by G. Benson
Ice cream sprayed from Ella’s mouth as she all but shouted, “Nemo!”
“Ah, good choice.”
“Nurse Lane chose. Come sit next to me, Aunty Na.” Anna sat, settling back into the couch and taking a big bite of ice cream. “I get to sit next to both of you!” Ella was utterly delighted.
Turning her head to catch Lane’s eye, Anna bit her lip; Lane was smirking. “You’re lucky, hey. You going to press play?”
Oblivious to what she sat between, Ella grabbed the remote and hit play.
They almost made it to when Nemo was caught in the fishing net before Ella succumbed to sleep, curled into Lane’s side under a blanket. They let the movie play out, both more invested than they would admit. In the end, Anna lifted Ella up and carried her upstairs to bed, where she left her with her favourite panda tucked in under her arm. Anna closed the door partway and checked her watch. It was only nine thirty and she already felt like yawning.
When she walked into the living room, two glasses of wine sat on the coffee table. Lane leant back into the couch, a leg pulled up under her.
“That’s a sight for sore eyes.”
With a chuckle, Lane handed one of the glasses to Anna, who accepted it gratefully. The one with considerably less in it stayed in Lane’s hand.
Sitting on the couch, knee pressed to Lane’s, Anna held her glass aloft. “Cheers.”
They clinked their glasses together and both took a sip, then Lane rested her wine glass on her knee. “You’re awesome, with them, you know?”
Anna looked at her, slightly puzzled.
“They love you, a lot. You’re awesome with them. I just thought you should know that.”
“Thank you,” Anna said softly, willing herself to take the compliment without squirming or dismissing it.
The glass clinked as Lane set it on the table. “Want to know a secret?”
Anna put her own glass down, intrigued. “Always.”
“I own Finding Nemo. And a whole lot of other kids’ movies.” Delighted at the random revelation, Anna laughed as Lane kept speaking. “When you asked me that night to watch a DVD that wasn’t a kids’ movie, I had trouble finding some. Most of the ones I offered were Kym’s.”
“That’s hilarious. I never watched them until now. I mean, I used to watch the odd one with Ella when I visited. Now I can recite some of them.”
“I can sing almost every Disney song.”
With one hand on Lane’s knee, Anna tried to look serious. “Dear God, don’t do that here, or Ella will end up with a flaming crush on you, and everyone will blame the gay auntie’s influence.”
Lane looked insulted. “Uh, no, she would crush on me because I’m awesome. It has nothing to do with you.”
“This conversation is getting weird.”
Soft fingers played with Anna’s hand. Lane chuckled. “Yeah, it is.” She looked up at Anna under her lashes. “It’s getting kind of late, I suppose, especially for someone who has to get up to kids in the morning. And I have to start work at seven.”
“Yeah, it is getting a bit late.”
Lane grinned, moving towards Anna. “I should head off.”
With a nod, Anna gripped Lane’s shirt and pulled her in. “You really should.”
They collided, half giggling, half groaning into the kiss. Lane pressed forward, and Anna fell back against the couch. Lane’s hand brushed against her cheek, something gentle in the touch that made Anna’s stomach ache. The feel of Lane’s tongue, her lips, had Anna dizzy.
She trusted her. The realisation dawned as Lane’s hand slid softly from her cheek, fingers stroking at her neck. Anna had trusted Lane instinctively, and trust was not something she usually did lightly. She paused as a thought occurred to her: Lane wasn’t just a distraction. She wasn’t just a rebound. Something was there.
Anna kissed Lane hard, the upswelling of emotion in her chest making her seek more. Fingers trailed over her collarbone, the touch raising goose bumps. Anna’s leg wrapped around Lane’s, holding them closer together.
When Lane’s hand slid up and under her shirt, stroking the skin at her hip, Anna let out a groan. Pressed against her neck, Lane’s lips teased the skin, while keeping her hand against her breast. She felt Lane push at her shirt, felt a hand pull the cup of her bra aside in one smooth motion, and Anna bit her lip too hard when Lane’s hot breath washed over her nipple, tongue pressed against the sensitive skin. She wrapped a hand in Lane’s hair, holding her head in place. Teeth grazed her, and Anna was sure that Lane was someone she could lose herself in.
She felt Lane stop moving.
Anna couldn’t believe it.
The sound of a half-asleep toddler drifted down the stairs. Indistinct, not at the demanding point he had usually reached by the time Anna woke or got to him other nights, but starting.
A dry laugh escaped Lane’s lips and her forehead dropped against Anna’s shoulder. “This one’s your fault.”
“Yup. This one’s on me.”
When Lane lifted her head, Anna had to restrain herself from kissing her again at the sight of flushed skin and swollen lips.
Groaning, Lane dropped her head back down. “Don’t do that.”
Confused, Anna asked, “Do what?”
“Bite your lip like that, all fucking sexy. You do it at work sometimes when you look at me, and it’s hard enough to ignore it there, let alone like this.”
“Well, don’t look at me all drop dead gorgeous and frustrated.”
Lane lifted her head back up, smiling. “We’re kind of stuffed, you know. I just can’t think straight around you.”
“Obviously.”
Lane sat up, helping Anna tug her shirt down. The disgruntled noises upstairs were getting a touch more persistent. Anna sat up and kissed Lane, trying to keep it chaste.
“He can take a little while to settle.”
“I should go, like we said before.” Anna resisted the urge to pout as Lane continued, “If I stay, well. With the kids around, you’re a little hesitant and seem a little unsure of everything?” She hurried on, linking her hand with Anna’s, fingers entwining, “I may be wrong. But like I said, that’s okay. I know your life is complicated. I’m okay with that.”
“Even if we keep getting interrupted by babies?” How did Lane always know what to say? She always had an intuitive idea of where Anna’s head was at. Sometimes Anna barely knew that herself.
“We get interrupted by pagers, and mobiles, and stupid, clumsy friends. What’s a baby, in all that?”
As if to challenge that statement, Toby made a squawking noise, and they both grinned.
Lane stood and pulled Anna up next to her. Anna didn’t let go of her hand as she led the way to the door. They hovered in the open doorway, pressing kisses to each other’s lips. Just as Lane deepened one, Toby got a bit louder.
Anna winced. “Sorry.”
“Never be.” Lane took a step back. “Thanks for a fun Friday.”
A warm feeling spread throughout her chest as Anna watched Lane walk to her car.
She closed the door and walked up the stairs to Toby’s room. He sat in his cot, dishevelled hair sticking up on his head, giving her a disgruntled look.
“Little man, look at you.” She leant down and scooped him up, softening when he reached for her and buried his head into her neck. She sat in the old rocking chair, rubbing his back as he hiccupped quietly. “You know, you only do this once or twice a week now. So, nice timing, Tobes.” Anna kept her voice low, soothing him as he snuffled against her neck.
She waited for the resentment that, before, was always present underneath everything, but there was nothing there. All she felt was soft, the toddler in her arms and a warmth in her chest. “When you’re older and understand these implications,” Anna rubbed his back in circles, feeling him start to drift off, “I’m goin
g to get you back so badly. Sixteen-year-old you won’t know what hit you.”
She sat with him a long time after he fell asleep, his presence a comfort, the warm weight of him secure.
This felt normal.
And that made Anna miss her brother even more.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hell was the only word that came to mind for this day—from protocol changes that made their lives a nightmare to a patient dying on the table to feeling weirdly nauseated all day. Worse, Anna was running late and was stuck in her office.
She’d only gotten to see Lane for twenty minutes at lunch before being snowed under with paperwork. She’d gotten Toby as the doors were literally closing at day care, and now he sat in her office while she slugged through it all. She texted her mother to ask her to feed Ella, if she wouldn’t mind, and to say she’d be there as soon as she could. Her mother’s reply was the highlight of her day, a statement to the day’s overall awfulness, really.
Of course I’ll feel fella, take your wine.
Anna couldn’t even be amused by the obvious autocorrect error as Toby tried to crawl up her legs. The phone on her desk rang incessantly, and the paperwork pile in front of her swayed precariously.
Her cell phone beeped again.
Feed Ella! Take your time! What is wrong with this damn thing?
This time, Anna managed a small puff of air that would have to substitute as laughter. Toby made a whining noise, her phone started ringing again, and a ward clerk brought in another file and put it on her desk with an apologetic grimace. A deep breath did nothing to help. Toby was stamping his little feet and holding his arms up, looking three seconds from a tantrum.
“Okay, Tobes, you can sit on my lap, but you have to be still, okay?”
Grinning triumphantly as she swung him onto her lap, Toby immediately threw himself forward and grabbed at the paper she’d been signing, scrunching it up in his hands.
“Tobes, no. C’mon!”
Anna pulled his hand back and plopped him back on the ground, where he proceeded to blink at her in surprise and then start crying.
It was an incredibly long hour and a half. Worse, when Anna finally got to her mother’s, Ella was sulking, and Sandra handed her over with a smirk and a “Good luck.”
When they got home, she cheated and fed Toby Cheerios for dinner, which he refused to eat, instead crunching them in his hands while Ella sulked at the end of the table and threatened mutiny.
“I want ice cream.”
Anna tried to force a spoonful into Toby, who clamped his mouth shut and glared at her in a way only a toddler could. “Ella, you had ice cream at Grandma’s. It’s eight o’clock and past both your bed times.”
“Yeah, well, you picked me up late.”
She gave up and dumped the spoon next to the bowl, which Toby proceeded to push away with both hands. He arched his back, trying to force his way out of the high chair. Little fingers pulled at the straps, and he managed to look like he was locked in a torture device.
“Go hungry then, Toby, that’s fine.” She looked to Ella. “I know I was late. I was held up at work, Ella. That doesn’t mean you get extra ice cream.”
“Whatever.” Ella stood up, tears in her eyes and her face red, and turned to walk out.
“Ella Bella, what’s up?” she called after the girl’s retreating back.
“Nothing!” She didn’t even turn around.
Anna sat blinking after her. She looked back to Toby, who was staring at her with wide eyes, hands trying to prise open the safety belt over his lap.
“Something’s definitely up.”
No sooner had she said it than vomit landed all over the tray of the high chair and Anna’s lap. The pungent smell burned her nostrils, and Anna had to choke back her own gag reflex. She hated vomit. Eyes closed, she counted down from ten.
Toby’s crying started at eight.
Anna let herself get to zero before she pulled patience from a place she didn’t know she had, trying to swallow back tears of frustration.
“Okay, Tobes. Let’s clean you up.” She looked down at herself. “And me.”
Upstairs, Anna threw on a pair of clean track pants and got Toby into the tub.
He sat in the warm water, miserable, staring at her with huge, watery eyes as she cleaned him up and wiped his flushed cheeks. There was only one more throwing-up incident, which thankfully went over the edge of the tub and not into the water. With a sigh, Anna used an old towel to clean it and threw it in the corner of the bathroom, figuring she could wash it tomorrow.
Not wanting to keep Toby in the bath for too long, she pulled him out and wrapped him in the warmest, fluffiest towel she could find.
Now that she thought about it, he had been a little warm when she’d picked him up from day care, but she’d been too distracted at the time to pay it much mind. Guilt stabbed at her stomach. She bundled him into a clean nappy and a grow suit, then sat in the chair in his room and patted his back as he made unhappy little grunting noises. His bright red cheeks were warm against her skin, and diamond tears glistened on his eyelashes. Anna brushed his hair off his forehead, feeling how warm his skin was. She gnawed her lip as she rocked him gently: he was hot, but not incredibly so. Tummy flu was her guess. She took his temperature, which was hovering around 37.9, and managed to get him to drink a bottle of water. She’d check it again later and, if it was higher, hunt for the baby paracetamol that was somewhere in the bathroom.
Only through using the pacifier he hadn’t asked for in a week did he eventually go down, albeit fitfully. She didn’t think it would be very long before he woke again.
The empathy and exhaustion mixed in a strange fashion as Anna looked down at him. She just wanted to go to bed, pull the covers over her head. If naked Lane was next to her, that would be even better.
None of that was going to happen right now. Her life, their relationship, this night—everything kind of felt impossible.
A headache clawed behind her eyes. Anna didn’t want to feel irritated at either of the kids, Toby sick and not able to help it, Ella unhappy about something and acting out the only way she could.
Anna didn’t want to feel that at them, but she did. She’d had a long day herself. She wanted to be looked after, to be handed a glass of wine and dragged to bed, not to have to do it the other way around. Come to think of it, whenever she had been sick, Hayley had usually disappeared.
Anna walked through to her room, grabbed her phone, and read a text from Lane. For the first time in half a day, a small smile played on her lips.
Missed you today, hope your day got better since I saw you. x
Anna sighed and tapped a quick reply.
Definitely not better. Have been yelled at by the Ella Monster and thrown up on by a toddler. Twice. All is not well in the Foster house. Literally.
She hit send and went to find Ella, who had firmly shut her door when Anna had carried Toby upstairs. She knocked. “Ella Bella?”
There was no reply, so Anna pushed the door open, and felt her stomach clench when she saw that the room was empty.
Where had Ella gone?
Her eyes flicked wildly around, taking in the fluttering curtains, the mess—there was no sign of her. Anna dug her nails into her palms as anxiety pulsed through her body, adrenaline acting quick enough to set her heart racing and dry her mouth. She heard the toilet flush and almost felt lightheaded at the relief that rushed through her.
Anna paused at the bathroom door, hearing the sound of horrible retching. She screwed her eyes shut for a second and genuinely wondered if she was cut out for all of this.
Taking another deep breath, she pushed the door open. Ella hunched over the toilet, tiny palms gripping the rim as she heaved. The position looked ridiculous on one so small.
“Oh, Ella,” she murmured, then walked forward and pulled E
lla’s auburn curls up behind her neck, feeling the clamminess of her skin as her fingers brushed it. She tucked the hair into the back of the little girl’s nightgown, then ran a cool washcloth over Ella’s neck as she threw up again.
“Aunty Na,” Ella whimpered.
“I know, chicken.”
Ella turned her head slightly, tears on her flushed cheeks, lower lip quivering. “I threw up.” Her croaky voice was utterly miserable.
Giving Ella a sad smile, Anna rubbed her back soothingly. “I know, Ella Bella.”
Nothing came up as Ella gagged again.
“Aunty Na?” Ella whispered, not looking up from the toilet bowl.
“Yeah?”
“I want Mummy and Daddy.”
The crack in her voice broke Anna’s heart. She pulled the little girl into her arms and Ella wrapped herself into her, flushed face pressed into her neck as Anna rubbed up and down her back. Her shoulders shuddered while she sobbed.
“I f-feel yucky and Mummy w-would always make it better.”
Anna slowly fell back against the wall, pulling Ella with her so the little girl lay against her chest. Like she would with Toby, Anna wrapped Ella against her and discovered she was not too big for it at all.
They sat there until Ella’s sobs slowed. Anna rested her chin on top of Ella’s head and rocked her back and forth gently, humming one of the only songs she remembered her mother singing to her as a child.
Heat radiated from Ella and her hand gripped Anna’s shirt over her heart. When she finally spoke again, it was a whisper. “That’s what Daddy used to sing to me when I was sick.”
Anna paused mid-rock, the hum dying in her throat.
“Don’t stop.” Ella pressed her damp face into Anna’s shirt.
Anna started the tune again softly, not ceasing her rocking. Her eyes welled up, and her own cheek was damp where it pressed against Ella’s hair.
