“He is nice,” she said slowly. She remembered his hand on hers, the intensity in his voice when he’d encouraged her to do something. “He’s very nice,” she said, and turned from the room.
It was strange to have the house so quiet, even peaceful. The kitchen was actually clean, and someone had switched the dishwasher on. Rachel stood in the center of the room for a moment, savoring the stillness, Andrew’s words running through her head, and then turned and went upstairs to bed.
On Monday morning she sat in Mr. Greaves’s office and listened to him drone on about cognitive function and rehabilitation options and best-case scenarios. She felt tense and edgy; she hadn’t slept well to begin with, and then Nathan had woken up crying at five in the morning. Rachel had stumbled out of bed when he hadn’t stopped after several minutes to find Meghan lying with a pillow clutched over her head and Nathan sniffling next to her.
“Meghan. Seriously. Can’t you get him to stop?”
“No, I bloody well can’t. Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Meghan yanked the pillow off her head and glared at Rachel with bloodshot eyes. For the first time Rachel noticed how awful her sister looked. Admittedly, no one looked their best at the crack of dawn with a toddler screaming next to them, but Meghan looked... on the edge. She’d lost weight, so her body was stringy rather than svelte, her hair in a greasy clump, her face pale and streaked with last night’s makeup. But beyond all that there wassomething desperate and reckless about her that made Rachel lean forward and scoop Nathan up into her arms.
“Come on, sweetheart. You can sleep with me.”
Meghan rolled over and Rachel went to her bedroom, tucking Nathan up next to her. She thought of Andrew telling her how maybe she didn’t need to do everything. Right then it felt like she bloody well did.
Now she tried to focus on the consultant’s spiel, but all she really wanted were bottom lines. “So we’ll have help. Day nurses...”
“Yes, you’ll certainly be entitled to at least a few hours of home nursing each week, but you’ll need to think about who will have the burden of care.”
The burden of care. It was an awful phrase. And a few hours each week didn’t sound like much help at all. “But there are forty hours in a working week,” Rachel said. Not to mention mornings and evenings and weekends.
Mr. Greaves’s expression tightened. “The National Health Service is very stretched financially. We will do all that we can, of course.”
Of course. Fifteen minutes later Rachel sat next to her mother’s bed and tried to listen as the nurse went through Janice’s daily physical exercises. In the two weeks since the stroke, Janice hadn’t progressed much, if at all. Her face and body were still mostly paralyzed, although she could twitch her muscles occasionally. Speech was garbled and limited, and cognitive function was, as one nurse had put it, “not operating at full capacity.” Which made her mother sound like a machine that had more than a few rusty bits.
“Hey, Mum, you’re doing so well.” Smiling, Rachel took Janice’s limp hand in hers. She forced herself to meet her mother’s gaze; the frustration and fear in her mother’s faded blue eyes both chilled her and made her want to cry.
She, of all Janice’s children, could remember when her mother had been busy and hassled, banging saucepans on the stove and clipping kids on the ear. She’d been too stressed and frantic to be one of those nurturing, hands-on mothers, but Rachel had never doubted that Janice had loved her children and she’d worked hard to provide for them financially. Now she lay in bed, a terrible desperation in her eyes, and Rachel only wanted to back away. And she thought she was trapped.
After half an hour of murmuring encouragements while the nurse rotated Janice’s limbs, Rachel finally cried off. She had Emily Hart and her terrible twins waiting for her.
When she arrived at the Harts’, Emily was standing at the sink, staring out the window while Riley and Rogan sat on the floor and banged pot lids together. Rachel covered her ears for a moment as the clanging reverberated through the kitchen, and when Emily didn’t so much as move, she swooped down and took the makeshift cymbals out of the boys’ chubby toddler hands.
“That’s enough of that, I think.” She glanced at Emily, who was still staring into space. “Tea?”
“Pardon?” Emily turned around, blinking as if she’d been asleep. “Oh, yes, that would be lovely.”
Rachel hustled the boys into the sitting room and turned on the TV. They sat down in front of Thomas the Tank Engine, immediately docile, their faces slackening as their gazes became glued to the flat-screen in front of them. Thank God for the CBeebies channel.
Back in the kitchen Emily was drifting around like she didn’t know what to do with herself, and Rachel filled the kettle, steeling herself for another moan about the purposelessness of life for the middle-class British housewife.
“So,” she said as the kettle started to hiss. “Should I ask how you are?”
Emily let out a wobbly laugh and sank into a kitchen chair, dropping her chin into her hands. “Probably not.”
“That bad, eh?” Rachel reached for the tea bags that Emily kept in a ceramic jar shaped like a rooster. “Oh, dear.”
“Well.” Emily released a shuddering breath. “I’m pregnant.”
“Oh.” Rachel handed Emily a mug and sat down across from her. “This isn’t a congratulations type of situation, I’m guessing?”
“Not really.” Emily took a sip of tea, her face pale, her eyes downcast. “I wasn’t... We weren’t trying. Obviously.”
“And?” Rachel asked cautiously. “What are your... ? What are your thoughts?”
“My thoughts?” Emily looked up, her forehead wrinkling. “My thoughts are I really am not looking forward to being pregnant again.Bowkingfor twelve weeks and then turning into a bloody beached whale... not to mention the varicose veins, the hemorrhoids...”
Rachel held up a hand. “Really, I get the picture.”
“Sorry.” Emily made a face and then took a sip of tea. “It’s just that Riley and Rogan aren’t even two, and I feel like I can barely manage them. And to do it all over again, and then have toddlers and a newborn...”
