Cathy Glass - The Silent Cry - Part 2 of 3 - There is little Kim can do as her mother's mental health spirals out of control

I didn’t knock at number 53 on the way home. There was no reason to, and to do so would have crossed the line between good neighbourliness and intrusiveness. But of course I speculated on what exactly was going on.

Laura didn’t come for coffee, and I wasn’t surprised. Something told me that if she wasn’t up to taking Kim to school then she wouldn’t be coming to me. Maybe she’d gone to Fran’s instead, but I doubted it.

Laura wasn’t in the playground that afternoon either, and it was only after the children had come out of the building that I realized with a stab of horror that Geraldine wasn’t there either. Kim was waiting with her teacher as they were told to do if a parent or carer didn’t arrive to collect them. Grabbing Paula’s hand, and with Adrian in tow, I shot over to them.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said to her teacher. ‘I’m taking Kim home.’

‘No problem,’ she said, and Kim came with me.

But there was a problem. I knew then that I needed to clarify the arrangement I had with Geraldine for collecting Kim. I would ask her to telephone me when she wanted me to collect her. If you do something every day it becomes part of your routine, or if you’re asked to do something specifically it’s at the forefront of your mind. But this loose, ad hoc arrangement where I was expected to collect Kim if Geraldine (or Laura) wasn’t in the playground could easily lead to me forgetting Kim, as I’d just shown. Fortunately no harm had been done on this occasion.

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