Clem picked the damp unicorn towels off the bathroom floor. ‘More a difference in expectations. Selina saw some article on Fox News about minimum wage increases, but she’s on above-award wages already, so it doesn’t impact her.’
Tell Fiona it’s the tip of the iceberg.
Tell her that Sebastian, who’s worth his weight in gold, is on the verge of quitting because of Selina’s attitude.Meanwhile, Selina was breaking plates and moping around like a wet week half the time.
Why aren’t I managing this better? Cooking cakes and making coffee are more my skillset than HR.
‘Kids! Never straightforward, right? I really appreciate you taking her on, Clem. She’s had some tough times these last twelve months, mood swings galore. But she’s turned a corner. She’s got a boyfriend, her skin’s finally cleared up, and she might do a good job of hiding it, but she looks up to you, always has.’
She’s doing a brilliant job of hiding it.
Clem peered into the lounge room, where Harriet was readingPossum Magicto Indi. Watching them together in their matching cotton nighties, Clem found herself hoping that a future boss would be patient with them too when they were going through a prickly teenage stage.
I’ll put better systems in place. Firm boundaries and guidelines. Maybe a three strikes warning system, and more time in the coffee van instead of the cafe.
‘How’s your mum?’ Clem asked. Jean was a safer topic than Selina, and the last time Clem had seen her aunt, she’d been laid up in bed for a week.
‘She can’t seem to shake this virus. Still sick as a dog, but she says to pass on her love. She’s grateful you’ve taken Selina under your wing too, no one wants to see her going off the deep end.’
Fiona’s parting words echoed in Clem’s mind as she put Indi and Harriet to bed that night.
Going off the deep end …
Clem didn’t want that on her conscience either, not when mental health issues were already an alarming trend in their family.
By the time the girls were in bed, Clem felt almost ready to tackle Harriet’s family tree project. Harriet hadn’t breathed a word about it since the incident when the project was initially assigned, resulting in a playground biffo. In the flurry of school holidays, then the Grampians camp and the little love bubble with Spencer, Clem had happily forgotten all about the project too. She reread the email from Lyndall, wondering how many other parents needed encouragement to help their children complete the task.
‘Darn it,’ Clem murmured. Either Lyndall had used the BCC function to hide the other email recipients, or Harriet was the only one who hadn’t handed it in yet.
You can’t let the past dictate the future.
She sat down with a glass of wine, pencil and notepad, and debated calling in back-up. Arthur would be tucked up in bed already, Aunty Jean was crook, and Fiona had been heading straight to bed when she’d hung up earlier. There was Jack,of course, but she was getting sick of running to him with every problem.
Jack knew Adam’s parents, but would he remember her ex-husband’s grandparents’ names, or the maiden name of their maternal great grandmother? Unlikely, she thought, sighing. Resigned, she grabbed her phone and messaged Adam for his family’s details.
She scrolled down the message trail, curious to see how long it had been between texts with her mum. Almost eleven months, as it turned out. Early last December, Renee had texted an austere reminder that God was the reason for the season. Just like the letter she’d received a few weeks earlier, Clem hadn’t replied to either.
She looked at Harriet’s family tree in front of her—if it were a real tree, it would be withered with canker, wormwood and snapped branches.
There was good in this world, strong families that supported one another, raised their children right and made an effort to be part of their lives. She thought of Kathy West, doing a playground cabbage drop-off to ease her daughter’s mastitis, Agatha Angelino changing nappies, and Ian and Louisa’s devotion to their late daughter’s husband.
And what did she have? A father who’d taken his own life and a mum who had chosen her faith over her family.
Clem tapped out a message to her mother, rephrased the request several times and then deleted it. It would be easier to rely on her memory than reach out to her mum. Who was going to fact-check Harriet’s family tree anyway? It wouldn’t matter if she spelt Jerry with a J instead of a G, or if Harriet’s paternal grandmother’s name Neeny was in fact short for Marlene, not Raelene.
A matter-of-fact reply came in from Adam and she pencilled the details in as best she could, and slipped it into Harriet’sschoolbag. Then she prepped the girls lunch boxes, adding two small love notes alongside their mandarins, Vegemite sandwiches, and parmesan and herb biscuits.
She jumped when the phone buzzed again beside her a few moments later.
Unlike the messages she had drafted and deleted, the ones from this number had been making her smile since school camp. Spencer’s thoughtful texts while he was checking the bees were trumped only by the phone calls they’d been enjoying in the evenings, when her girls were in bed and he’d thought of a movie she’d like, or wanted to know if she’d read a certain book—conversations that were only intended to be quick questions but somehow spun out to the wee hours of the night. He told her about his mum and the health scare that had prompted his parents to sell everything and spend their twilight years as grey nomads.
But tonight’s message sent a nervous ache to the base of her belly. It was a reminder, sparsely worded, as if he too was dreading it, about the next episode that was about to air.
Spencer warily turned on the television that night. The teasers for tonight’s episode showed him and Emily in a clinch, and it had felt uncomfortable, but important to tip Clem off about it.
‘South Aussie apiarist Spencer is still on the hunt for his queen bee,’ said the voiceover artist. After recapping the last few episodes, they moved to a clip of Spencer talking to camera.
‘Everyone’s looking for that special someone and I never thought I’d find love on a show like this—’
