Life as I Know It

by Melanie Rose

  “Both boys are to go to the same place then?”

  “As far as I know. You were having a meeting with the head at the nursery sometime next week, I believe.”

  “Did… do I… have a diary?”

  “It’ll be in your desk, sweetheart.”

  Narrowing my eyes, I watched him suspiciously. He wasn’t “sweethearting” me for nothing.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Lauren! I’m proud of you, that’s all. It was very entertaining having you put Dora in her place earlier. It made me remember the spunky girl I married.”

  “Apparently the vicar is coming to see me this afternoon. I hope she sees things the same way.”

  Grant was saved from having to respond by Karen’s call for help getting dinner ready, and for the next ten minutes we were absorbed in straining vegetables, setting the dining room table, and rounding up the children for the meal.

  “You know,” Grant said, looking down the long mahogany table to where I was sitting with Teddy on one side of me and Nicole on the other, “it’s so nice to sit down together as a family. We missed you last weekend while you were in hospital, didn’t we, children?”

  They nodded dutifully as I wiped some of Teddy’s food from his chin and then smiled around at them all. I felt so at home with this family, it was as if this was where I truly belonged.

  Except that I was missing Dan, and Frankie, and I didn’t love the man who was smiling benevolently at us all as if we were his prize possessions. I caught Karen’s eye and she must have guessed what I was thinking because she gave me a sad little smile. This was her sister’s family, after all, and I was an imposter.

  It took almost as long to clear up after the meal as it had for Karen to prepare it. I made her sit down with a cup of tea and put her feet up while I scraped plates and loaded the dishwasher. Grant took the roasting pan into the utility room and I was pleased to note that it seemed to be his task to scrub it clean.

  Because of the time change it seemed to start growing dark remarkably early. Karen had just finished helping me to sort out the girls’ uniforms and their knapsacks for the morning, and I was thinking of drawing the curtains, when there was a knock at the front door.

  “That’ll be the Reverend Louise Penny,” Karen said with a smirk.

  “Oh no! I’d forgotten about her.”

  “Lauren!” Grant yelled from his office. “The vicar’s here.”

  I could see that no one else was going to answer the door, so I left Karen checking on the children and went through to the hall, clicked on the light, and paused for a moment to collect my breath before opening it.

  “Good afternoon, Reverend,” I said formally, taking in the vicar’s smart blue skirt and blouse with the white clerical collar just visible beneath her coat. I stepped back to let her enter. “Would you like to come through to the sitting room?”

  “Thank you, Lauren,” she said, following me through the hall. “And please, call me Louise, we’re friends, remember?”

  I nodded vaguely and indicated a chair, taking her coat and laying it across the arm of the sofa. When she was seated, I sat in a chair opposite her, my hands clasped in my lap.

  “About this morning…” I began.

  She held up a hand. “Don’t worry about this morning. I’ve known for a long time your feelings about the twins. Dora had no right to start in on you in the first place, and I’m sorry your feelings of frustration and helplessness came out like that.”

  “I shouldn’t have lost my temper so easily.”

  “With everything you’ve got to worry about right now, I’m hardly surprised.”

  I stared at her. She was a round-faced woman with short dark hair, no makeup, and plain features, yet there was a kindness in her expression that made it all too easy to talk to her. What things had Lauren been worrying about that she had confided to this woman? I wondered.

  She leaned forward and patted my knee. “Have you come to a decision yet? Do you want to talk it through again?”

  “Er… which decision are we talking about?”

  “Come on, Lauren. We’ve been going over this for the last two months. I know this morning Grant said you’ve lost your memory, but it’s not true, is it? You are obviously under a lot of strain. But are you going to leave Grant and the children, or have you been thinking about what I said?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not leaving.”

  The beaming smile that lit up her face made me want to smile in return.

  “I’m so glad, Lauren, so very glad. You have made the right choice, I assure you.” She looked worried suddenly. “And the young man? You’re letting him go?”

  “I don’t plan to see him again.”

  “Splendid. You are being so brave. Last time we spoke I felt sure you had decided on the other path, and I have prayed for you, Grant, and the children three times every day. I wanted the family to stay together so much.”

  Karen poked her head around the sitting room door. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “That would be lovely,” Louise said, the smile back in place on her face.

  I nodded too and Karen tactfully withdrew.

  “I hoped that as you were being so sensible about not being unfaithful with the young man that you might come to this decision, but I hardly dared believe it. I’m so, so happy for you, Lauren.”

  “I’m staying for the sake of the children,” I whispered, afraid that Grant might be eavesdropping. “Is that the right thing, do you think?”

  “Keeping the family together is the right thing,” she said, nodding. “Leaving would have been the easy way out. You would have been giving in to your passions as far as the young man was concerned and neglecting your responsibilities as a mother. Many mothers want to run away sometimes, I’m sure—especially if they have the added burden of a brain-damaged child to care for. Your decision is the tough one, the one that requires true grit and strength of character, but it is the one God has guided you toward. He will not abandon you.”

  I wished I could tell her how hard and how ingeniously God—whoever He, She, or It was—had apparently worked to answer her three-times-a-day prayer sessions to keep the family together. Perhaps, I thought, this woman’s prayers were super-powered or something, but they seemed to have been answered, and if that were the case it was probably her fault I was here.

  But Lauren wasn’t here, and I was suddenly reminded of something that Dr. Chin had told me when I had been in the hospital after my lightning strike as Jessica. He’d said that the Chinese had once believed lightning to be unlucky, that it was thought to be a sign of God’s disapproval. For Lauren it had certainly been unlucky, I thought with a shiver, because it had killed her and robbed her of her future, wherever she had decided that might lie.

  Karen arrived with a tray bearing tea and cookies. I asked her if she’d care to join us, but she said she ought to go and make sandwiches for the children’s tea. I glanced at my watch and realized the day was rapidly disappearing.

  Louise must have noticed my time check because she drank her tea down quickly and rose to her feet.

  “Don’t worry about this morning,” she said as she pulled on her coat. “Many of my parishioners have wanted to tell Dora to mind her own business for a long time. No one will hold your outburst against you.”

  I followed her to the door and let her out into the dark front garden, watching as she walked along the driveway and climbed into her car.

  The streetlights were coming on all along the road, and underneath one, parked a short distance from the house, was a motorbike, the dark figure of its helmeted rider turned in my direction. As the vicar’s car trundled off down the road, I looked to see if the motorcyclist was still there. The figure remained motionless.

  I felt the fine hair stand up on the back of my neck. I knew he was watching me, and I also knew with chilling certainty that underneath those black leathers and that dark anonymous helmet there was a young man with a shock of blond hair.

&n
bsp; chapter fourteen

  On Sunday morning I awoke at nine, stretched, and lay listening to the silence of the flat. Frankie was lying at the foot of my bed, peering at me reproachfully through one half-open eye.

  “Come on then,” I told her, sliding out of bed and slipping my dressing gown over my pajamas. “Out you go for a run.”

  After showering and dressing in black jeans and a white T-shirt with a chunky patterned sweater on top, I ate a quick breakfast of toast and marmalade, gave Frankie her meal, then took her for a brisk walk in the icy morning air.

  Dan arrived at ten-fifteen, just as I was screwing the lid onto a vacuum flask of steaming coffee. He looked gorgeous in a pair of blue jeans, nubuck boots, and a tan open-necked sweater. The moment I saw him I knew we weren’t going anywhere, not for a while anyway, and he must have seen the desire in my eyes because he grinned and pulled me toward him, fastening his mouth onto mine. The feel of his firm, warm body pressing against me had my senses pounding, and I kissed him with an intensity that took my breath away.

  In the end we didn’t leave the flat until after eleven o’clock, and I began to panic that we’d waste what was left of the day.

  “Where first?” Dan asked as the car pulled out with Frankie sitting safely behind the barrier in the cargo area.

  “Anywhere you like,” I said, settling myself comfortably in the passenger seat. I was still glowing from having made love, and I really didn’t care where we went as long as I was with him.

  “There’s a lovely place for walking in woods, with a lake, just down the A3,” he suggested. “We could spend a couple of hours there, then stop in at a country pub for some lunch when we’re hungry.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I agreed, luxuriating in the sense of freedom our spontaneity invoked. Much as I liked the children, I was finding the constant routine of feeding, entertaining them, washing, and cleaning up both tiring and tedious. The fact that Dan and I had an unplanned day of leisure before us was like a salve to my battered senses.

  It wasn’t long before we were turning into a small parking lot and climbing out to stretch our legs. Frankie pranced around our ankles, getting in the way as we gathered up the thermos and car rug, then we headed off hand in hand down a leafy woodland path.

  Dan’s hand was warm and comforting in mine, and I kept stealing sideways glances at him as we walked, unable to keep my eyes off him. His profile was rugged and masculine and his body hard and toned. I knew he worked out at the gym a couple of times a week, and it showed. I shivered involuntarily with the sheer pleasure of being in his company.

  A picture of Grant sprang into my mind, and I sighed. Grant was tall and lean and not the least bit like Dan, but there was a vulnerability about him that invoked my compassion. He was clearly devoted to Lauren, and although I found him overpossessive and a bit unpredictable, he had shown another, lighter side of his character after the incident at the church, which I had liked much better. I suppose it was understandable that he was confused, angry, and feeling insecure. I wondered what would happen if I stayed too long as Lauren. Could I keep him at arm’s length indefinitely? Did I really want to? I feared it was bound to become increasingly difficult.

  “What are you thinking?” Dan said suddenly.

  I jumped guiltily as he stopped walking and turned to scrutinize me closely.

  “I’m sorry, I was miles away,” I stammered.

  “There’s no one else, is there, Jessica?” he asked uncertainly. “It’s just that you seem to disappear every now and then. Where do you go?”

  I wished I could tell him. Instead, I slid the thermos to the ground, wound my arms around his neck, and pulled his face down to mine. We kissed long and passionately until my lips were tingling and my heart was pounding in my chest.

  “There’s no one else,” I told him when at last we surfaced for air. “There has never been anyone else like you.”

  He ran his hands up under my sweater and the touch of him on my bare skin sent more shivers exploding down my spine. We clung together, both reluctant to break the intense physical contact, but after a while we made our way to a fallen log, threw the rug over it, and sat side by side, our thighs and shoulders touching, our heads bent closely together.

  I poured steaming coffee into a thermos cup and we shared it, sipping slowly while Frankie came and rested her head on my knee, looking inquiringly up at me.

  “Yes, I love you, too,” I told her fondly.

  Dan stiffened at my side, and I realized what I had said. I glanced sideways at him and knew he was staring at me.

  “I suppose we’d better see about some lunch,” I said quickly, throwing the remains of the coffee into the leaves behind me. I screwed the cup onto the flask and stood up. “Ready?”

  I watched as he slowly picked up the rug, shook it, and put it under his arm.

  “Jessica?”

  I looked expectantly at him. “Yes?”

  He seemed suddenly tongue-tied, but then he smiled and held out his hand. “Come along then; we’d better get going before the pub stops serving.”

  That afternoon we went back to Dan’s place for a late Sunday roast. It turned out that Dan had prepared everything before he’d left that morning, and Pat had put the oven on at the appointed hour so that by the time we walked through the door we were greeted by the tantalizing smell of roasting meat. Fortunately we’d only had a bowl of soup in the pub, so after putting some vegetables on to steam we sat down to a hearty meal with the old man.

  “I couldn’t leave him alone for the whole day,” Dan whispered to me when we stood washing up in the kitchen after the meal. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not,” I assured him, thinking that it wasn’t that far removed from having children after all. “It was quite the right thing to do.”

  Later, he drove me home and we kissed again. I closed my eyes and wished I could kiss him all night and all day without stopping, but the evening was wearing on and I knew I had to leave him.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow evening,” Dan said as I climbed out of his car in the space outside my flat.

  “Okay,” I replied, calling Frankie back from where she’d raced off into the darkness as soon as I’d opened the car door. “Thanks for a wonderful day.”

  As soon as he had gone, I fumbled the key into my front-door lock and raced through the dark sitting room to the kitchen, where I shook dog biscuits into Frankie’s bowl. While she was eating I checked the time, gasped, then hurried into the bedroom, where I threw myself still fully clothed onto the bed. Closing my eyes, I willed myself to sleep, and almost immediately I was gone.

  I awoke to find that Karen had roused the children, gotten them dressed, and given them breakfast. Glancing at the kitchen clock as I hurried into the kitchen, I found it was after half past eight.

  “I’m glad you’re up,” Karen said. “I thought I was going to have to take them to school and nursery myself.”

  “You’ve been wonderful,” I said, giving her a kiss on her rounded cheek. “Has Grant left for work?”

  “An hour ago. He said he’d be home for dinner at six o’clock.”

  The girls, looking sweet in their green and red uniforms, were packing their school bags with cartons of apple juice and potato chips for break time, and I did the same for the boys, then hurried them all toward the garage.

  “Who do I drop off first?”

  “The girls. They have to be there in the next ten minutes. Registration is at ten to nine. Do you remember where to go?”

  “Yes, Grant showed me.”

  “See you later.”

  “I’m going to be late back,” I called out of the car window as I drove out of the garage. “I checked the diary and I’m having the meeting with the boys’ headmistress this morning.”

  “Good luck!”

  Once at the girls’ school, Sophie and Nicole seemed to find it quite amusing that I didn’t know where I normally dropped them off.

  “You go into the
playground and park over there, then you walk us to the door,” Sophie explained. “And you come here again to collect us at four o’clock.”

  I hooked their bags over their shoulders, kissed them both good-bye at the door, and watched as they mingled with the other green-and-red-clad girls, before returning to the car to find Toby and Teddy fighting over a picture book that Lauren kept in the car for them.

  “I’ve got to learn my letters,” Toby was saying importantly to his brother. “Mummy said I should know my alphabet.”

  “I want look at pictures!” Teddy was yelling.

  They were pulling at the book so hard I could see it ripping down the binding.

  “Boys!” I admonished, taking the book from both of them. “You’ll break it and then neither of you will be able to have it.”

  I started the car and nosed it out of the school driveway into the winding road, checking my rearview mirror as I joined the main flow of traffic. A couple of cars behind me I could see a motorbike, and I felt my heart miss a beat. My eyes flicked up to the mirror again. It was the same bike that had been parked outside the Richardsons’ house last night, I was sure of it.

  When I came to the boys’ nursery school I parked along the roadside and opened the curb-side doors to let the boys climb out. The motorbike had passed as I’d parked, but I saw it draw up to the side of the road a little way ahead. The helmeted head swiveled in my direction and I forced myself to look pointedly away as I shepherded the twins into school.

  Once inside the old school building my attention was taken by the pressing needs of the moment: where to hang the boys’ coats, which classroom to take them into, and where to put their break-time drinks. Everything was painted in bold colors: There were alphabet friezes running around the walls, gaily colored stacks of toy bins, bright rugs on the cracked linoleum flooring, and rows and rows of pegs, each with an identifying picture beside it.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Richardson,” said a smiling teacher, taking Toby’s hand and guiding him toward a door on the right of the main room. “Toby, you are in here with Mrs. Wells, as usual.”