The Reunion

at the weekend, and Nat was leaving on Monday, so who knew when the three of them would be together again? When, if.
    Jen looked distracted. She kept checking her phone. This was the first time she’d left the baby for more than an hour or two at a time, and she’d left her with Dan.
    ‘Dan, of all people,’ she fretted. ‘He’ll probably get caught up in his writing and forget all about her. She’ll be starving and howling and wet by the time we get home.’
    Natalie rolled her eyes. ‘Bullshit. He won’t do a scrap of work, he’s going to sit there making goo-goo noises and funny faces at her all day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so smitten with an infant. Andrew was never that sappy over our two.’
    ‘He’ll make a good dad,’ Lilah said. Jen looked at her sharply. ‘I don’t mean to Isabelle, necessarily. God, you’re so touchy. I was speaking generally. Although, if it came to it, he’d probably be a good dad to Isabelle. All I’m saying is, he’ll be good at it, when it happens for him.’
    ‘I’m not sure it will, though,’ Natalie said, giving Jen the side eye. Jen either didn’t notice or was ignoring her. Nat waited for a couple of seconds and then asked, ‘Do you think it will happen for him, Jen?’
    ‘How should I know?’ she asked, grumpily. ‘Why are you asking me?’
    Nat made a guilty face at Lilah, who just laughed.
    ‘Why do you think she’s asking you? You do know that the whole Dan and Jen cat is out of the bag, don’t you?’
    ‘There is no Dan and Jen cat,’ Jen muttered.
    ‘If you say so,’ Lilah said archly, closing her eyes and relaxing back into her deckchair.
    When she opened her eyes again, Jen was sitting up dead straight, picking the nail polish off her toes, a deep furrow between her brows.
    ‘Jen,’ Lilah said. ‘Chill. We were only joking.’
    ‘It isn’t funny,’ she said.
    Lilah looked over at Natalie, who shrugged. ‘Oh, come on. What are you so worried about? Andrew? Because, seriously, he’s just going to have to get over it.’
    ‘It’s not that,’ Jen said, shaking her head, squinting out to sea. ‘That isn’t the problem.’ She paused for a few moments, she was looking up at the horizon, she brought her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. ‘It’s just difficult. Things are difficult. I do have feelings for Dan, but I just don’t know if I can be with him. It’s complicated.’
    ‘How so?’ Nat asked her. ‘Not Nicolas, surely?’
    ‘God, no. If I never see him again for the rest of my life it’ll be too soon.’ Almost as she was saying the words she shot Lilah an anxious glance. Lilah shook her head with a smile. They did this now. They blushed at references to ‘the rest of my life’, they got terribly overwrought if anyone said, ‘I’d rather die…’ It was sweet, endearing really, but it was also doing her head in.
    ‘Well then? Is it Isabelle? Because I’m serious, he really does seem to adore her, and it’s not just the thing where she’s a novelty, and fun to play with.’
    ‘Because let’s face it,’ Lilah said drily, ‘she isn’t that much fun to play with yet.’
    ‘Lilah!’ Nat admonished her.
    ‘No, it’s true,’ Jen admitted. ‘She really isn’t that much fun yet.’
    ‘In any case,’ Natalie said with a sigh, ‘what I meant was that he’s happy to muck in, to do the boring stuff. I can quite easily see him changing nappies and puréeing apples and getting up in the middle of the night if you’re too tired.’
    ‘Oh, I know. I know. I think that he’d actually be rather good at all the domesticity. To be honest, I haven’t even been considering practicalities, that’s not why I’m…’ She tailed off.
    ‘Conflicted?’ Lilah offered.
    ‘For want of a better word.’
    ‘You’re not in love with him?’ Nat suggested.
    ‘Oh, she is,’ Lilah said. ‘I’ve seen the way she looks at him.’
    It was a funny thing about being ill, Lilah had noticed that people became less guarded around her. Well, they were guarded about some things – any discussion of health or death or plans for next year were obviously off the table – but she felt as though sometimes they forgot that she was there, that she was watching, perhaps because she was quiet, immobile. A sickly piece of furniture. In any case, she’d seen glances exchanged, between Dan and Jen, the way their hands touched when they passed Isabelle between them, the way Jen watched him when he was sitting at