The Family Next Door(69)

Something crawled over her heart.

“Marriage is hard work,” her mother was saying, “but the harder it gets the harder you…”

Fran hung up the phone and called the ambulance.





53


BARBARA


Barbara stopped at a fuel station a few hours later. When she and Essie got out of the car, the heat hit them like a warm, wet cloth.

“Gran,” Essie said. “I’m tired. I want to go home.”

She chuckled. “What did you call me?”

“Gran.”

“Gran?” Barbara repeated, incredulous. “I’m not that old, am I?”

Essie’s face crumpled up, confused. She opened her mouth to say something else, but Barbara beat her to it.

“We’ll be home soon,” Barbara told her. “Let’s go pee and then I’ll get you a candy bar.”

This got her moving, of course. In the restroom, there was another mum with twin boys who were peeing into the second toilet, attempting a “sword fight.” The mother smiled at Barbara, a little embarrassed.

“Boys!” she said, rolling her eyes.

“I’d love a boy,” Barbara told her. “I’ve only got Essie so far. Maybe next time. It would be nice to have a pigeon pair.”

The woman frowned at the same time as Essie shouted: “Finished, Gran.”

Barbara opened the door and started plucking stiff sheets from the paper dispenser. “So it’s still Gran, is it?”

“What?” Essie slid off the toilet, her underwear still around her ankles.

Barbara glanced at the other mother and shrugged. “Could be worse, I guess. She could be calling me Grandpa.” She started wiping her. “My name isn’t Gran, Essie. It’s Mummy.”

Essie looked perplexed. “I’m not Essie. I’m Mia!”

Barbara pulled up Essie’s underwear. The little boys from the next cubicle were washing their hands and getting pink soapsuds everywhere.

“All right, all right,” Barbara said, defeated. “I’m Gran. And you’re Mia.”

Essie washed her hands and Barbara shot the other mum a look that she hoped said “we’re in this motherhood thing together.” But the other mother looked as puzzled as Essie.

Barbara sighed—I give up!—and left the restroom with Essie to pay for the fuel.

“Would you like to choose a candy bar, Ess?”

Barbara was surprised when Essie narrowed her eyes, instead of squealing in delight. “STOP CALLING ME THAT!” she cried. “I. Am. Not. Essie. And you are GRAN!” She stamped her feet, quite worked up now. She must have been exhausted from the long drive. But Barbara was exhausted too. And she’d had enough of these games.

“Fine. If you’re going to be silly, no candy bar.”

Barbara paid for the fuel as Essie went boneless on the floor, wailing that she wanted a candy bar.

“Where are you headed?” the cashier asked.

Barbara watched Essie rolling about on the floor. “Sydney.”

“Not today you’re not,” he said. “The Hume Highway’s closed. Bushfires.”

Barbara groaned. Essie continued to cry that she wanted to go home, she wanted her mummy. It was too hot and Barbara was at the end of her tether.

“Well,” she said. “I guess we’re going back to Melbourne for tonight.”

She picked up Essie—an almost impossible act with a flailing toddler—and struggled to the car. She expected a sympathetic look from the mother of the two boys, but she didn’t get it. All very well for her to be judgmental now that her boys had covered the bathroom in pink detergent!

Barbara had made it halfway to the car when she lost her grip and Essie wriggled from her arms. She ran back toward the shop, probably to claim her candy bar, and Barbara reached for her, catching the back of her T-shirt and pulling tight. She’d had enough of this. Essie let out a high-pitched wail.

The woman with the two boys and a man who looked like a truck driver came toward them.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” the woman asked Essie.

Barbara couldn’t believe it. Another mother taking the side of a tantrumming toddler? Where was the solidarity? The woman squatted down in front of Essie and asked. “Do you know this lady?”

Before Barbara could respond that of course she knows me, I am her mother, the truck driver said to Barbara: “Please let the little girl go, ma’am. You’re hurting her.”

Barbara was absolutely indignant. She was being shamed for trying to teach her daughter some manners. She was about to let go of the T-shirt, because what else could she do, but in the face of these strangers, Essie had backed toward Barbara anyway. Clearly the mother who deprived her of candy was the lesser of the evils when compared to strangers.

“Do you know her?” the woman asked Essie again.

Now Essie nodded. “She’s my Gran.”

Barbara sighed.

“She’s your grandma?” the man repeated, at the same time as the woman said to Barbara: “Are you feeling all right, ma’am? You seem a little confused.”

Barbara was done. She grabbed Essie and shoved her into the backseat of the car, holding her down with one hand and buckling her in with the other.