flutter
Leanne was a nurse. She "somehow" fell pregnant, and the aunts raised their eyebrows and tut-tutted, and whispered behind their hands when they saw she wore white at the wedding, the curve of her three-months-gone tummy accentuated by the tight fabric.
Leanne had a little girl and went back to work after 6 months. A few years later there'd be a little boy, and she'd name him after her ex-teacher father's favourite student. Leanne's husband was a hazy figure in the background, a face with a name, but rarely seen.
Leanne and her cousin Shelley had been best friends when they were younger, spending a lot of time together in the holidays, playing hairdresser and putting on puppet shows for their parents. They were close in age but once Leanne was in high school they began to drift apart. Later Leanne's parents decided to move to another town where the schools were better, and their bond dissipated.
The last time Shelley saw Leanne, the former was still in school while the latter had started uni. Shelley didn't even feel related to Leanne any more. She heard about Leanne's pregnancy a few years later, but wasn't invited to the wedding, and never met the elusive husband.
Many years later Shelley would be at a family gathering, feeling dowdy and out-of-place as usual, and hardly paying attention to what people were saying, when she would suddenly realise that the person standing in front of her was Leanne, as tall and glamorous as ever, the mysterious husband by her side, and the children two steps to the left.
"Look at you! My God, I never thought I'd see you again!" Shelley would squeal, standing on tip-toe to hug her cousin.
"You're looking well," Leanne would say, smiling, although anyone with half a brain could see that Shelley wasn't.
So they'll chat and do a big catch up, and Leanne will say some things that quite surprise Shelley, and Shelley will be embarrassed to have such a fuss made over her, and insist it's quite all right, "That all happened a long time ago and I don't give it much thought now, honest."
And later, when Leanne is detailing some of the less salubrious aspects of her job, something will happen that will remind Shelley that despite their closeness as children, she and Leanne are quite different breeds, and it would be wise to remember that although Shelley would sometimes enquire after Leanne through family channels, Leanne had not once tried to make contact with Shelley. Nods to herself: I always needed her more than she needed me.
Where most people would roll their eyes, maybe tilt their heads a little, Leanne does this thing with her eyelids that looks like she's experiencing ECT. Shelley remembers being repulsed by it as a child (but far too polite to say anything). Leanne still does it. Shelley will be grateful in the long run for this warning, this reminder, that Leanne is much more in the family mould than she, and that the dream/nostalgia is inevitably better than the reality.