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The trip coincides with Maggie’s upcoming fortieth birthday and with Will’s private anxieties about Lydia and Roland’s complicated situation, including Roland’s fraught life involving his ex-wife. As the château, the heat, and childhood memories return, the visit tests loyalties, magnifies guilt, and pressures the family against both emotional and practical uncertainties.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":10,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/story-novel/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/family-friends-part-read-online-free/128985/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/family-friends-part-read-online-free/128985.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Levi","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-20","2026-08-06",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":39},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does Will feel anxious during the trip?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"He worries about Maggie’s fortieth birthday and about how the children will cope in the heat. He also feels the strain of the situation involving Lydia and Roland.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What is the central complication involving Roland and his ex-wife?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Will and Maggie discuss that Roland’s ex-wife is dying, and Lydia is affected by how Roland spends more of the week with her in Scotland than with Lydia in London.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does the environment and setting affect the mood of the story?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The château and its surroundings evoke Maggie’s fears and Will’s memories of earlier family traumas, intensifying tension as they arrive for another summer.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},128985,1786006909,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":8,"category_name":10,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":39,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":129,"read_time":144},5909887256941,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_9964176cb1d06d4a9deccf72a44ae3dc","[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nAbout the Author  \nChloë Ashby is an author and arts critic. She writes and reviews for publications including The Times, the Guardian, Harper ’s Bazaar, and the TLS. She is the author of two previous novels, Wet Paint and Second Self, and two non-fiction books on art history.  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nChloë Ashby  \nFAMILY FRIENDS  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nFor Laurie and Ollie  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nFamily life sometimes had a vortex, like weather.  \n– Lorrie Moore  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \n1  \nAfter fifteen years of marriage, Will likes to think he has a PhD in Maggie. He knows how her mind works. The way she worries. Which is why he gives her hand a squeeze as the car climbs the hill towards the house, aware of how she’ll be feeling: relieved they’ve arrived in one piece; glad to be on holiday; planning the meals she’ll cook to repay Lydia and Roland for hosting; anxious about how the children will cope in the heat. She feels things deeply, always. In here, she told him when they were lying in bed together one morning, early on, poking at her stomach with the pad of one finger. It used to be the thing he loved best about her. Recently, it’s been stealing sleep from him.  \nWill tries to take their friends at face value when they say that having them to stay every summer is no trouble. That those last two weeks of August in the Lot wouldn’t be the same without them. That, if anything, they should be paying them! That last line he’s less keen on, even though Maggie assures him there’s no charitable subtext and reminds him (as if he needs reminding) that not having a holiday home in France wouldn’t make them a good cause anyway.  \n‘Is this really the twentieth year we’ve done this?’ he asks, easing his foot off the accelerator as they reach the crest of the hill, the wrought-iron gates coming into view. He thinks back to their first visit, at the end of their first year, and groans as he adds,‘Are we really that old?’  \nA beat goes by before Maggie responds, and as he indicates the beat multiplies, pelting his poor choice of words. His wife’s fortieth birthday is just a few days away, and no, no, no. He still hasn’t got her a present.  \nWhen she does respond: ‘Think how Roland feels.’  \nHe smiles, parts his lips to congratulate her on the deflection before changing his mind and pressing them back together. It was just the one year  \nthat he, Lydia and Maggie came without Roland – when they still thought of him as their professor.  \nAs he steers the car off the country road and on to the driveway, gravel crunching beneath the tyres, he tries to picture the shops in town. But all he can see is that gourmet grocery store, and he can hardly give her fancy fruit and veg.  \n‘Here we go,’ says Maggie, sitting up tall.  \nHe defers his decision, again, and takes a breath before rolling down his window and ushering in a swell of warm air.  \nThey trundle through the avenue of mighty trees with peeling bark. Birdsong filters down from overhanging branches that interlink like outstretched fingers, either recently reunited or on the point of parting. The lawn is parched, more yellow than green. The sun low in the sky. He glimpses the house up ahead, grand but decaying, with unruly creepers clambering across pale stone walls offset by chipped russet roof tiles and faint blue shutters.  \nWill exhales. ‘I wonder how she’s doing.’‘Mary, you mean?’  \nHe flashes her a look.‘Who else?’  \n‘Well, Lydia for one. This whole thing hasn’t been easy on her, you know? She told me he’s been spending more of the week with his ex-wife in Scotland than with her in London.’  \n‘Because his ex-wife is dying, Mags.’  \nShe winces, and he can almost hear the papery edges of a small parcel of guilt unfold inside her, the kind that accompanies the misfortune of others.  \n‘What type of cancer is it?’ she asks, hesitantly, mortified no doubt that she could forget. ‘I think …lung?’  \nHe shru","cbCair9UcOHVemNC","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCair9UcOHVemNC","pdf",2886594,255,"English","# Family Friends\n## Arrival and summer ritual\n## Birthday unease and unresolved gifts\n## Lydia and Roland’s complications\n## The château, the heat, and memories","[{\"question\":\"Why does Will feel anxious during the trip?\",\"answer\":\"He worries about Maggie’s fortieth birthday and about how the children will cope in the heat. He also feels the strain of the situation involving Lydia and Roland.\"},{\"question\":\"What is the central complication involving Roland and his ex-wife?\",\"answer\":\"Will and Maggie discuss that Roland’s ex-wife is dying, and Lydia is affected by how Roland spends more of the week with her in Scotland than with Lydia in London.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the environment and setting affect the mood of the story?\",\"answer\":\"The château and its surroundings evoke Maggie’s fears and Will’s memories of earlier family traumas, intensifying tension as they arrive for another summer.\"}]","FAMILY FRIENDS - Part - read online free | PDF",393]