“The beach trip is off,” Liam said, his eyes glued to his phone. “My mother is coming to visit.”
I stood frozen in the middle of the bedroom, my suitcase open. In my hand was a new swimsuit, the tag still attached. It was the first one I’d bought in seven years.
“What do you mean, ‘off’?” I carefully laid the swimsuit on the bed. “The tickets are booked. They’re non-refundable, Liam. Two thousand five hundred pounds.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose and sank onto the edge of the sofa. This was his signature move whenever a conversation veered away from where he wanted it to go.
“What am I supposed to do? She’s already bought her train ticket. She’ll be here the day after tomorrow. I can’t exactly tell her to turn around.”
We had been married for seven years, and in that time, I hadn’t had a single proper holiday. No beaches, no retreats, not even a weekend getaway to a nearby town. Nowhere. Our first year had a honeymoon in Cornwall, but it lasted only three days because Margaret called to say her blood pressure was spiking. We rushed back. It turned out her pressure was 130 over 80—perfectly normal for her age. I knew this for a fact because I am a pharmacist, and Isee those figures on prescriptions every single day.