Read Online Three’s a Crowd by Dianne Blacklock - Free Book Online

he said quietly.
    â€˜One day at a time, isn’t that what they say?’ said Rachel, before wincing again. ‘Sorry, I should be able to do better than that cliché.’
    â€˜No, all the clichés work,’ he assured her. ‘It really is like a bad dream, and I do keep thinking she’s going to walk through the door any minute. Or that I’ll come home and she’ll be sitting at the piano with one of her students . . . and everything’ll be back to normal. But nothing’s going to be normal ever again.’
    Rachel watched him staring into space, his eyes glassy. ‘You didn’t have any warning, nothing to prepare you for this. If you’d known about the condition, or she’d been sick for longer, you’d have had time to get used to the idea.’
    â€˜How could I wish Annie had suffered so we could get used to losing her? That doesn’t seem right.’ Tom shook his head. ‘No, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’m pretty sure this is the way Annie would have wanted it.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜You know what she was like, she believed in destiny, fate, all that new-agey crap.’
    â€˜I take it you didn’t share those beliefs?’ Rachel said wryly.
    He smiled then. ‘Not really, but whatever, if this had happened to someone else, she’d have had a whole lot to say about how it was “meant to be”, that the person was never destined for longon this planet. All that. The worst part for her would have been leaving the girls without a mother. But worse than that even would have been the idea of putting them through years and years with a sick or dying mother. It would have broken her heart to do that to them.’
    Rachel thought about it. He was right. Annie was totally devoted to those girls, they were her life.
    â€˜So you see,’ Tom went on, ‘if she was meant to die young, this is how she would have wanted it – no dramatic build-up, no lingering. Get it over with, and then get on with it,’ he said plainly. ‘Except she’s not here to show us how to do that.’
    â€˜You’ll figure it out.’
    He was shaking his head. ‘I just don’t know if I’m up to it. It’s so hard, Rach, too hard. It’s crushing.’
    Rachel’s stomach began to churn, what was he suggesting? That life wasn’t worth living now?
    â€˜Can I tell you something I haven’t told anyone?’ he said.
    She swallowed. She didn’t really want him to, but she could hardly say no under the circumstances. ‘Sure,’ she said, before taking another gulp of Scotch.
    â€˜What I’d really like to do is just go away,’ Tom said plainly, ‘somewhere no one knows us, and start all over. Not have to explain, no one would have to know about Annie. Then I wouldn’t have to be the dutiful widower.’
    Was this all about finding another woman?
    â€˜No one expects you to be a monk, Tom,’ Rachel said awkwardly.
    â€˜No, that’s not what I’m talking about,’ he shook his head. ‘Sorry, I’m not explaining myself very well. The thing is, I’m suddenly a widower. I didn’t ask for the role, I wasn’t prepared for it, I’d never even considered it, but now I don’t have a choice. I’ve been sentenced to some arbitrary period of misery, of people feeling sorry for me, feeling uncomfortable around me, not knowing what to say. And I don’t know either. My life has changed forever and I don’t know how to live it any more.’
    â€˜It’s still your life, Tom,’ said Rachel. ‘Go away if that’s what you need to do.’
    â€˜But it’s not just my life, that’s the thing, it’s the girls’ as well,’Tom reminded her. ‘And I can’t do that to them. They’ve lost their mother, they’re going to need security, and continuity, so