Shay shook his head.
“Do you want your mum to carry you into Shay’s room?” Rose had wrapped herself around me. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do; I’d only learned of her existence about an hour ago, and known her mother just over a week. What was the protocol around carrying your colleague’s child to be triaged at accident and emergency?
Her response was to tighten her hold on me and bury her head into my chest. I looked at Georgia for guidance. What did I do? Say no? Did Georgia want to be the one carrying her? Was I overstepping?
She gave me a nod, but her expression was different. She smiled, and there was no tightness about it, but there was something I couldn’t read.
“Let’s go then.”
We followed Shay, Rose clinging on like a baby sloth, my colleague and work partner by my side.
“At some point, would you tell me why I didn’t know about your daughter?” I kept the words low, not wanting Shay to hear.
“Yes.”
It was one word but I believed her. We went into the room, me sitting down with Rose.
“Do you want me to wait outside?” I asked Georgia, while Shay logged into the computer that looked like it had been around in the last century.
She shook her head. “I’m not good at remembering everything accurately when, you know, it’s things like this.”
“Okay.” I got it. She was anxious. When I was anxious, I second guessed what I remembered being said and questioned it.
I could listen for her.
“Thank you.” Her words were quiet again. “I owe you for this.”
“Buy me a drink one evening this week when Rose is better.” I didn’t want the drink. I wanted to reassure her that Rose would be better, and I wanted more time with her.
“Okay.” Her smile was soft, more relaxed. “Are you okay with her there?”
I nodded, my cousin ready to start to check her over.
“Well, Miss Rose, are you ready?”
Twenty minutes later,Shay had given Georgia the all-clear. A bump on the head with a possible very mild concussion for which she just needed Calpol and rest, plus a couple of stitches to take of the small but nasty cut. I carried her out, Georgia walking next to me, her relief palpable.
“Are you sure you don’t mind taking us home?”
I clicked the doors open. “Get yourselves in the car, Georgie. What’s your address?”
She gave it to me, and for the second time that day, the air was sucked from my lungs as it came home to roost that Georgia was the new employee that Ava had rented the house to.
Ava,my younger sister, managed the couple of properties I’d bought – under her advice – as investments. She sorted fixing them up and then did the interiors. One of the two was a house, bought from Ava herself, already renovated. I’d lived there very briefly, finding myself drowning in a space that was too big for someone on their own and it had craved a family living there.
That house, the one that Ava had found a tenant for – a single mother, so she’d told me – was where I was parking outside now. A house I was familiar with.
A house Georgia called home.
“Do you want me to wait with you a bit while she settles?” I turned around to look at them both in the back seat, Rose fast asleep on her mother. Shay had said sleep was fine, but I’d noticed Georgia being hyper aware of her as I drove.
“You must have tons to do, Seph. Honestly, we’ll be fine.”
“Then can I grab a coffee before I head off?” I wasn’t actually bothered about a drink, but I didn’t want to leave her yet.
There was a smile. “Sure. Can you carry her in for me? She’s such a weight now.”
“She’s tiny for four.”
