How to Fall Read Free

you?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘You’re so stubborn. I think you get it from your father.’
    ‘That’s fighting talk.’
    ‘You do get some things from him, you know.’
    ‘Name three.’
    ‘You’re argumentative. Stubborn, as I said before. And you’re tough.’
    I hadn’t been expecting that. ‘Tough?’
    ‘Not in a bad way. Just – you’re not like me. You don’t back down. You stand up for yourself.’
    ‘If I have to. But I’m not sure I like being described as “tough”.’
    ‘Call it strength of character, then.’
    ‘That’s better.’
    ‘Proving my point . . .’ Mum murmured, more or less to herself. Then she sighed. ‘Look, it’s been a difficult year. You know about Freya.’
    ‘Of course.’ Freya, my cousin, born not long after me, dead since last summer. I had never met her. The news of her death had been strangely shocking – strange, because I had never thought about her, beyond knowing her name. Strange because I had felt a sharp sense of loss for something I had never known I was missing. ‘I hadn’t realized it was a year ago already.’
    ‘In a couple of weeks.’ Mum’s hands tightened on the wheel and she didn’t look at me as she said, ‘When it happened I was already in touch with Tilly.’
    ‘You didn’t tell me that.’ Tilly, Mum’s twin sister. Freya’s mother.
    She wriggled. ‘I didn’t want to tell you about it because I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. We were just getting to know one another again. It takes time to build up a relationship after being out of touch for so long.’
    ‘Eighteen years.’
    A nod. ‘From right after I got engaged to your father until the day the divorce papers came through.’
    ‘Because she didn’t like Dad.’
    ‘Not much. But I didn’t listen.’
    ‘Which is why you didn’t bother to warn me about Conrad,’ I guessed.
    ‘One of the reasons. It didn’t seem worth it. When you’re in love, reason goes out the window. And I loved your father very much.’
    ‘We all make mistakes,’ I said kindly.
    ‘It wasn’t a mistake. If I hadn’t married him, I wouldn’t have you.’
    ‘Thanks. For the gift of life, I mean.’
    ‘You’re welcome. Tilly was nice enough not to say
I told you so
, and she and Jack invited us to come and stay last year. But then Freya died.’
    ‘It was an accident, wasn’t it?’
    ‘As far as I know.’
    ‘Not suicide or something.’
    The car lurched as Mum yanked the wheel, irritated. ‘Jess, I’m serious. Do not even
suggest
something like that to Tilly. Promise me.’
    ‘I was just asking,’ I said, wounded.
    ‘You can’t ask. It would be too hurtful.’
    ‘Because they don’t want to think Freya killed herself.’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘Don’t they want to know the truth, though?’
    ‘Not necessarily.’
    I thought about that for a couple of miles. I could understand that if Freya had chosen to end her life, it would be hard to bear. I’d still have wanted to know for sure, though. And it was weird to think that she’d been the same age as me, and now she was gone.
    ‘So why are we going to see them now?’
    ‘I want to go home,’ Mum said simply. ‘I want to see the old places. I want to see my sister and get to know my niece and nephews, and I want you to have a family.’
    ‘I
have
a family.’
    ‘You have your father, his current girlfriend and me. That’s not enough.’
    I was frowning. ‘If you were in touch with Tilly when Freya died, why didn’t you go to see her then?’
    ‘It wasn’t the right time.’
    ‘Why not?’
    Mum looked at me before she answered, as if she was considering what to say and how to say it. ‘Because you would have come with me.’
    ‘So? I know Tilly didn’t like Dad, but I’m not that much like him.’
    ‘Mm.’
    ‘What else?’
    ‘Is my handbag on your side of the car?’
    ‘Don’t change the subject.’
    ‘I’m not.’ Mum glanced at me again. ‘Seriously, Jess – look inside my bag, in the zipped