The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty Read Free Book Online Page A

and giggling!
    Grace puts her head in her hands and weeps inconsolably for Mr Callahan’s disappointment.
    Finally, she stops crying and looks again at the milk carton.
    Move, she tells herself. Stand up. Put the milk in the fridge. Make the marble cake. Do a load of washing. He’ll be awake soon.
    She reads, ‘ If this product is not to your satisfaction, we will cheerfully refund your money. ’ She imagines a cheerful lady, in a floral apron, cheerfully refunding her money. ‘There you go, dear! Can’t have you not happy!’
    But I’m so unhappy. I’m so very, very unhappy.
    The cheerful lady says, ‘Oh, sweetheart!’ and pats her hand.
    Oh for Christ’s sake, now she is crying over some imaginary cheerful lady. She cries and cries and cries. Every tear is fresh, fat and salty. They run down either side of her nose and into her mouth.
    Finally she stops, wipes the back of her hand across her face and looks again at the milk carton.
    Stand up, Grace!
    She glances at her watch. And that’s when she discovers it’s nine thirty. She claps her hand over her mouth. It can’t be right. It has only been five minutes. Ten at the most. But according to her watch she has been sitting in this chair, staring at a milk carton, for an hour and fifteen minutes.
    How can she complain about Callum not doing enough around the house, if she spends her days staring at milk cartons?
    The telephone rings and Grace’s nerve cells finally topple like dominoes. She gets to her feet, puts the milk in the fridge and calmly answers the phone.
    ‘Grace! Is it a bad time? A good time? How is the baby? Asleep? Awake? This is Veronika, by the way. I hate people who just expect you to know who it is, don’t you? Have you heard? Have you heard what Aunt Connie has done?’
    Grace’s cousin Veronika rarely requires answers to her questions. ‘She’s like a breathless, busy little ferret!’ said Callum, fascinated, the first time he met her, as if Veronika was some unusual creature he’d seen on a nature programme. It is true that Veronika has sharp, pointy teeth and darting brown eyes.
    That’s why I was crying, thinks Grace. I’m grieving for Aunt Connie. I miss Aunt Connie. Of course I do.
    ‘I know that she left her house to Thomas’s ex-girlfriend, if that’s what you mean. Your mum told me.’
    ‘Did your jaw drop? Mine did! Of all people: Sophie! A complete stranger! If it wasn’t for me, Aunt Connie would never have even known of Sophie’s existence! And then she just ignores her own flesh and blood!’
    Veronika is an intelligent girl but sometimes she says things that are so easy to refute that Grace has to wonder if she does it on purpose.
    ‘Yes, but we’re not Aunt Connie’s flesh and blood, are we?’
    ‘But we are! Well, perhaps not biologically , but spiritually and morally and perhaps legally! I mean, Aunt Connie and Aunt Rose brought Grandma Enigma up as their own baby! If they hadn’t found her that day, she would have died. A baby can’t survive long without care. Well, you know that better than anyone! A new mother!’
    Grace thinks about Jake, asleep in his crib, blue-veined eyelids fluttering. How long would he survive if she followed her great-grandmother’s lead and vanished from his life? Baby Enigma had thrived. According to Aunt Connie and Aunt Rose, she’d been sleeping peacefully, and when they looked into her crib she had opened her eyes and given them the sweetest smile they had ever seen.
    Grace says to Veronika, ‘What does it matter? None of us want Aunt Connie’s house, do we? You always said you’d rather die than live on the island again. You said it makes you feel trapped. Actually, I think I recall you saying that to Aunt Connie, which might have been your downfall.’
    ‘This isn’t about me wanting the house. It’s the principle of the matter. Sophie broke Thomas’s heart!’
    ‘So? He seems to have recovered. Last time I saw him he was so disgustingly happy it put me in a