Lily Green (Diamonds #4)

At half seven, Lily was already feeling the heat of the steamy July morning. The fans in the kitchen buzzed noisily but brought little relief. She wondered if it was anything to do with her age – she certainly couldn't remember feeling the heat like this when she was younger – She pushed the thought aside. It was too ridiculous. She was forty three and more or less in her prime in more than one sense. The problem was that on a day like this she felt every year in every inch of her body.

Through the fan's droning, she heard footsteps coming from the top of the stairs. Descending and moving closer, until they were silenced by the hallway's shag pile carpet. Lily expected her niece, Rebecca, to come bounding into the kitchen – the same way she had most mornings since she moved in – but this time, it was Diane. Typically fresh faced, unworried and unhurried by the weather.

Lily smiled. Diane did too and that was all it took for most of Lily's negativity to drift away. Things hadn't always been easy but she knew Diane was a good girl. The difficulties of the last few years were over. Diane was young and she'd made some mistakes. Lily knew that was natural, even understandable. But she also knew that she hadn't always understood and being too judgemental was a much worse mistake than any that Diane had actually made. Lily still found it hard to forgive herself for that.

Guilt was nothing new to her. That was just one more thing to lay heavy on her conscience; somewhere ahead of the handful of sweets, pinched from Woolworths when she was a kid, and some-way behind the break-up of her marriage.

Often, she'd wondered if it would've been better if she hadn’t spent so long ignoring Harry’s cheating. Maybe it would've spared Diane the pain of the divorce during her early teens. As it was, her sweet girl's rage of hormones, a cocktail of anger, boys and booze, was something Lily lacked the strength to fight.

Eventually, things calmed down. She could look back and think Diane had been quite lucky – at least she hadn’t got pregnant or anything like that. In fact, it looked like Diane had come through the worst of it relatively unscathed – Not that Lily gave herself any credit for that, of course. Instead, she assumed that the closer Diane got to her eighteenth birthday, the more of the woman she would become was coming out.

That was another thing Lily was thankful for, if only because Diane didn't really take after her father. There was the hair colour and the high cheekbones, but, not much else about her looked or seemed like Harry.

Lily’s smile lingered on her lips and she realised how surprised she was to see her.
“How come you’re up so early sweetheart?” she asked.
“Dunno,” Diane replied.

That kind of vague response could only mean a boy was involved. Lily didn't push it any further. Instead, she tried to remind Diane that she was supposed to see her dad that afternoon. The words barely seemed to register.
“Is Becky up yet?” Diane asked.
“Not as far as I know.”
Lily hadn’t seen her since the evening before.
“I’m not surprised. I heard her come in at like two or something. I was just drifting off then. Sounded like she’d had a few though.”

Even as she spoke, Diane was turning to go back into the hallway and up the stairs. Lily didn't stand or say a word.  Instead, she scooped a tiny blob of orange and tangerine marmalade from her plate and savoured the citrus sweet tang on her tongue.

When she eventually stood, she felt the cold trickle of sweat down her back. Even in the energy sapping warmth, it made her shiver. A brief look to the clock on the wall showed her it was already half eight. There wasn't much to do but she still thought she should get moving.

She went upstairs for a shower. The cool haze of water only briefly satisfied the creamy softness of her skin. She dressed quickly. Lace underwear; light and airy, beneath a simple summer dress. No lines were visible but when she checked in the mirror she saw too much weight on her bones. Lily looked away and quickly walked out of the room.