not to say a thing.”
“Why not? I want to know. As her grandmother, I’m entitled to be worried about her.”
“You think I’m not worried about her? I’m her mother. It’s worse for me.”
Connie glanced at the door to check there was no sign of Zoe and dropped into the chair. She’d been awake half the night thinking about Milly, desperately hoping that this might be the start of a new phase for her daughter. The last eighteen months had been incredibly tough on everyone. Milly had been crushed by Richard’s affair and flattened by the divorce, and Connie, witnessing her daughter’s distress, had been crushed and flattened too. It was like going through it all over again, only this time it was worse because this was Milly, and she knew and understood every morsel of her pain. All she wanted was for her child to be happy again. Didn’t every parent want that?
Every day she relived the moment Milly had burst into the house, sobbing. He’s left us. He’s gone. Seeing her kind, competent daughter reduced to a wounded, insecure husk of herself had been more painful than Connie could have anticipated.
And it took her back. It took her right back to when the same thing had happened to her.
She still remembered the feeling of helplessness.
Never again.
“Seeing her in pain is worse than being in pain myself. Do you have any idea how hard it is to watch your child suffer?”
Her mother raised an eyebrow. “I may have a small idea.”
Connie flushed, mortified that only now was she truly understanding how her mother might have been affected by her own ups and downs over the years. “Was it like this for you when I went through it?”
It seemed so long ago now, and the memory of all those raw feelings had softened and blurred with time.
“Yes. But you’re a parent so you just have to get on with it. When your child suffers, you suffer too. It’s part of the deal, but you don’t show it. You want your child to know you have confidence in their ability to handle whatever comes their way. You raised Milly to be strong and capable, and she is.”
“I know all that. And I know she can handle it. But I don’t want her to have to, if that makes sense.”
Connie stood up and selected a couple of oranges from the bowl on the table. “I want to see her smile again. Really smile, not a forced don’t-worry-about-me smile.”
She sliced the oranges in half and reached for the juicer.
“I understand. But all we can do is offer support.”
Peggy paused. “And for the record, I still worry about you, so don’t think that ever goes away.”
“You worry about me? Why? I’m not the one whose life has been blown apart.”
“No catastrophizing!”
Her mother waggled a finger. “And I worry about you for the same reasons you worry about Milly. Because you’re hurting. Also, I worry that you’ve put your own life on hold.”
Connie stopped juicing oranges. “I haven’t exactly—”
She broke off. Had she put it on hold? Yes, in a way she had.
From the moment Richard had walked out, she’d stepped up to be there for her daughter. She’d made Milly and Zoe her priority. She’d offered childcare whenever it was needed, and she’d done her best to bolster Milly’s confidence. She’d hidden her own distress behind a mask of calm confidence, but there had been nights when she’d fallen into her own bed exhausted by the stress of holding everything together for her daughter.
“I’m fine.”
Connie poured the juice into a glass. “And I’ll be even better when Milly starts moving on with her life again. I just want to fix it, and I can’t.”
“No, you can’t,”
Peggy said. “It’s the hardest thing about being a parent. You can’t fix everything. And you shouldn’t. It isn’t your job to fix things when they’re adults. It’s your job to support them while they fix things.”
Connie knew the theory, but she wished she knew how to do that and not worry herself sick in the process.
She made herself a strong coffee. Zoe would be down any moment, and she needed to pull herself together, but after a bad night she was feeling particularly vulnerable. “I used to think of myself as a pretty relaxed mother. Competent. I ran a successful business and raised a child. Even when Milly was bullied by those awful girls in the year above her, I didn’t lose as much sleep as I’m losing now. And she’s an adult.”
She looked at her mother in despair. “How can this feel worse?”
“Because once they’re adults you have no control. You have to let them make their own decisions and mistakes, and all you can do is watch and support. Also, when the same thing happened to you, you were too busy holding everything together to spend too much time worrying. You just got on with things.”
Connie frowned. “I’m still busy.”
“You spend your time supporting Milly and Zoe and helping out at Forest Nest. It’s time to think about yourself, Connie. Do something that distracts you. Something that needs your full attention. Switch your phone off! You need to detach yourself from their problems for a while. Rediscover you. That way perhaps you won’t spend your whole time worrying about Milly and Zoe. And I’ll worry a little less about you.”
Connie couldn’t imagine switching her phone off. What if Milly or Zoe needed her in an emergency? “Is this a good time to say I’m sorry for all the worry I ever caused you?”
“All part of life.”
Her mother waved a hand dismissively. “And look at you. You came through it. You can’t get rid of all the bumps. All you can do is hope for good people around you who will be there for you while you crawl over those bumps. And if you think you have it bad, you should put yourself in my position. I’m worried about you, my daughter and my granddaughter, so that makes my burden twice as heavy as yours and gives me the right to ask about her date.”
Connie wondered how it was that her mother always managed to make her smile. “Maybe, but I still think we need to be careful when we ask her about last night.”
“You have to be careful, but I get a pass because of my mature years.”
Peggy spooned sugar into her coffee. “My role is to interfere and give her the benefit of my many decades of wisdom. How did she meet him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him. And we’re not going to know unless she chooses to tell us. Should you be using that much sugar?”
“I’m eighty-two,”
her mother said. “I’ll eat as much sugar as I like. And just because you’ve been kind enough to let me stay with you while they fix my roof doesn’t give you the right to nag me.”
“I like having you here. You’re an easy guest, apart from your sugar habit. And your tendency to speak your mind. And talking of your roof, how is it coming along? Are they making progress?”
“We had all that rain last month so they think it will take another few weeks. I’m going over to take a look later.”
Connie frowned. “You’re worried they’re not doing a good job?”
“They’re doing a great job. No, in this hot weather they’ll have their shirts off, and that’s the closest to action a woman of my age gets. I don’t want to miss it.”
Connie laughed. “You do know you’re not allowed to say that kind of thing anymore?”
“I can say what I like in my own home. And speaking of action, Milly probably met him through one of those dating apps. I’ve been reading about those. I wondered if I might try it myself. I’ll ask Zoe to take a good photograph of me. I can pass for seventy-five on a good day with the light behind me.”
“Why do you need a photograph, Nanna Peg?”
Zoe appeared in the doorway yawning, her chestnut curls tangled from sleep and her eyes still bleary.
At that moment she looked so much like Milly at the same age that Connie felt her breath catch. It was the freckles and the blue eyes and also the ready smile. Milly had always been a smiler. She’d been gentle and good-natured and an all-around daddy’s girl. Until her daddy had walked out. After that, part of her had closed off, and for a while Connie had been afraid that her daughter might be too wary of love to ever allow herself to fall for anyone, but then she’d met Richard.
Connie had liked Richard. Connie had loved Richard. Not anymore.
Every time she thought about him she wanted to break something.
“Nanna Peg doesn’t need a photograph. She was joking.”
She opened the fridge. “What can I make you for breakfast, sweetheart? Eggs? Fruit and yogurt? I’ve squeezed you a fresh juice.”
“Whatever happened to heaped bowls of sugary cereal or a big fat bacon sandwich?”
Peggy took a sip of coffee. “The problem with your generation is that all the joy has been stripped out of life. No additives, no alcohol, no red meat—the list is endless, and you take it to extremes. A little of everything was my motto. And here I am at eighty-two in a hiking group.”
“I’m thirteen,”
Zoe reminded her with a grin. “I don’t drink alcohol.”
“Ignore Nanna Peg,”
Connie advised. “Most people grow out of their rebellious phase in their teens, but your great-grandmother is getting worse with age. Your mum messaged to say she’s on her way.”
“Yes, she messaged me too.”
Zoe dropped her schoolbag by the door and sat down at the table. “Eggs would be great, thanks, Gramma.”
“At least make them into pancakes,”
Nanna Peg said and Connie sighed as she put the glass of orange juice in front of Zoe.
“Pancakes or omelet?”
Zoe wrestled with herself. “I love pancakes, but I don’t want to get fat.”
“Fat?”
Peggy peered through her glasses. “You’re skin and bone, and not surprising given the amount of energy you burn. Whoever said you were getting fat?”
“No one.”
Zoe flushed scarlet. “Pancakes, then. And I won’t add much sugar. Sugar is on the banned list too, Nanna Peg, in case you didn’t know. So how did the date go? Do we know?”
Connie sifted flour into a bowl and added eggs and milk. Where had that fat comment come from? Maybe it was just an age thing. She was growing up and changing. “The date? We do not know, and we are not going to ask.”
“What your grandmother means is that she isn’t going to ask. But I intend to,”
Peggy said, “but if in the meantime you find out anything, you’re to text me. Anything. Do you hear me?”
Zoe saluted. “I hear you, Nanna Peg, but she won’t tell me, you know she won’t. She tries to protect me from everything. Like last Saturday when Dad was supposed to take me to my drama class. I heard Mum pleading with him on the phone, but when she came to tell me she pretended he had car problems. I suppose she thought that was less hurtful than telling me the truth—that Avery had booked a table for both of them and he was going for a romantic dinner.”
“You heard that?”
Connie was appalled, not only because Zoe had overheard but because Richard had been thoughtless enough to say it to Milly, who was already hurting. She’d felt angry toward him for a while, but now she wanted to kill him.
“Dad has a loud voice. Don’t worry. I get it. He’d rather hang out with Avery than a thirteen-year-old. It’s not exactly news. He made that clear when he moved out.”
Zoe gave an awkward shrug and took a sip of juice. “I’m not that interesting.”
Was that what she was taking away from all this? That she wasn’t interesting?
“Not true. You’re one of the most interesting people I know.”
Connie beat the pancake mixture so vigorously that some of the mixture spattered the countertop. What she really wanted to do was wring Richard’s neck for what he was doing to his family, but that wasn’t an option. And it wasn’t about her. She had to keep reminding herself of that. Her feelings weren’t important here. Milly was adamant that they were never to say a bad word about Richard in front of Zoe, and although it pushed her self-control to the limits, Connie was trying hard to respect that request. “I’m sorry you heard that. It must be very difficult for you, honey. It’s okay to feel upset or angry or any of the things you’re probably feeling.”
Maybe she should take up boxing or jujitsu. Something that would allow her to punch something without getting arrested.
“It’s worse for Mum than me. She’s so hurt, although she pretends she’s fine.”
Zoe paused with her hands around the glass. “I heard her crying a few nights ago. I almost went into her room, but it was late and she thought I was asleep, so I don’t think she wanted me to know. Do you think I should have gone in?”
Connie stopped mixing. She ached at the thought of Milly lying alone in the dark crying and of Zoe hovering outside trying to work out what to do.
Her mother was right. She needed to try and detach instead of feeling every blow as if it was aimed at her personally.
Peggy cleared her throat. “I think you were right to leave her alone with her feelings on that occasion. Good decision.”
“It didn’t feel good. For a moment I really—”
Zoe stopped herself in mid-sentence. “I’m worried about her, that’s all. I just want her to be okay.”
So that made three of them, Connie thought, returning her attention to the bowl in front of her. Grandmother, mother and child. It was funny how life’s traumas rippled through generations, affecting all of them in different ways.
“Your mother is going to be fine,”
Peggy said finally. “She can handle anything that comes her way, and so can you. She will be happy again, trust me. These things just take a while. No one can be happy all the time, especially if they’re not eating sugar, bacon or anything with additives. It’s a wonder anyone manages to raise a smile these days.”
Zoe giggled. “I love you, Nanna Peg.”
“Of course you do. I’m a very lovable person. Full of sugar, of course, so you don’t want too much of me. But I’m here for you, pet. And so is Gramma. You can talk to us about anything. One of the advantages of being my age is that there’s not much I haven’t seen in life. I think that mixture has taken enough punishment, Connie.”
Connie flushed and spooned mixture onto the hot pan, watching as bubbles formed.
Zoe stood up and fetched maple syrup from the fridge. “I don’t understand why Dad and Avery bother going out to dinner. Avery doesn’t eat anything, and she doesn’t let Dad eat either. Why pay all that money to gaze at each other over a lettuce leaf? Last time I stayed over, Avery’s lunch was three almonds and a single slice of apple.”
Peggy’s eyes widened. “Goodness. Does she eat a large breakfast?”
“She doesn’t eat breakfast. She’s following all those rules you disapprove of, Nanna Peg. She won’t touch meat, and she’s obsessed with not consuming anything that has additives. She insisted on seeing a full ingredient list last time we went for a pizza. In the end all she ordered was a salad with no dressing.”
Connie flipped the pancakes.
Was that where the sudden concern about her weight had come from? Was it in response to something Avery had said? Or was it that Zoe was being influenced by watching her?
“I can’t imagine your dad not eating meat.”
Connie slid a couple of pancakes onto a plate and put them in front of Zoe. “No additives in this, and the eggs are organic from our own hens, so enjoy.”
“Dad is trying, but he has lapses. Never in front of her, though. He’s vegetarian now, and he has given up alcohol, but when he drove me home we stopped for a burger. We ate it standing outside so that the car didn’t smell.”
Zoe looked guilty. “He made me promise not to tell anyone, and I just told you.”
“We’re not anyone,”
Peggy said. “And there is nothing you can’t say to us.”
Connie felt a flicker of concern. Were there things that Zoe was keeping from them? Things her father had made her promise not to say? Her anger with Richard was growing by the minute. “Is it all right when you stay over, honey? Do you like it?”
Richard had moved in with Avery, who lived in a glass-fronted apartment in a city about an hour away. Every few weeks he picked up Zoe and she spent the weekend with them. Connie knew how hard Milly found those weekends.
“It’s okay.”
Zoe shrugged. “It feels a bit weird. I worry about Mum. And I miss the lake and the mountains when I’m there. I don’t think I’m a city person. All that noise and traffic and so many people all squashed in one place. It’s all concrete. Even the trees look as if they’d rather be somewhere else. And Avery has a lot of rules that I keep forgetting.”
She poured maple syrup onto her pancakes. “But I don’t want to hurt Dad’s feelings, and sometimes you have to do things you don’t really want to do, don’t you?”
“Yes,”
Connie said. “You do.”
Zoe’s maturity humbled her. Connie sometimes thought her granddaughter was the most grown-up of all of them, but really shouldn’t Zoe just be hanging out with her friends and not worrying about the adults in her life?
She made a few more pancakes and put them in the middle of the table.
“How are rehearsals for the play going?”
It would probably be better for her blood pressure to move the subject away from Richard and the saintly Avery. “Are you having fun?”
Zoe swallowed her bite of pancake. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
That wasn’t the reaction Connie had expected.
Zoe had wanted to be an actor from the moment she understood that such a thing existed. For years Connie had been a willing audience as Zoe had staged plays in the living room, clapping madly when her granddaughter had emerged from behind the curtains to take a bow.
They’d wondered if it might be a phase, but then Zoe had joined the drama club, and since then it was almost all she thought about.
Connie remembered how excited Zoe was when she’d auditioned and got the part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “How are you finding learning your lines?”
“Okay.”
Zoe shrugged. “We’re doing the play in English at school, so I’m reading it all the time.”
“You’re not looking like someone who is having fun.”
Peggy finished her coffee. “Tell us.”
“It’s nothing.”
Zoe kept her eyes on her plate, which told Connie that whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t nothing.
“Are you struggling, honey? I thought Hermia was exactly the part you wanted.”
Zoe poked at her pancake with her fork. “It’s exactly the part Cally wanted too. We’ve kind of had a falling-out. I wish I hadn’t auditioned now.”
Cally and Zoe were as close as Milly and Nicole had been, so Connie understood how upsetting that would be.
“Didn’t Cally get a part?”
“She’s Hippolyta, but she doesn’t get to say very much. So now she hates me.”
Zoe said it lightly, but there was a thickening in her voice that made Connie want to hug her.
“I’m sure she doesn’t hate you, darling.”
“Well, it feels that way.”
Zoe finished her pancake. “Anyway, whatever. Don’t mention it to Mum, will you? She has enough to think about. I’ll figure it out.”
“Everything you say to us stays with us,”
Peggy said briskly. “Including everything you tell us about your mother’s date.”
They heard the sound of the front door opening, and all froze.
“That’s her now.”
Connie made a fresh cup of coffee and raised her voice. “We’re in the kitchen, Milly.”
Milly appeared in the doorway, and Connie felt a rush of love closely followed by concern.
She looked so tired. As if she hadn’t slept at all.
“You look tired,”
said Peggy, who didn’t believe in holding back. “I hope that means you had fun last night. If you’d like to share, we’re here to listen.”
Milly gave her daughter a hug before sitting down at the table. “Nothing to tell. Thank you for having Zoe at such short notice.”
“You don’t have to thank me for having my own granddaughter to stay,”
Connie said. “It’s a treat for me.”
“And for me,”
Peggy added. “I learn a lot from her. Last night she gave me a lesson on emojis. I messaged my hiking group this morning and added two flowers and a cupcake and received some very confused responses. I should have joined a younger group. The conversation would be more interesting. More about sex and less about varicose veins and hip replacements.”
Peggy had always been an active part of the local community, but still Connie couldn’t believe her eighty-two-year-old mother had joined a hiking group.
Milly smiled at Zoe. “Are you ready for school?”
“Almost.”
Zoe finished her breakfast and stood up. “Give me two minutes to brush my teeth and grab my stuff.”
She vanished from the room, and Connie put a mug of coffee in front of her daughter.
“Have you had breakfast?”
“No. I’m trying to be good.”
What was good about starving yourself? Was that because of Avery? Connie was acutely aware of how humiliated Milly felt that her husband had left her for a much younger woman.
“You can’t head into a busy day with an empty stomach.”
Connie slid one of the pancakes onto a plate, added some fresh blueberries and put it in front of her daughter. “Eat.”
“How was your evening?”
Peggy caught Connie’s glare. “What? At my age you can’t blame me for wanting to hear about other people’s sex lives.”
“Talking of sex lives, I see poor Nicole has been hitting the headlines again.”
Connie made a desperate attempt to change the subject, and Milly paused with her fork halfway to her mouth.
“Nicole?”
“You didn’t see it? The story is everywhere. She’s been having an affair with that actor. Oh, what’s he called? He played the young King Henry VIII in that movie where everyone seemed to be naked the whole time, at least the women were.”
Connie rubbed her forehead. “I’m terrible with actors’ names.”
“Justin,”
Peggy said. “His name is Justin.”
“That’s right! Justin Fisher.”
Peggy helped herself to the last pancake. “I never liked him. He’s too smooth, and his eyes are close together. I never trust a man whose eyes are close together. He looks shifty.”
“He’s won plenty of awards.”
Connie watched as her daughter toyed with the food on her plate. “He was described by one critic as a national treasure.”
Peggy sprinkled sugar on the pancake. “Apparently Nicole has been treasuring him a bit too much, and his wife wasn’t happy about it. The media was full of images of him holding hands with his wife saying they’d never been happier, although it was obviously a lie because the words didn’t match the facial expressions. You would have thought an actor would have managed a more convincing performance.”
“Poor Nicole.”
Connie felt a flash of sympathy. “She doesn’t have a good track record with relationships.”
“I blame her mother.”
Peggy finished the pancake. “She was a cold fish. She operated on my varicose veins, and there was more empathy in the scalpel. That kind of upbringing has to have an impact. And it can’t be easy having no privacy. The girl can’t get away from scrutiny. It’s hard to have a proper relationship when everything you do happens in public.”
Connie noticed that Milly still hadn’t touched her food. “Have you talked to Nicole lately?”
“I—”
Milly glanced at the clock on the wall and put her fork down. “Is that the time? I really need to go. Zoe!”
“I’m here.”
Zoe appeared in the doorway, and Milly almost knocked the chair over in her haste to leave the kitchen.
“Thanks again. See you later. I love you.”
Connie glanced at the food on Milly’s plate. “But you haven’t eaten your—”
The front door slammed, and they heard the sound of the car pulling away.
Connie looked at her mother.
“Well, that was weird.”
“It was weird. She changed when you mentioned Nicole. Did you notice that?”
“I only mentioned Nicole because you asked her about her date, and I was trying to change the subject.”
“Judging from her reaction, I’d say it wasn’t a good change of subject. Maybe it was sensitive for her, all those headlines about Nicole having an affair with a married man. Not that I believe headlines. They make everything up these days. It’s all about clicks. And I’m sure she and Nicole are fine. Those two were inseparable as children.”
“I know. But talking about friendships, how worried should we be about Zoe and Cally?”
“Friendship issues are part of life. They’ll sort it out.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Connie sank onto the nearest chair. “Milly didn’t eat breakfast. This is all Richard’s fault. I want to hurt him. I never thought I’d say a thing like that out loud.”
Her voice shook. “I didn’t know I could feel this way, but I do.”
“If that woman he ran off with has made him turn vegetarian, he’s probably already being punished, so I wouldn’t worry too much.”
Peggy chuckled. “The thought of Richard having to choke down a chickpea burger or a tofu stir-fry cheers me up.”
It didn’t cheer Connie up. “How can he be so unkind to Milly? Telling her that he’s choosing to go for a romantic dinner instead of taking his child to her drama class as planned?”
“He’s a man-child, with no sense of responsibility.”
“But it’s as if he is trying to hurt her. And why? He’s already left her. He doesn’t need to keep making it worse. What has she ever done except be loyal to him? He never used to be like this. I don’t understand what has happened to him. It’s almost as if he wants her to hate him.”
She realized that her hands were shaking. “I’m scared of seeing him face-to-face because at the moment I truly want to kill him.”
Peggy stood up and patted her shoulder before clearing the table. “I know, and I understand why you would feel that way, but don’t kill him. You have your whole life ahead of you. If anyone is going to do it, I will.”
“You?”
Picturing her mother as a murderer took some of the heat out of Connie’s emotions. “How? You’re going to stab him with your knitting needle? Impale him with your walking pole?”
“Maybe. I’ve always been clumsy, as you know. Or maybe it will be a car accident. My driving isn’t as good as it was, so maybe I might not see him if he happens to be crossing the road.”
Peggy loaded the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher. “I haven’t decided, and when I do decide I won’t be sharing it with you, or that will make you an accomplice, and Milly and Zoe need you. I might get away with it. I’ll plead diminished capacity. If they saw me trying to remember where I parked my car in the supermarket they wouldn’t have any trouble believing it. On a bad day I don’t even have to fake confusion. And anyway, what can they do to me? Send me to prison for life? At my age I’ll croak on them before they’ve turned the key in the door.”
Connie gave a hysterical laugh. “I never thought we’d be sitting around plotting a murder.”
“I know. It’s all rather exciting. Is it too late to consider a career change, do you think? Maybe I could recruit my hiking group.”
Peggy closed the dishwasher. “We could call ourselves the Wrinkled Assassins. Our calling card could be a set of false teeth.”
But this time Connie was too upset to laugh. She knew she wasn’t handling this situation well, and she also knew she had to do better, for Milly’s sake but also for her own. She reached for her phone.
“I can’t carry on like this.”
Peggy looked alarmed. “You’re not planning to confront Richard, are you? We mustn’t alert him to our animosity. It might be a good idea to make sure we both have strong alibis.”
“I’m not planning murder. I’m trying to work out the best way to handle this situation. I’m searching the internet for tips on how to stop worrying about your adult child.”
“Good luck with that.”
Her mother sat down next to her, and this time her expression was serious. “You’ve been a wonderful mother to Milly, particularly over the past eighteen months, but it’s time to put other things in your life. When did you last go to choir practice?”
Connie looked at her. “The week before Richard walked out. I couldn’t commit to rehearsals in case I was needed to look after Zoe.”
“Your book club?”
“I haven’t been reading much, so there wasn’t any point in going. Also I didn’t really want people asking me about Milly.”
And although the group had carried on emailing her in the beginning and sending her the book choices, those emails had tailed off.
She squirmed a little as she faced the truth. Her mother was right. In her efforts to support Milly, she had stopped doing things that she used to enjoy.
She’d let friendships dwindle because everyone else’s children seemed to be soaring through life with no problems and she’d found the conversations difficult. And it wasn’t that she wished problems on other people—far from it—but somehow hearing how smoothly everything was going for someone else’s child made her ache even more for her own.
Peggy was watching her. “You need to put something in your life that doesn’t have anything to do with Milly and Zoe. Something that’s just for you.”
Connie looked at her blankly. She was too tired and stressed to even think about herself. “What?”
“I don’t know. Yoga?”
“Yoga? Is that a joke?”
“Bad suggestion. I’d forgotten about Avery, although you could always take her class and launch an attack while she is in downward dog. Very difficult to defend yourself in that position. It really doesn’t matter what you do. Learn to pole dance. Take up skydiving. Anything. I’m not supposed to fix your problems, remember?”
Peggy patted her hand. “I’m supposed to support you while you fix them, and that’s what I’m doing.”
Maybe she should take up yoga, Connie thought, then she could show up at one of Avery’s classes and tell her exactly what she thought of her.