Read Never Too Late for Free Online

become. She rather liked its white trumpet flowers where it grew up through the buddleia, but could not allow her smaller perennials to be strangled.
    Purple aubretia tumbled joyfully down a wall, and daffodils and narcissi nodded greetings to her as she passed. Deep blue muscari bubbled up among the legs of multi-hued wallflowers, and crocus leaves absorbed the sun’s rays, building strength in their bulbs for next year’s show.
    Maggie sighed and headed back indoors.
    So much life and beauty, and not a soul to share it with.
    Her mental list of things that needed to be done was growing and she needed to write them down .
    Coffee, toast, and then on with the day.
     
    *
     
    That night, while she plumped the cushions, Maggie surprised herself with a huge sigh. It had sounded unnaturally loud in the night-time hush of the house, now that she had turned off the TV. She thought back over the day just ending. Yet again it had been busy, but she felt she had, in fact, achieved nothing of any real significance.
    She glanced around, confirming the room was spotless. How else would it be now that her husband was rarely home and the children had moved on, living their own lives in their own homes?
    Her children had been her whole life from the very early days of her marriage, James having arrived significantly earlier than the nine months after their brief honeymoon that were required to still the gossips’ tongues. All in all it had been a good life but now she was faced with the prospect of having to reinvent herself. Who and what was she to become now? She could not continue as nothing more than a spare part rattling round this house. It had every modern convenience needed to remove the drudgery – and the time requirement – of looking after it. What was she to do with the rest of her life?
    Gently she picked up the photo on the mantelpiece that showed a young James grinning up at the camera, his hand protectively on the hand knitted white shawl covering baby Chloe. The thought of her children brought a small warm glow of pride that she’d succeeded as a parent, in her own eyes at least, in that her son and daughter had both felt confident about leaving home when the time came.
    James had celebrated his first wedding anniversary just a few months ago – a strange affair that had proved to be too. Maggie felt a small frown crease her forehead and immediately Chloe’s voice sounded in her ears, as clear as if she had been there. “Lighten up,” she’d exclaim, “Relax more, go with the flow or you’ll be looking old and wrinkled before your time.” So often these days Chloe appeared to feel exasperation with her mother. Maggie was all too aware that she who had once been so confident and sure of her actions now did nothing but dither and worry. Without a clear timetable dictated by the children’s needs it seemed so hard to make decisions.
    He had always been a quiet boy, Maggie mused, running her forefinger over the surface to remove a speck of dust before carefully replacing the silver framed photo. James had never given her any of the headaches some of her friends suffered at the hands of their sons, especially during the rebellious teenage years that were part and parcel of the painful struggle to manhood, but there had been a definite change in him since his marriage. Marriage changed everyone, she knew that, but he seemed introverted rather than quiet now, even cowed at times.
    She’d never quite seen eye to eye with his wife. Keela was a very striking woman physically, with her raven hair and green eyes that changed hue with her mood so dramatically. Maggie could quite see how she had swept her son off his feet. She had been well named at birth for she really was a ‘great beauty’, but she was fiery at times too. She seemed uncomfortable with the world, needing to challenge it. But then at other times she seemed so melancholy.
    In the garden, though – well, what a transformation. She became a different