After dinner Sjaak and Lisa brought two of their own chairs to the temporary cinema. It wasn't too bad, they still fit in easily.

They saw that Margreet had already put a lot of glasses on the dining table. "I'll put the juice packs and the cans on later, halfway through or after the movie. Then the drinks stay nice and cold."

They chatted for a while and then went to the guesthouse kitchen together. Margreet helped Annerieke with serving the cake slices.

The atmosphere among the guests was good. There was a certain tension, they were looking forward to the film, but also excited about what it would bring, what it would do to them. The cake points distracted them for a moment. It didn't take long before there was some delicious smuggling, and with a "See you later!" Margreet went back to the kitchen.

"They're looking forward to it, our guests! Ha Simon, nice of you to join us." Margreet had barely greeted him as Martin, Elly and George entered.

"Too late," Margreet joked, "the cake's gone!"

"Then let's go," Martin responded, pretending to turn right around, "without Annerieke's cake no life, don’t you think so Elly?"

"Oh yes, that's certainly true, I remember your cakes like it was yesterday!"

"That's why I baked two today, a small one as a second, so I wouldn't have to skip you," Annerieke replied with a smile. "And how cool that you came too, George, just pull up a chair, if there's any left..."

"Don't worry, I'll stand. Martin had invited me, and I liked that, but thought I couldn't just drop in. Martin thought I could, and now it turns out he was right, I just feel really welcome here, thank you!" He took in his pie slice and tasted

"So say! You haven't exaggerated," he said to Martin and Elly, "this tastes at least as good as from the bakery! Do you really do this every day?"

Annerieke nodded, "Every day, I just think like: a day without cake, is a day not lived!"

Everyone shot up in laughter.

"You could put it that way," Lisa responded, "I would really miss that cake a lot if you skipped a day."

"That you guys aren't tons..." George wondered. "How do you do that?"

"Well, I did gain a little weight, since I've been eating cake every day for the last few weeks," Lisa said.

"So how do you guys do it?" Lisa asked the others. "Everyone here is indeed slim!"

"I've gained a little more fat," reported Margreet, "and that's not from the pregnancy yet!"

"No, it can't be yet," confirmed Annerieke, "but I suspect it has mainly to do with being emotionally healthy. When Erik died, I also gained a few pounds in the first month after that, even though I didn't think I had started eating more. But when I got through the worst of it, I slowly got back to my standard weight.

I remember well, that as an adolescent and young woman I was quite worried about my weight. Weighing every day and so on. But the further I healed, the looser I became. Oh yes, I still weigh sometimes, and then discover that my weight is stable. I have also completely lost the urge I used to have, to get food all the time. And then you can also feel free to have a slice of cake every night. Life has just become different, more relaxed."

Elly looked at her with her head tilted a little, "I want to ask you something, Annerieke, but if it's too personal, don't feel compelled to answer okay?"

When Annerieke nodded at her encouragingly, she continued: "How do you feel now? Erik's unexpected death was a huge blow... how do you experience it now, the loss, the pain?"

Annerieke smiled at her: "Good question, thank you, it does me good that you ask. In those first weeks it was one big deep valley, terrible! For a few days I had the feeling that I would not come out of it, that I would not be able to continue living. No, I haven't told you that Huib, I couldn't do that to you. You were finally the one for whom I wanted to go on... And as soon as I discovered that light at the end of the tunnel, that I could go on for you, I could go on. Then I dealt differently with what I felt, differently with Erik's things. I let them go through my hands, consciously feeling what it did to me, what the loss did to me, the pain, the sorrow. It was an intense road, it cost me a lot of energy..."

She interrupted herself for a moment, "That was the moment Huib saw me deteriorate and decided to put out an ad for help, the ad to which Margreet responded. All wonderful, wonderfully beautiful! When you came, only a few days later, I had had the worst of it and physically I was starting to recover. In that sense an extra help was not really needed anymore, but in retrospect I fully enjoy the fact that you took over quite a bit from me. For a few months my life has revolved around work and processing, nothing else. And that bow is no longer tense. I can now go on with my life again, and I enjoy it. My family has expanded rapidly with Margreet, and with Sjaak and Lisa, and that's great!"

"But..." Elly continued hesitantly, "... in your house, there you are alone. Don't you feel lonely there?"

"No, not lonely at all. And that has nothing to do with whether or not I have a partner, but with the fact that I am who I am. That's what makes me live, that's what makes me feel complete. That said, there are times when I do think about whether I would ever want to have a partner again." She chuckled, "And now, of course, you want to know if I want to... well, sometimes I do, sometimes I look forward to that a little bit, but not in the sense that I would want to look for someone. Like I said, I feel complete in myself, but there are times when I do wonder what it would be like, with another partner. Hard to fill in, I'll see if it ever comes to that!"

Huib had been listening enthralled to his mother, while in the meantime he kept an eye on Simon. Simon had been hanging on her every word.

Margreet, who understood very well what he was thinking, nudged him and bent to his ear. "It will be fine," she whispered.

He winked at her, with a happy smile from ear to ear.

To chapter 130. The Truman Show

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