Page 131 of The Sun Sister

‘Some of you here might remember that when I came back from Afghanistan, I found my wife had left me and taken the kid with her. I turned to liquor and I swore then that I’d never love anyone else. But I do, and...she’s been away for a while, but, yep, that’s all I have to say.’

‘Shit!’ I muttered under my breath.

‘We’ll all be thinking about you and praying for you, Tommy, and you know we’re here for you,’ the leader said.

I saw a number of people around Tommy clap him on the back.

‘Now, is there anyone else who wants to stand up and speak?’

An actor I recognised stood up, but I zoned out. Tommy,myTommy, who I’d seen on Facebook had a wife and a kid to go home to, had no such thing. And apparently he was in love with someone who he could never have – someone who had been ‘away for a while’ – and he’d really missed her.

The rest of the meeting totally passed me by, and when the leader was doing the closing notices, I snuck out before Tommy could see me. I didn’t want him to suffer the embarrassment of knowing I’d heard his most intimate thoughts. I jumped back into the car and checked my cell. Mariam had left a voicemail, so I called her back, still breathing hard.

‘Hi, it’s me. You called?’

‘Yes. What is it, Electra? Is everything all right?’

Wow, I thought,Mariam knows me well. This was the first time I’d ever been faced with the confidentiality issue, because I was bursting, justburstingto confide in my PA. I knew she too was fond of Tommy – it was him she’d turned to that night to help me when I’d been off my face – but I swallowed hard, remembering the AA code.

‘Oh, it was nothing, just an upsetting story from one of the guys at the meeting. What did you want?’

‘Oh, just to tell you I’m making tomato soup with chilli for lunch. Is that okay?’

‘Sounds perfect,’ I said.

‘And also, Miles has managed to get himself and Vanessa on a flight from Tucson. They land at ten tonight at JFK.’

When we pulled up in front of my apartment building, I got out and checked around the awning to make sure that Tommy wasn’t going to jump out at me to say hi. He definitely wasn’t there so unless he had a twin, I knew it had been him at that meeting. However, therewasa surprise waiting for me in the lobby. There, sitting on one of the leather chairs, was Stella, my grandmother.

‘Hello, Electra,’ she said as she stood up to greet me. ‘Do forgive me for arriving like this, but if the mountain wouldn’t come to Mohammed...I wanted to see for myself how you were.’

‘Of course, please, come up.’ I ushered her towards the elevator, marvelling at the way she held herself so straight and elegantly in her old-fashioned bouclé jacket and skirt.

‘I won’t keep you long if you have things to do,’ she said as we walked into the apartment.

‘No problem at all,’ I replied, feeling a sudden warmth towards her and wondering why I’d been so frightened of seeing her. ‘Come in and sit down. Mariam’s preparing some lunch.’

‘I am,’ Mariam said, appearing in the hallway. ‘It’ll be ready in five minutes. Hi, Stella,’ she added with a smile, then went back to the kitchen.

‘She is such a genuine person, Electra,’ Stella said as she sat down in an easy chair – I could never picture her lounging on a couch in track pants and a hoodie like me. ‘She called me regularly with updates while you were...away. How are you feeling?’

‘I’m good – really good,’ I added, just in case she thought I was throwing her a line.

‘And you’re still off the liquor and drugs?’

‘I totally am, yup. But as you know, it’s one day at a time, so I can’t get too cocky and think I’m out of the woods or anything.’

‘No, you shouldn’t. That’s the most dangerous thing of all. So, tell me, what was it like in the place you went to?’

I did my best to give her a brief overview. ‘Y’know, I was dreading it, but actually, it was fantastic.’

‘You should count yourself lucky to have been able to go to such a place. It sounds like a holiday resort. Except I know that it isn’t, of course,’ she added hurriedly.

‘Lunch is served,’ Mariam called from the kitchen and my grandmother and I trooped in to eat at the table, which Mariam had set up using some of the flowers from the vases around the apartment as a centrepiece.

‘I was saying to Mariam this morning that I need to start watching my calories,’ I commented as we all dug in. ‘I’ll soon be too fat to be called a supermodel.’

‘I doubt it. Look at me, I am heading towards seventy and I’ve never put on a pound in the whole of my life. You’ve got good genes.’