What Mel was saying made sense, and Erin had heard it plenty of times before – from Laura and the rest of the family, and even from her own doctor. It seemed that everyone agreed it was unreasonable to expect a daughter or a son to give up ten or twenty years to care for a sick parent. And it seemed that everyone had some kind of threshold (‘I’d sacrifice one or two years, but not five’). But how could one apply a threshold without knowing the full picture? Without knowing at the outset what time period was involved? How long the illness might last? How bad it might get? Without that information, all one could do was make the decision day-by-day – and day-by-day it had been inconceivable to leave her father when he was terminally ill, and just as inconceivable to leave her mother when she began to show signs of memory loss straight after her husband’s death. In fact, leaving had been out of the question until Erin’s health and own mental state had become a problem.
‘Let’s not talk about it any more,’ she said with forced brightness. ‘Top up my glass and tell me everything I need to know about Sydney.’
Much later on, lying on Mel’s surprisingly comfortable sofa bed but not feeling the slightest bit sleepy, Erin put her guilt to one side and allowed herself to feel a sense of accomplishment. She was here. She had put the final few bits and pieces into her suitcase, weathered the emotional goodbyes to her mother and Laura, and got on the plane. She was here. She had made it. Step one: tick. Step two was to get a job; she was meeting the department head at Mel’s school tomorrow. Step three: find somewhere to live; using Mel’s tiny living room as digs was obviously not going to be feasible in the long term. And step four, she impulsively decided, was to have a relationship, any kind of relationship, even a dead-end one. It had been far too long.
She still felt scared, and each of the ‘steps’ she’d just decided on was more frightening than the last. But adrenaline was rushing through her veins, tingling her fingers and toes, and diluting her fear to the point where she hardly even knew that it was there. In fact, the adrenaline was so powerful that it was all she could do not to leap from the bed and rush outside to meet this new life head on.
It’s the dead of night, she told herself sternly. Settle down.
Easier said than done. An hour or so later, her throat dry and scratchy, she got up to get a glass of water. Drinking at the kitchen sink, she suddenly remembered that she hadn’t taken her vitamins since she’d left Ireland. Her sanity hinged on those vitamins; it was no wonder she couldn’t rest tonight. Turning on the lamp in the front room, she moved around the clothes in her suitcase until she located the small plastic container that held all the pills: gingko, Omega-3, Gotu Kola, vitamin C, vitamin E and the all-important vitamin B Complex. She swallowed each tablet with a gulp of water, and returned to bed feeling even more alert. Rummaging in her luggage once again, this time in her cabin bag, she located her book of Sudoku puzzles. On the plane she’d completed eight of the ten medium-difficulty puzzles in the book: long-haul flights were perfect for brain training. Tomorrow she would walk to the closest shops and buy herself a sim card for her phone and another Sudoku book.
She finished the remaining two puzzles, drowsiness creeping over her at last. Switching off the lamp, sinking deep under the soft, cotton duvet, she drifted away into a sound sleep.
* * * * *
Laura stood at the kitchen counter gripping her phone with one hand and her coffee mug with the other, trying to stay calm. Kasia was starting this morning – she would be knocking on the door any minute now – and Laura had planned to take the day off work. She’d wanted to settle Kasia in, show her where she would be sleeping and run through some basic house rules while taking the opportunity to observe how she interacted with Olivia. The only problem was that Johan, one of her staff, was on the line declaring that he was sick. Johan was never sick. He was tall and muscular and German, a perfectionist in everything, including health.
‘I am feeling very ill,’ he pronounced in a sad, little-boy voice.
‘But today’s the deadline for the documentation,’ she groaned, forgetting, in her distress, to show him any sympathy. ‘They’re shipping the product tomorrow. It’ll cost thousands if there’s a delay.’
‘I know, I know. I would go in, you know I would, but it is very possible that I would vomit all over the documentation.’
Though she loved Johan, he had a tendency to be too detailed on occasion, and now he’d managed to make her feel queasy too. What was she going to do? Johan was the only German translator on staff, and though they used a number of freelancers for overflow, would she be able to recruit one at such short notice?
‘It’s okay, Johan, I’m sure that I’ll be able to find someone to fill in,’ she said, trying to convince herself as she spoke. ‘But I’ll have to be able to reach you throughout …’
‘I must go,’ Johan yelped and dropped the phone before she could finish.
Oh, dear, he really was very ill. Damn, damn and damn! There was no way she could recruit a freelancer from home. She would have to go into the office. And assuming she actually managed to find someone, she’d have to stay to liaise between the freelancer and Johan at home to ensure that the job was completed to the appropriate standard. Damn it, damn it, damn it! Of all days. And she’d never seen Johan with as much as a sniffle.
The doorbell rang. Kasia. Laura put down her barely touched coffee and somehow mustered a welcoming smile as she walked through the hallway to the front door.
Kasia stood outside in the half-light of the morning, flanked by two large backpacks which apparently contained her belongings. She wore a cotton long-sleeved top, and tight faded jeans. Her feet were clad in cheap-looking ballet pumps. She had no socks or jacket, and though she wasn’t shivering she looked very cold.
‘Welcome, Kasia. Come in. Let me take one of those bags.’
As Laura closed the door behind Kasia, she noticed Olivia standing on the stairs, clutching her teddy in one hand and her baby blanket in the other, her cheeks flushed and warm, her eyes bleary but curious. Her daughter wasn’t shy. In a moment she would walk carefully down the stairs and engage her new nanny in very adult-like conversation. But for now, standing on the steps with her halo of tousled hair, Olivia seemed extraordinarily vulnerable.
How can I go into work and leave her with this stranger? What kind of mother am I? If only Esteban were here …
But Esteban was in Prague and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. He was never at home when things went wrong. Laura felt a spurt of anger. How bloody nice for him to be waking up in a comfortable hotel room and not being torn in two between his child and an emergency at work!
Why am I always the one who’s being compromised?
‘This is your room, Kasia. We’ll leave your bags here. Olivia is across the way, and we’re over there. You can use this bathroom …’
Back downstairs, she showed Kasia the layout of the kitchen, how to work the dishwasher and the location of Olivia’s colouring books and craft. She moved quickly, Kasia and Olivia trailing mutely behind her.
‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to leave you to get to know each other without me,’ she said a little breathlessly when she felt the basics had been attended to. ‘Something has come up in the office.’
Kasia and Olivia looked equally disapproving at her announcement.
‘I’ve written down everything you need to know, Kasia. It’s all in this manual.’
Laura indicated the display folder she’d set neatly on the kitchen counter last night in anticipation of this morning. She grinned rather ruefully, acknowledging that a manual was a poor substitute for her presence, but got no response from either of them.
The traffic on the way into the city was appalling. Her stomach clenched with each enforced stop, protesting