“That’s why we moved to Austria,” Anna joked, “so no one knows we’re related.”
Dad clucked his tongue. “And there was I believing you when you told me it was because of work. To think how proud I was telling everyone about my daughter who’d been headhunted.”
“You know I’m only messing,” Anna said, wrapping her arms around Dad and snuggling into his chest. “I can’t believe we fly back tonight. I wish we could stay longer, but we’re on the brink of closing a major deal and I don’t trust anyone else in the office enough to leave it in their hands. We’ll be back again soon though, promise.”
“I hope so,” Mum said, entering the room carrying a plate of sandwiches. “I do wish you didn’t live so far away.”
Lunch consisted of leftovers from the buffet at the party, so besides the curled-edged sarnies we had mini sausage rolls, onion bhajis and two tubes of Pringles that Mum had sent me to the corner shop to fetch. There was half a layer of the ginormous cake for afters, because although everyone had said it was delicious, it was so sweet a small slice was enough.
“We’ll be back in the summer,” Anna promised, disentangling herself from Dad’s protective embrace. “And then we’ll be over in October too, naturally.” She smiled at Nick, who proudly, and somewhat possessively, wrapped his arm around Chantel.
“What’s happening in October?” I asked with a frown. The inane grins on the faces of my family members gave me the distinct impression I was out of the loop.
“Nick and I have got some news,” Chantel said. “We told the others at your party last night, but didn’t want to steal your moment so decided to wait until today to fill you in.”
“We’re having another baby!” Nick announced, placing his hand on Chantel’s stomach to fully drum the point home. “Due at the start of October. It’s still early days – we only just found out – but we wanted to tell Anna and Jakob in person. It’s not the same sharing big news over Skype, is it?”
“Congratulations,” I said, forcing a smile, forcing so hard it hurt my cheeks. “That’s lovely news!”
A dull ache of rejection pulled in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t believe Nick and Chantel had shared their news with the rest of the family before they shared it with me. Although actually, I could. Nick and Anna had always been the closest of the three of us. There was only eighteen months between them.
As though reading my mind, Anna said, “Isn’t it fabulous? There will be the same age gap between Noah and the new baby as there is between me and Nick.”
I gave a half-hearted nod, before turning my attention to the buffet spread. The first prickle of tears stung my eyes, and I didn’t want anyone to see me cry. I shoved a ham sandwich in my mouth. Although the bread was claggy, I swallowed it whole.
“Who’d have thought we’d be getting our second grandchild so soon after the first?” Mum gushed, affectionately patting Chantel on the shoulder. “I can’t wait to meet him or her. I bet they’ll be the image of our Noah.”
“Babies all look the same at first though, don’t they?” The frosty look Mum gave me made me realise I sounded bitter, so I added, “Although Noah is the cutest.”
Anna scooped our nephew into her hands and lifted him high over her head, so high I feared his head might scrape the ceiling. Noah giggled with delight, drool escaping the corners of his lips. A globule landed on Anna’s cheek but she didn’t look fazed, instead laughing along as she returned him back onto solid ground and graciously accepted Jakob’s offer of a tissue.
“You two will be next.” Dad nodded knowingly in the direction of my sister and her husband.
“Not just yet,” Jakob replied. “But one day, hopefully, when Anna’s more established in the firm.”
My sister beamed joyfully in her husband’s direction. I averted my eyes because I felt like an imposter in the family home. They were all so settled, so together, and then there was me, Sophie Eliza Drew, single and hapless and on the outside looking in.
“I’ll have to head off soon,” I lied. “I brought some work home from the office to do over the weekend.”
“But it’s your birthday weekend!” Mum exclaimed. “Surely they don’t expect you to do extra work, especially when you’re working on your actual birthday.” My mum, an Avon lady for over twenty-five years, had no concept of a standard working week. Her job entailed a cuppa with Beryl across the road as she waxed lyrical about the latest skin buffs and moisturisers.
“You know what Marcie’s like. She’s a workaholic.”
“Can’t you at least stay until Anna and Jakob leave for the airport? It’s rare I have all my children together these days. Don’t spoil it for me.” Mum’s expression was so full of hope that I couldn’t bring myself to be the daughter of disappointment striking again. “I suppose another half hour won’t hurt,” I managed, reaching for a sausage roll. “It is my birthday, after all.”
For the thirty minutes that followed, my parents raised toasts for Nick and Chantel’s news, fussed over Anna and how thin she was looking (forcing her to eat the largest wedge of pink birthday cake) and mopped up Noah’s drool from the sitting room rug. I may as well have been invisible for all the attention they showed me.
When the clock struck two and Anna made a point of saying they really had to leave for the airport if her and Jakob were going to make their flight, I also made my excuses. Mum blubbed as she said her goodbyes to Anna, instructing her to call as soon as she touched down in Austria. Even Dad looked a bit emotional, his bottom lip visibly wibbling, as my sister clambered into Nick and Chantel’s seven-seater car to be chauffeur driven to the airport.
As I was
