Cathy Kelly 3-Book Collection 1: Lessons in Heartbreak, Once in a Lifetime, Homecoming

‘Is anyone with you? Like Anneliese or Edward?’

Uncle Edward was a more forceful individual than her father and would certainly get things done. Darling Anneliese was even better: she was calm in any crisis and she’d certainly needed to be, Izzie knew.

Her cousin, Beth, would have gone under if her mother hadn’t been made of such stern stuff.

‘No.’ Her father made the word into two syllables.

Izzie waited.

‘Anneliese is on her way. I phoned Edward, you see, and told him and said to tell Anneliese, and he went all quiet and said since it was an emergency he would, which sounds strange, but I didn’t have time to ask him…’

‘But Anneliese is on her way?’ Izzie was impatient with these details. She needed to know that her aunt would be there, looking after things, looking after Lily.

‘Well, yes. I suppose. You know how Anneliese loves your gran.’

‘I should be there,’ Izzie said.

‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you to come home. You’re so busy with work,’ her father said quickly, which made Izzie feel bleak at this perceived notion that her job, only a bloody job, was more important than her beloved grandmother. Had she made them all think that? That Perfect-NY was higher on her list of priorities than her family?

‘I’m coming,’ she said fiercely. Damn the bloody job. If she had to swim across the bloody Atlantic to reach her grandmother’s hospital bedside, she’d do it. ‘Gran needs me.’

What she didn’t say was: And I need her because my heart is broken.

‘Go home,’ advised Carla. ‘You look wrecked. Lie on the couch and chill, and call me if you need me, right?’

Izzie nodded. ‘I will, thanks – for everything.’ Thanks for not mentioning Joe again, she meant.

She got a cab home instead of battling it out on the subway, and all the way home she wondered if God was so vengeful that her grandmother’s stroke was His way of getting at her for being involved with Joe.

No, don’t be crazy, she told herself. That’s like saying only you are important, so that God punishes other people to get at you. But still the thought hammered away in her head with the intensity of a horror movie watched late at night. She’d always jokingly described herself as a submarine Catholic – one who only comes up when there’s trouble. Now she realised it was true, and then some. Trouble made her Catholicism seep out of her pores and make her question everything.

At home, she checked the airlines and found that she’d never make that evening’s flight to Dublin, but that there were seats on the next evening’s.

She booked, feeling a strange sense of relief that she couldn’t leave New York just yet. She felt too unravelled to go, so much of her life still hung out there, threads flying in the wind.

She began to pack for the trip and found that she couldn’t concentrate. What would the weather be like was normally an important packing question, but the major one – how long would she be gone – was unanswerable. It depended on her grandmother’s survival.

Oh, Gran.

The silence of the apartment was closing in on her. Izzie was rarely at home on a weekday afternoon; she was always out there, being New York City Girl, rushing and racing. For what? she thought bitterly. To be alone, dealing with this horrible news, preparing to make a journey home alone too.

Where was her lover now that she needed him? With his wife, that’s where.

Izzie sat down on her small couch and cried. All the romance and the excitement counted for absolutely nothing at that moment. She could tell herself it didn’t matter that she didn’t have a husband, 2.5 children and a crippling mortgage, but at moments like this, it did matter.

She knew she wasn’t the only woman to fall for a married man, but it felt like it – she was in a club with only one member, a spectacularly stupid member.

Still, when her cell phone rang, she leapt to it, hoping that it might be him, eyes too blurry to focus on the number.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey, girl, how are you doing?’ Carla’s smoky Marlboro Lights voice was warm with concern.

Izzie slumped against the wall beside the phone. ‘OK,’ she mumbled.

‘I’m sorry I told you to go home. I got to thinking that you’d be climbing the walls by now.’

Izzie laughed. ‘How’d you know that?’

‘Instinct.’

‘Whatever it is, it’s spot on,’ Izzie replied. ‘I can see the lure of the barstool now. All those people I used to think were losers for sitting in bars in the afternoon – they have a point.’

‘You could join me on a barstool tonight? First, we eat, then we hit a club or two. Might take your mind off things.’

‘Count me in,’ Izzie said. If she stayed at home, she would cry herself to sleep, she knew.

They arranged to meet in SoHo at eight and when her phone rang moments later, Izzie answered it without looking, thinking it was Carla ringing back.

‘Hi,’ she said warmly.

‘Hello.’

It was him. Colder than he’d ever sounded before, but still him.

The driving rain hitting her face outside the museum benefit came starkly back into her mind. She thought of his arm on his wife, the stunning WASP blonde with racehorse legs, and the blank look on his face as he stared at Izzie.

Then, she remembered her father’s voice on the phone, along with the vision of Gran lying in a coma, and all the vicious things she’d planned to say to Joe vanished. She needed him like she’d never needed him before.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, starting to sob. ‘I’m sorry, Joe. It’s awful, my grandmother back home in Ireland is sick: she’s had a stroke and they don’t know if she’s going to be all right, and it’s awful…’

‘Oh my love,’ he murmured, frost gone. ‘I’ll be right over.’

He was there in ten minutes.

At the door, he said nothing, just held out his arms and let her come to him where he drew her into the tightest bear hug she’d ever experienced.

‘Baby,’ he kept saying over and over again, his hands tenderly stroking her as if she were a child.

Finally safe, she cried until her face was raw and she felt too tired even to stand.

He brought her over to the couch and they sat, Izzie curled up on his lap. The comfort from feeling small and loved was immense.

‘Thank you,’ she sighed, her head bent against the wall of his chest.

Curled up against him, she talked about Gran: about how she’d practically lived in Lily’s house after her mother died, and how Gran had been the only person who didn’t shy away from talking about her mum.

‘Dad didn’t know what to do. He thought that if we talked about Mum, I’d get upset, so it was better if we didn’t. That was fine for the first year when I couldn’t talk about Mum, but afterwards, when I wanted to, he’d change the subject so fast. Maybe he couldn’t talk for his own sake, either.’