Chapter 8

I arrived at Emma's flat about seven that evening, after first checking that my eldest child could fit me into her hectic social life. As astute as her mother had been, she must have guessed something was amiss as she immediately invited me over; this was unusual, as she rarely spent any time alone. If she wasn't with one of her many male admirers; her impending wedding had reduced but not eliminated them all, although now her fiancé Luke was now at their centre; then she was putting the world to right with her friends over a glass or two of wine.

A chilled glass of Chablis was handed to me as I walked into her small, but immaculate flat. We gossiped about a few things, specifically my son and his lack of a girlfriend. As the eldest sibling, Emma felt it her duty to look after her brother, including organising his love life. Lee was forever moaning about his sister's interference, yet was always there when Emma wanted to introduce him to one of many friends. I had often laughed at her hypercritical attitude; she seemed determined to see Lee fixed up with a permanent girlfriend, yet she, though four years his senior, until Luke's sudden appearance, felt no need for a steady boyfriend in her life.

Whenever this inconsistency was pointed out, she shrugged it off with a comment like 'it is different for men, they need someone to organise them properly'. As this thought passed through my mind, I wondered whether she considered that I needed organising. Before I could expand this though Emma asked me directly why I was there.

"Can't I call on my only daughter without a reason?" I asked with a grin.

"You can and often do." She replied, before continuing, "but this is not one of those occasions."

I nodded, then spent the next twenty minutes explaining my dilemma, answering Emma's few probing questions as honestly as I could.

When I finally run out of things to say, having repeated much of it at least twice, Emma summed it up.

"You have met someone you like but you're scared of being seen as betraying mum's memory."

"Almost," I admitted, "I'm scared of losing what I still feel about your mother, to say nothing about me being unfair to Teresa, or any other woman for that matter."

"Dad! I know how much Mum meant to you and I can't see that ever changing. It doesn't mean that you have to stay alone for the rest of your natural. I certainly have no objection to you seeing someone else, and even though Lee was such a mummy's boy, " this was said with a knowing grin, "he won't object either. In fact, only last month we talked about fixing you up with a date or two."