Apples Never Fall

by Liane Moriarty

The only tennis player she knew was the angry one from the eighties. McEnroe. She had an uncle who used to put on an American accent to imitate his tantrums: “You cannot be serious.”

At least the fridge still liked him. He’d had it for years. It stayed, solemn and stolid, humming softly to itself through each relationship breakup as the tubs of Greek yogurt and containers of strawberries vanished, to be replaced once again by pizza boxes and multiple six-packs of beer.

All she had were these tiny jigsaw pieces of a personality that didn’t fit together: a love of cooking and a dislike of eating, classical ballet and foster care, grandmotherly manners and a tattoo of a vine.

Why had her daughters had to suffer these invisible illnesses that no one seemed to understand?

Once you’ve hit a ball there’s no point watching to see where it’s going. You can’t change its flight path now. You have to think about your next move. Not what you should have done. What you do now.