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She knelt down beside him, felt for a pulse, checked his breathing and then put her hands on his chest and started compressions.
One, two, three—Damn you, David…damn you, David…
She counted as she pumped and then pinched his nose and breathed air into his mouth, trying not to think about those lips kissing another woman.
The first thing she was going to do when she got back home was change the sheets.
The sound of sirens grew louder. She willed them to hurry. She didn’t want him to die. That would be the easy way out for him, and Grace didn’t want to give him the easy way out.
She wanted answers.
Audrey
Thousands of miles away in London, Audrey was in the middle of studying for a chemistry exam when her bedroom door burst open.
“Which dress? Green or pink?” There was a note of wild panic in her mother’s voice. “The green shows more of my cleavage.”
Audrey didn’t turn her head from the screen. Why didn’t her mother ever knock? “I’m working.” And every word was a struggle. Whoever had put her brain together had done a crap job.
There were days when she totally hated her life and this was one of them.
“It’s Valentine’s Day. You should be out on a date. At your age I was already a party animal.”
Audrey knew just how much of a party animal her mother was. “My exams start in May.”
“You mean July.”
“I’m done by the middle of June.” Why did it bother her that her mother didn’t know that? She should be used to it by now. “These exams are a big deal.”
Audrey felt sick about them. She was terrible at exams. It didn’t help that the teachers kept saying that the results would affect their whole future. If that was really the case then her life was already over.
Everyone else in her class had parents nagging them.
Are you doing enough work?
Should you be going out on a school night?
No, you don’t need fizzy drinks and pizza.
Audrey longed for someone to show her that much care and attention. Any care and attention. She longed for her mother to stroke her hair, bring her a cup of tea and say a few encouraging words, but her mother did none of those things and she’d given up hoping for it.
She’d been six years old when she’d realized her mother was different from other mothers.
While her friends’ parents hovered outside the school gate, Audrey stood alone, waiting for a mother who frequently didn’t show up.
She hated being different, so she began making her own way home. The school had strict rules about only releasing a child into the care of a known adult, but Audrey found a way around that. If she smiled and waved a hand in the vague direction of a group of mothers, they’d assume hers was among them. She’d slip through the crowd and once she was out of sight she’d make her way home. It wasn’t far and she’d memorized the route. Turn at the red post box. Turn again at the big tree.
Day after day Audrey let herself into the empty house, unzipped her schoolbag and struggled with her homework. Every time she pulled her book out of her bag, she had a sick feeling in her stomach. Her handwriting looked as if a demented spider had hurled itself across the paper and she could never quite organize her thoughts in a way that made sense written down. Teachers despaired. She’d despaired. She tried hard, achieved nothing, stopped trying. What was the point?
When she’d tried telling her mother she found reading difficult, the suggestion had been that she watch TV instead.
Finally, after years of handing in messy work and missing deadlines, a teacher who was new to the school had insisted Audrey was tested.
Those tests showed her to be severely dyslexic. In a way the diagnosis was a relief. It meant she wasn’t stupid. On the other hand, she still felt stupid and now she also had a label.
They gave her extra time in exams, but everything was still a struggle. She needed help, but when her mother came home from work she usually fell asleep on the sofa.
For years Audrey had believed her mother was just more tired than other mothers. As she’d grown older and more observant she’d noticed that other people’s parents didn’t drink a bottle of wine or two every evening. Sometimes her mother was late arriving home, and then Audrey would know she’d started her drinking early. She had no idea how her mother managed to hold down her job as an office manager, but was thankful that she did.
