The Good Sister(43)
But that morning she was singing!
As Fern and I slunk out of bed, even Fern was worried. My sister has always been a creature of habit, and this change to the routine didn’t sit well with her. When we arrived in the kitchen, Mum beamed at us.
‘Good morning, beautiful girls! Who feels like eggs?’
At twelve, I was old enough to know about alcohol, and my first thought was that Mum must be drunk. Drinking didn’t usually make her nicer, admittedly, but there had been a couple of times when she and one of her new friends shared a bottle of something and she’d been something resembling warm toward me (until the next morning). But ‘beautiful girls’? Mum never said anything like that. She occasionally made comments about our looks, but only insofar as they referenced her own. (‘You take after me, Fern, tall and skinny as you are.’ And then, of course, ‘Rosie Round’.) But that day, we were beautiful!
She served us eggs and we ate them in silence as she prattled on about the weather (‘Lovely!’), the day ahead (‘What are you girls doing at school?’), and the things we were looking forward to. Fern answered all of Mum’s direct questions, agreeing that the weather looked nice. I remained suspicious.
That afternoon, when Fern and I got out of school, Mum was waiting for us. That enough was cause for alarm. Mum didn’t pick us up from school – she hadn’t since we were seven. Her smile did nothing to comfort me; Mum always smiled in public.
‘Surprise!’
Both Fern and I walked toward her slowly. She went for Fern first, picking her up and swinging her around in a way that parents did with much younger children. Fern went so stiff it was as though Mum was spinning a metal rod. Finally, Mum let her go and took a deep, excited breath. ‘Girls, I have someone I’d like you to meet.’
She turned and gestured toward a smiling man in jeans and a rugby jumper, leaning against a shiny silver car.
‘This,’ she said, ‘is Daniel.’
My blood ran cold. I knew that Mum wanted to find someone else. After she’d broken up with Gary, she got a computer and was always having Fern or me take her picture for one of those dating websites. Now, it appeared, she had found someone.
‘Daniel is a friend of mine,’ Mum said. ‘We’ve known each other since we were babies–’
‘So a long, long time,’ Daniel interrupted, grinning.
I glanced at Mum – if there was one thing she hated, it was people telling her she was old. But to my surprise, she laughed, a strangely pitched laugh that landed wrong somehow.
‘I have been asking your mum if I could meet you for weeks, and finally she agreed,’ Daniel said. ‘You have a very protective mother!’
To look at, Daniel did not seem intimidating. He was a few years older than Mum, I guessed, with the face of a soccer coach or trusted schoolteacher. He had no moustache, which was comforting, but only slightly. He gave an impression of being . . . unpretentious. Nice. A . . . dad. The ones you saw on the telly.
‘I told him I don’t introduce just anyone to my girls, but as he is such an old friend–’
‘Enough of the old!’
They both laughed. It was so strange. Mum even looked different. Her eyes danced. She looked . . . beautiful. Her hair was in a ponytail and it looked thick and shiny and she was wearing a white-spotted purple sundress that swished about her ankles.
‘So . . . I was thinking maybe Daniel could accompany us to the playground this afternoon. What do you say girls? It’s completely up to you.’
Another bizarre thing. Mum never asked our permission. About anything.
As for the playground, I had a handful of memories of going to the playground when we were five or six, but it had been years since Mum had taken us. She said that perverts loitered in public parks and that we must never go there.
Fern and I were silent for so long that Mum laughed. ‘My girls like to think these things over. They don’t make rash decisions.’
‘You’ve taught them well,’ Daniel said.
‘It’s okay with me,’ Fern said eventually, and Daniel whooped and tried to give her a high five, but Fern just stared at his hand silently. I simply nodded, because what else was I supposed to do? I’m not sure if it was because Mum noticed my hesitation, or maybe because she didn’t notice it, but as I made my way to the car, she intercepted me and started swinging me around like she’d done to Fern a few minutes earlier. I may have even drawn some comfort from the interaction had I not noticed Mum glancing over my shoulder in Daniel’s direction as she swung me, making sure he was watching.
FERN
On Monday morning, I go to work as usual. After the weekend of high drama with Rose, I derive some comfort from the normalcy of it, thinking a typical day is exactly what I need. However, I am sorely let down when I arrive in the staffroom to find Carmel sitting at my desk.
‘It’s shadow day,’ she says brightly. ‘I’m going to follow you as you work today.’
I had completely forgotten about ‘shadow day’. And though I’m not opposed to it, per se, I fear it will present an issue when it comes to ducking off to the secret cupboard intermittently for a nap. Which is a shame, because I’m tired today.
‘You don’t have to perform for me, Fern,’ she says when I don’t say anything. ‘You should act as you would if I weren’t in the library at all. Imagine I’m out of the office and you are in charge,’ she says, with a little laugh.