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“Don’t worry.”
“Will you keep your phone on? They can call you if they have a problem.”
They’d call her for every little thing. “I can’t guarantee I’ll pick up. There’s a lot to do here and you know the signal is patchy.”
“Liza—” He sounded exasperated. “I can’t take calls at work right now. You couldn’t have chosen a worse time to do this.”
To do what? Take time for herself? “I don’t expect you to take calls.”
“I don’t understand. You worry about these kids every second of the day. You check they’ve cleaned their teeth, and taken vitamins. And now you’re refusing to be there in an emergency?”
“What I’m doing,” she said slowly, “is teaching them to problem solve and also take responsibility. Something I should have done a long time ago. If they turn to me for everything, they’ll never learn. Hope your meeting goes well.”
She ended the call and gazed across the fields to the sea, her mind battling between her needs and their needs.
With no to-do list and no people to make demands, the day stretched ahead, empty of everything except possibilities. Free time was so alien to her that she had no idea how she wanted to spend it.
Walk? Maybe she’d sit on the patio on her mother’s comfortable swing chair and read one of the books she’d been saving for her summer trip. Just because she couldn’t sip cocktails on the roof terrace of a swanky hotel in Chicago, didn’t mean she couldn’t spoil herself in other ways.
She picked up her book, made herself a coffee in the sunny kitchen and took it into the garden. The place felt strangely empty without her mother. Liza was used to seeing her bent over by the flower beds, weeding and deadheading.
Popeye wandered in front of her and she reached down to stroke him, but he whisked away from her, rejecting her attempts at affection before walking in the direction of the kitchen and his food bowl.
Was there anyone who wasn’t interested in only what she could do for them?
She fed the cat, then opened her book but found it difficult to concentrate.
She felt restless and on edge. Her instinct was to clean cupboards and dust shelves. Polish the sea spray from a few windows.
No.
She tightened her grip on her book.
She never did this. At home her reading was restricted to a few snatched pages before she fell asleep. Sitting in the sun with a book felt decadent and indulgent. It made her feel guilty. She needed to retrain herself to relax.
She struggled through a few pages and then stood up and pulled at her shirt which was already sticking to her skin. It was so hot.
The clothes she’d brought with her were scratchy and uncomfortable. She felt ready to teach a class, not sit in the sun.
Maybe there was at least something cooler in her bag, or something of her mother’s she could borrow. She went upstairs and rummaged through her mother’s dresses and was immediately transported back to childhood. Whenever Kathleen had vanished on another of her trips, Liza had sought sanctuary inside the racks of her mother’s clothes, allowing the scent to fill all the little gaps created by her absence. And here she was, doing it again even though she was past the age where she should be missing her mother.
She had her face buried in a vintage silk shirt when she heard the sound of footsteps in the kitchen.
She froze. Had she locked the back door when she’d come upstairs? Yes! She remembered turning the key. But despite that someone was in the house.
What was she going to do?
Hide? Here in the clothes? Under the bed? No, that would be the first place an intruder would look and then she’d be trapped.
She could jump out her mother’s bedroom window which faced over the fields, but then she’d probably break a leg.
Fear trapped the breath in her lungs. Her heart tried to hammer its way to freedom.
Could it be the same man who had broken in a few weeks ago? No. He’d been drunk and seeking shelter.
She stood up slowly. Her legs were shaking so badly she wasn’t sure she was capable of running anywhere even if the opportunity arose.
She heard the sound of a kitchen cupboard opening and closing.
