The Good Sister(20)
It almost went off without a hitch. Almost. But when I reached for my piece of cake, I felt Mum’s cold finger poking me in the stomach.
‘Not too much now, Rosie Round!’ she said with a snigger.
It might have been the fact that my nerves had been stretched taut all day. It might have been that it had been so close to being a good day. It might have been that it was a hard poke, and Mum’s nails were sharp.
The tears came in a flood.
‘Oh, for god’s sake! It was just a joke. Why can’t you take a joke, Rose?’
I willed myself to get it together, but the tears showed no sign of abating. I tried looking at the roof, dabbing at my eyes. Even smiling through tears. But nothing worked.
This just annoyed Mum more. ‘So, I’m a bad mother now, am I? After I’ve I spent weeks planning this cake for you? Perfect.’
‘No!’ I said, at the same time as a sob escaped. Fern, who’d been obliviously tucking into her piece of cake, paused, her fork halfway to her mouth. I stood beside her, tapping my bracelet gently against hers. She knew this was a warning. Something is coming. It was the best I could do.
Mum flung up her arms. ‘And now you’ve ruined Fern’s birthday too! Great work, Rose. Really great work.’
Mum stormed off, leaving Fern and me alone. Five minutes later, when we heard a noise, we crept into the hallway to find Mum was dragging a suitcase toward the door.
‘Where are you going?’ I cried.
‘What’s it to you?’ Mum hissed. ‘You clearly don’t want me around, even with everything I do for you. You’ll be fine without me.’
Instantly, I was shaking. ‘No. We do want you around. We need you. Don’t go, Mummy, PLEASE!’
She locked the door behind her. I banged at it, screamed for her to come back, pressed my ear against the door to listen for movement. When it became clear she wasn’t coming back, I sat in the hallway. Fern sat beside me, silent but serious.
I quickly figured out that we couldn’t call the police – if we did that and Mum returned, she’d be furious. We couldn’t go to the neighbours for the same reason, and, besides, Mum didn’t like us talking to strangers. We couldn’t do anything. We just had to wait.
After a couple of hours, I went to the kitchen and checked the cupboards, determining that we had enough food to last us a week or so if we cooked the pasta and rice and defrosted the frozen food. If Mum wasn’t back by then, I’d have to make a new plan. I kept making plans well into the night, long after Fern was asleep, her head lolling against my shoulder.
Eventually I must have fallen asleep too, because when I woke up it was light outside, Fern was sprawled on the floor beside me and Mum was there, standing over me. It took me a few seconds to put everything back together – what happened, where we were, what day it was. When I realised she was back, I flew into her arms so fast I nearly knocked her over. Of course, I burst into a fresh flood of tears. But this time, when I cried, it didn’t seem to upset Mum. On the contrary, she fell to her knees and held me, rubbing my back in rhythmic circles.
‘Shhh. Mummy’s here now,’ she said. ‘Shhh. Everything is going to be all right.’
FERN
On Monday morning, I help a woman wanting a book recommendation for her introverted twelve-year-old daughter who wants to become a writer (I give her a copy of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith); I set up chairs for a Toastmasters group in the function room; and I ask a man who has been in the bathroom for over an hour if he requires any assistance (it turns out he had dropped his wedding ring down the sink, and Tom, the maintenance man, has to search for it in the S-bend). I fold and restack the newspapers and lie on the floor to read a book to a little boy who doesn’t want to sit on a chair in the kids’ area. So more or less a regular day at the library.
I’d handed Alfie off to Wally at 8.45 am, as planned. When Wally arrived outside my building in his orange kombi van, I will admit to being relieved to see him. Yes, we’d made an arrangement, but people can be fickle with arrangements. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, plans can be cancelled, postponed or even just deemed to be an idea rather than an actual plan (as is often the case when coffee is involved, I’ve found – Let’s have coffee, people will say, but then seem perplexed when I get out my diary to determine when we will drink it). So I was pleasantly surprised when Wally showed up.
I was all ready for him, naturally. I had packed up Alfie’s lead, his food, his water bowl (and two large bottles of tap water, so Wally could fill it up even if he couldn’t find a tap or hose). I’d also given Wally a wad of plastic bags for dog poo and a tennis ball. Wally took it all eagerly, which was quite nice. I’d always found there was something agreeable about people who liked dogs and something untrustworthy about those who didn’t. The night before, I’d considered telling Rose that I was outsourcing Alfie’s care for the day, but after careful consideration, I’d decided against it. After what had already happened with Alfie, I wanted to spare her the additional worry of a stranger looking after her dog (even if, judging by the text messages Wally has been sending from the dog park, Alfie is receiving a vastly superior level of attention than he would receive in either Rose’s or my care).
Mid-morning, I’m looking at one such text message – a photo message of Alfie, sitting on Wally’s lap at a café drinking from a bowl shaped as a coffee mug labelled PUPPY-CINO – when I am intercepted by Carmel and her cart.