SIPS, SLIPS AND SNIPPETS OF LOVE 15

 ‘Why?’ she later asked herself, should she have felt like this ‘Isn’t it normal that you should be closer to your mother and father, to mummy and daddy, than anyone else.’  She really didn’t know, but it was true in Jane’s case that she loved her sister with an intensity she should have maybe felt for her parents, but they were always second in her affections, and she couldn’t really say why.  It seemed more than natural to her at the time and it was only as she grew older that she questioned it.  Only then, when she realised that siblings’ love for each other was almost always more than exceeded by the love for, and by, their parents, did she begin to wonder why.  Maybe it was because she was always with her sister; they played and ate and bathed together and they slept in the same room and often in the same bed too.  When the rain was splashing on the window and the wind would rattle and shake the panes, her sister would hold her blankets open and say the words she was hoping for, ‘Come on then’ and Jane would jump out of her cold sheets and hop in, into the warmth Harriet had made in her cosy little bed and be instantly safe, enwrapped, cocooned in an all-enveloping warmth, and she would fall into such a deep safe sleep; unlike anything she ever slept on my own.

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Although June knew it was stupid of her she felt it must only be a matter of time before Ted would want to see her again. Nothing had been said between them, no plans made, and no final goodbyes either.   Maybe he was waiting for some kind of a sign from her; some signal that she was ready; ready to take off where they had left it she supposed. Though no words had been spoken she sometimes thought she could detect something, some tiny sign of complicity; on the few family occasions where they would be together, though polite and trying desperately not to give herself away she was scanning his handsome face for some sign, some clue that he still felt the same about her.  She couldn’t be sure but just the way his hand lingered in hers for just that touch longer than it should have as they said their ritual goodbyes, the way his smile seemed directed solely at her, the way he turned his head when he spoke to look at her.  These were the tiny clues she pinned her hopes on, while all the time telling herself what a fool she would be if she allowed herself to start with him again.  And how could they be doing it in barns and old sheds at their age, she would be thirty soon.  No, this time around they would have to be far more careful – that is if he still wanted her.  And she was terrified that he might not want her anymore.  Her sister Julie was pregnant for the third time now, two boys under five already and another one on the way, so she and Ted were still at it like rabbits she supposed.  Maybe Julie was enough for him; maybe he was tired of her, June, now.  In one way this would be a blessing, at least it would put an end to it all.  She just wasn’t sure how she would cope if he didn’t need her anymore, she couldn’t bear it if he didn’t care anymore.  She could put up with not seeing him again, with that side of it being over for good, it was just the not being loved, the not being wanted by him that she couldn’t stand.   She knew that she was stuck with Phil now, of course, it wasn’t that she didn’t love him, and the girls too in a way.  Of course she loved them; it just never seemed enough for her, steady unexciting Phil and the girls.  ‘Was this it then?  Was that all there was from now on, boring but reliable Phil, precocious little Harriet and Jane still as much of a baby as she had ever been.’ She wondered.  And what would become of her, June?  What would she become when the girls grew up and left her, would she just be another old woman stuck in a dull marriage with occasional visits from grandchildren to lighten the gloom?  She shuddered when she thought about this possible future.

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