– Romeo and Juliet
‘We’ve set a date,’ Juliet’s younger sister, Cesca, said, her beaming smile lighting up Juliet’s laptop. She was Skypeing with her sisters – Cesca, of course, plus Kitty and Lucy. The four of them tried to talk once a week, no matter where in the world they were. And right now Kitty was in LA, Lucy in Edinburgh and from the looks of it Cesca was in Paris.
Maybe one day they’d all be on the same continent, at least.
‘You have?’ Juliet asked, grinning. ‘When’s the big day?’ Cesca’s engagement to her movie-star boyfriend, Sam, had been one of the few light moments in Juliet’s darkness this year. ‘And where are you going to do it?’
There was no mistaking the glow on Cesca’s face. ‘Next July in the Scottish Highlands. We want to get married at Lucy’s castle.’
Lucy, the eldest of the four, rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not a castle and it’s not mine,’ she pointed out, but she still couldn’t hide her smile. None of them could – it was just such good news.
‘Okay, at Lachlan’s lodge then,’ Cesca said. Lachlan was Lucy’s boyfriend, and the previous year he’d inherited an estate in the highlands of Scotland. According to Lucy, Cesca and Kitty it had one of the most beautiful landscapes they’d ever seen. No wonder Cesca wanted to be married up there. It also had the added advantage of privacy – something Cesca and Sam had very little of during their everyday lives. The paparazzi loved them too much.
Juliet was the only one of them who hadn’t seen the castle.
‘And of course I want you all to be my bridesmaids,’ Cesca said. ‘And for Poppy to be my flower girl.’
Juliet watched as Lucy and Kitty agreed noisily, already asking about colours and dress styles. She tried to smile, tried to ignore that sick feeling in her stomach that was tugging at her. But her efforts were futile.
‘What about you, Jules, what colour do you think she should have?’ Lucy asked, finally noticing Juliet’s silence. ‘You’ve got the best eye out of all of us.’
Juliet stared at her three sisters, taking in their happiness, their expectation. Her chest tightened like a snake was squeezing her.
‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to come.’
‘What?’ Lucy asked, frowning.
‘Thomas won’t let me take Poppy out of the country until we have a separation agreement. And we don’t, not yet.’ Juliet licked her dry lips. She hated bringing her sisters down, especially when Cesca had such good news.
‘What?’ Cesca asked, looking appalled. ‘Can he do that?’ She shook her head. ‘Lucy, surely we can do something?’
‘Not until they have a legal agreement,’ Lucy said. Of the four of them, she was the only one who knew exactly how bad things were for Juliet. As the two eldest, they’d been the ones to keep things going after their mother’s death when they were both teenagers. They’d always been each other’s confidantes, and Lucy had proved to be Juliet’s rock over the past few months.
‘When will that be?’ Cesca asked. ‘It must be soon, right? You two have been separated for months, he can’t make you wait that much longer.’
Juliet shrugged, but she felt anything but nonchalant. ‘I don’t know. There’s a lot to sort out. Not just custody but our assets, alimony and child support.’ And Thomas was playing hardball. It was as if he was deliberately dragging everything out.
‘But I don’t want to get married if you aren’t there,’ Cesca said, her face crumpling. Juliet bit her lip to stifle the tears that were threatening to rise to the surface. The thought of her sister getting married and Juliet not seeing it was awful. She felt like an exile, separated from the ones she loved. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could take it.
She took a deep breath, then forced a smile back onto her face. ‘I’ll ask Thomas,’ she said, as much to calm Cesca down as anything else. ‘Maybe he’ll be flexible if I explain what it’s all about.’
‘That’s a good idea.’ Lucy smiled at her warmly. ‘Maybe he’ll be reasonable for once.’
‘Maybe,’ Juliet agreed, her cheeks starting to ache. But she wouldn’t bet on it. Sometimes she wondered what had happened to that charming, handsome man she’d met in a park in Oxford all those years ago.
Life. That’s what had happened. The same things he’d loved about her had become annoyances. In the last year of their marriage she’d heard him sigh more than she’d seen him smile. And if she was honest, she’d been exactly the same.
Nowadays the only thing they had in common was Poppy – and thankfully they both loved her very much. Everything else seemed like a fight that was impossible to win. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try.
‘Are you nearly ready, honey?’ Juliet called out. Poppy came running into the bedroom, still in her pyjamas, clutching a picture she’d drawn in school on Friday. It was of the three of them – Juliet, Thomas and Poppy – though Juliet and Thomas were on opposite sides of the page, and Poppy had strangely long arms as she was holding each of their hands. Juliet watched as her daughter laid the paper on top of her folded clothes, then helped her close up the case.
She wasn’t sad to see the back of that drawing. It was a scene that happened the world over – two people divided, their child pulled between them like Stretch Armstrong. But it hurt like hell to look at it.
‘You need to get dressed,’ Juliet reminded her. ‘Daddy will be here in a minute.’
It was barely nine in the morning – a few minutes before Thomas was due to arrive. The weekend stretched out in front of Juliet like an unwelcome visitor.
Thomas’s car pulled up outside the house five minutes later. He climbed out of the black sedan, his face screwed up as he looked at the house. Seeing him was enough to make her chest constrict. He looked like the man she knew, he still sounded like the man she knew, but everything else felt so alien.