“I figure it was just painted at a different time of day.”
“Good point. I didn’t think of that.” Ephraim Trevainne seems too precise for that to be an accident, though. Still, I can’t think of another reason, and I sense Ben is ready to move on with the tour.
We explore most of the house, paths, passages, more boxes, push-panels, sliding woodwork, words and numbers written into the walls that you can only see of you walk down a hallway at a particular time of day—so many weird and intricate discoveries that it would take, even someone like me, weeks to wrap my head around.
By the time I crawl into bed for the night, warm ramen noodles in my stomach, I realise that Ben successfully distracted me from my loss and the loneliness I would have felt staring into space in the apartment all day. I’ll have to find a way to thank him—and with the spot-the-difference portraits still in my mind’s eye, I have an idea of how to do it.
Chapter Twenty-six
Four days whirl by in a hurricane of study and reading. I hedge my bets by selecting three modules instead of just the two I need to complete. My thinking is that if I struggle with one, the other two will be options for submission. My HU tutor is concerned that I’m pushing myself, but truly it’s no different from sitting the third year with everyone else. I request all the reading assignments upfront for the syllabi and a list of written assignments for the term. I download the lectures from previous years and live attend those that I can from the library office that Dax set up for me.
It all feels like things are back to normal but better, too. Never have I been able to throw myself wholeheartedly into my learning. My attention was always on the kids and work and the trouble waiting for me at home. Studying was the lowest rung on my daily ladder, the one I skipped when the climb was too hard.
Being present makes all the difference and forces me to reflect on just how hard I’ve struggled over the last three years just tostay ahead. It’s a miracle, or a blessing of my weird memory, that I managed to achieve all I did. Admittedly, I’m a little proud.
Something I didn’t expect is the way the law team takes me under its wing. Or the way they scan my lecture list for the day and take turns sitting in on live ones with me. They even discuss them afterward, making sure I’ve absorbed the pertinent points, and offer specimens of cases that I can research for a better example of the topics we have discussed. I don’t know if that is all of them, or if Dax asked for special treatment, but I appreciate it regardless.
Despite being alone in this, I’m not lonely.
“Hey, daydreamer.”
“Sandy!”
“Are you set for the two o’clock?”
I slide my laptop monitor to face us both and remove my headphones, turning up the volume to fill the room. I stand and shut the door so as not to disturb the other offices and then pull out a bag of gummies and two bottles of water from my desk drawer.
“Now I am.” We both laugh, and Sandy opens her bottle and takes a sip. “I didn’t think anyone was coming to this one?”
“Marty got called out and took Godfrey with him. Until he gets back, I’ve not got much to do.”
“Over-achiever,” I fake cough under my fist.
“Look who’s talking, MissI-remember-everything-I-see.”
“…and hear.”
“Well, screw you too, lucky girl.” She laughs, nudging my shoulder. “If only we were all so fortunate, eh?”
“I know I’m blessed,” I tease, taking a drink. Motion on the screen makes me sit a little straighter as the lecturer walks in. Slamming my hand over my mouth and saving my laptop from an impromptu shower, I stare at the man walking to the podium. Smiling bashfully up at the students and me is Martin Gallagher. Trevainne’s Senior Law Associate.
“Good morning,” he begins, introducing himself, but I’m toobusy staring at Sandy for answers.
“Surprise!” she sings, waving her hands in the air.
“Marty’s a lecturer too?”
“Guest speaker. He does this a couple of times a year for Patty. His wife is the head of the course. I thought you knew?” My brain is telling me small world, but that simply suggests that Dax really pulled strings with Marty to get me a HU seat. Why am I bothered by it? I wasn’t upset with him pulling strings via Dr Demetri.
“What? No! Wait, Patricia Gallagher?”
“Yes.”
“She’s my tutor!”
Sandy laughs, mischief in her eyes as she sympathises. “Well damn. Not sure if I should congratulate you or commiserate with you. Patty is a ball-buster. She’s crushed the brass balls on even the biggest‘do–you-know-who-my- daddy-is’nepo babies.”
Doesn’t sound like the woman I know. “She’s been lovely.”
