It was Erica who answered. “Never,” she said. “And we are not doing this. We are not spending the four-hour drive looking back on our lives and deciding we made all the wrong decisions. What is the point? This is a vacation. The whole point of a vacation is to leave your troubles behind.”
Maybe that depended on the size of your troubles, Claudia thought. It was hard to leave hers behind because she needed to make some decisions, and she needed to make them quickly. If she was going to give up being a chef, then she needed to find something else to do.
Anna turned to look at Erica. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m totally fine.”
Anna studied her. “And there really is nothing you’d change if you could have your time again?”
“Apart from maybe persuading you both to hold our book club in the Caribbean? No. Nothing.” Erica gripped the wheel. “If we must have this conversation about regrets, then let’s postpone it until we’re ninety. Right now we have everything to play for. If there is something you want, then go for it.”
Claudia had no idea what she wanted. She wished her thinking were as clear as Erica’s.
Anna didn’t seem inclined to drop the subject. “You wouldn’t change a single thing?”
“No.” Erica sounded exasperated. “I don’t think like that. I don’t ask myself those questions. It’s not helpful. So what if you decide you made the wrong call about something five years ago? Nothing you can do about it now. Learn from it and move on.”
“I ask myself those questions all the time.” Claudia relaxed against the seat, lulled by the movement of the car and the changing scenery beyond the window. “Mostly at three in the morning when I’m lying awake staring at my ceiling.”
“That’s your problem right there.” Erica turned off the main highway and they took a road that led through a forested area. The road stretched ahead of them, clear of traffic. “Everyone knows you never pay attention to thoughts that arrive in your brain at three in the morning. They are intruders to be shut out. You don’t listen to them.”
“What if those intruders have loud voices?”
“Life always seems at its worst at three in the morning,” Anna said. “It happens to me, too. I think I keep so busy the rest of the time, it’s only in the middle of the night that I have time to think about something other than the next thing on my to-do list.” She glanced at Erica. “You don’t find your mind wandering if you’re awake at three in the morning?”
“There’s only ever one reason I’m awake in the night,” Erica said, and Anna rolled her eyes.
“And just like that we’re back to sexy Jack.”
“Could we stop calling him sexy Jack?”
“I don’t think so.” Anna stretched out her legs. “Remember all those nights in college where we used to lie awake talking about what we were going to do with our lives?”
“We were idealistic,” Claudia said. “We didn’t have a clue.”
“We were ambitious and bold,” Erica said. “And if you can’t be ambitious and bold when you’re twenty, when can you be?”
“I think what none of us realized,” Anna said slowly, “is that you can plan all you like, but sometimes life just happens. It’s unpredictable.”
Erica turned her head and flashed her a half smile. “You mean like you and Pete forgetting to use a condom? That was entirely predictable.”
Claudia laughed and Anna smiled, too.
It was no secret that her pregnancy had been a happy accident.
“I don’t know why you’d worry at three in the morning,” Claudia said to Anna. “Your life is perfect. Your marriage is perfect.”
Anna was silent for a moment. “No one’s life is perfect.”
Claudia felt a flicker of alarm. If there was something wrong with Anna’s perfect life then that was her faith in the world and humankind destroyed forever. Was something wrong between Anna and Pete? No. It couldn’t be anything to do with Pete. He and Anna had a rock-solid relationship. Acknowledging that made her realize she hadn’t totally lost her faith in humanity. John had cheated, but she wasn’t taking that to mean that good relationships didn’t exist. She did not believe that.
For the first time since John had moved out and she’d lost her job, she felt something that might have been hope.
It was like discovering a bleeding wound was superficial and would heal in time.
Watching Pete and Anna the night before had made her think harder about her relationship with John. When had John last looked at her the way Pete looked at Anna? And had she really felt about John the way Anna felt about Pete? Her friends had been together almost twice as long as she’d been with John and yet they were still so obviously in love. How did you tell the difference between love and comfortable habit?
She pushed the question aside, finding it too uncomfortable to dwell on but it stayed there, hovering in the periphery of her thoughts. Everyone’s relationship was different, of course, and everyone wanted something different.
She relaxed back in her seat, feeling a little more optimistic.
Resolving to try to nurture that positive feeling, she focused on Anna.
“What do you worry about at three in the morning?”
“Everything,” Anna said. “All the things I said that I wish I hadn’t said. All the things I have to do. All the things that could go wrong. All the things that are changing that are outside my control. And don’t tell me to make a list of my worries before I go to sleep because I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work.”
Erica glanced at her. “Why worry about all the things that could go wrong? Why not wait for them to actually go wrong, and then worry?”
“I never said my worries were logical.”
“What does Pete do when you’re lying awake worrying?”
“Usually, he’s asleep, but occasionally if I’m really anxious I wake him.”
“And he doesn’t kill you for that?” Erica shook her head. “That man is a saint.”
Claudia realized that Anna still hadn’t answered the question. “What’s changing that is outside your control?” Anna’s life seemed so steady and predictable to her. It was one of the things she envied most.
“My family.” Anna was silent for a moment. “Over the years I’ve had the occasional moment of panic when I’ve thought about the day when the twins leave home, but I always pushed it aside because it was something in the future, but the other night I realized that the future has arrived. Next year they’ll be leaving, and I’m dreading it.” There was a quiver in her voice and Erica frowned.
“You’re worried about how they’ll cope without you?”
“No.” Anna swallowed. “I’m worried about how I’ll cope without them.”
“But the alternative would be to have them living with you forever. You wouldn’t want that, surely?”
“I wouldn’t.” Anna paused. “Or maybe I would.”