Free A Question of Love by Isabel Wolff

do you think?’ Felicity stared out into their small walled garden where dusk had just descended.
    ‘It sounds much too good for him. Positively Paradisal.’ She tucked a hank of tangled blonde hair behind one ear. ‘He didn’t deserve such a pleasant fate.’
    ‘Oh come on, Fliss. Don’t be too hard.’ Via the baby monitor, we could hear Hugh, moving about upstairs in the bedroom. Every time he shifted, it caused the arc of lights on the display to flicker and ripple.
    ‘No, Laura,’ Felicity went on. ‘I’m not afraid to say it. Nick was a shit to do what he did—and with no warning! I know some people might take a more compassionate view but he caused you too much pain for me to forgive him.’
    ‘It isn’t for you to forgive him, Fliss,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s for me . In any case the idea of either of us forgiving him is somewhat academic in the circumstances.’
    ‘I guess it is—as he’s on eternity leave.’ She laughed darkly.
    ‘That’s horrible, Fliss.’
    She pulled a guilty face. ‘But did this Madame Arcati character say anything else?’ I thought of what Cynthia had said right at the end, but I didn’t tell Felicity. Although she’s always been so open with me about her life there are some things she’s never known about mine. ‘Couldn’t she communicate with Nick?’ she went on. ‘Ask him why he did it, maybe? Put us all out of our misery?’
    I shifted in my seat. ‘She’s not a medium, and I wouldn’t want her to try. As for why he did it…the fact is we’ll probably never know. But please, don’t mention what happened to him to anyone, Fliss. It’s very important because I don’t want it getting in the press.’
    She tipped the salad into a bowl. ‘O…kay.’
    ‘ Afaclathaollaollagazzzagoyagoyagoya,’ said Olivia.
    Felicity turned round and beamed at her with a smile so wide I thought her face would split open. ‘Is that what you think my darling? I love the way she talks,’ she added with a giggle. ‘She sounds like a little alien with her strange, unworldly utterances.’
    ‘Thekzellagoyaobbadobbagertertergoya.’
    ‘Is that what they speak on the planet where you come from my little babychops?’
    As I held Olivia’s plump little person on my lap, her fair, downy hair brushed my chin. I stroked her soft arms with their little pillows of fat, and dimpled elbows. I squeezed her podgy knees. I love Olivia, but it’s a bittersweet kind of love.
    ‘You’re so…adorable, Olivia,’ I said longingly. ‘You really are.’ I kissed the top of her head.
    She twisted round to look up at me, her big blue eyes gazing unflinchingly into mine, with benign interest. Then she raised her right hand, with its stubby little fingers, like a starfish, and touched my cheek. ‘Thizclalefafffooohethana-gagoygoyagoyagoya.’
    ‘Goyagoyagoya to you,’ said Fliss, coming over and planting a kiss on her cheek with a noisy smack. Olivia giggled, so she did it again, then went back to the sink. ‘I stand over her cot,’ she confided quietly. ‘At night. When she’s asleep. I lean right over her cot, and feel her lovely breath on my cheek, like a tiny zephyr, and I still can’t believe that she’s mine. I love her so much,’ she said as she began to slice a tomato. ‘I could spend all my time just gazing at her; kissing her little face, I love her more and more each day, I—’ I heard her voice catch—‘I never knew that one could feel such love.’
    ‘I know,’ I murmured. Felicity’s knife stopped for a moment. ‘I mean, I can…imagine.’
    ‘And it’s a completely different kind of love from anything one’s ever felt for a man . To be perfectly truthful, Laura, I find the relationship I have with Olivia totally fulfilling. I almost envy single mothers,’ she confided, guiltily. ‘It must be rather cosy if it’s just you and the baby, with no-one else to consider.’ As she said this, we heard Hugh sniffing and coughing slightly as he walked about,