Janice Johnson - The Perfect Mum

The six-year-old nodded, her expression relaxing. “She yells at Auntie Kath.”

“Uh-huh. Well—” Helen glanced up wryly at Kathleen “—this is her way of yelling at the nurses. Right now, she can’t stamp her foot or race to her bedroom and slam the door, can she?”

“No-o.”

“So she took out the needle and said, ‘You can’t make me!’”

Creases formed on Ginny’s high, arching forehead. “Only, they can. Can’t they, Mommy?”

“Yep. They’re going to help her get better by making her eat. This is the first step.”

“Oh,” the child said solemnly.

Helen rose. “Kathleen, why don’t you make your calls from home? You can come back later. Emma will be fine. It might be just as well to give her time to get over her tantrum.”

Yes. Home sounded good.

Kathleen nodded and let her friends lead her to the nurse’s station where she explained, then to the business office where she gave all the information on insurance, and finally to Jo’s car.

“See you at home,” Helen said, and started across the parking lot with her hand on Ginny’s shoulder. Poor Ginny, Kathleen saw, still wore the baggy T-shirt she slept in along with a pair of jeans and sneakers with no socks and the laces dragging. Her unbrushed hair was lank and tangled.

Jo looked better, not because she’d spent more time on grooming, but because her thick, glossy hair seemed destined to fall into place. She wore little makeup at any time, and her sweater and jeans were pretty much what she threw on every day.

Even through her dullness, which she thought must be nature’s form of anesthesia, Kathleen remembered uneasily what she had looked like in the mirror. Yes, going home was a good idea.

As Jo drove out of the parking lot, Kathleen said, “Thank you.”

Jo shot her a startled, even annoyed glance. “You mean, for coming? For Pete’s sake, Kathleen! What did you think we’d all do? Head off to school and work as if nothing had happened?”

“Well, no, but…”

“Then let it rest.”

Exhaustion and worry weighing her down, Kathleen gazed unseeing at the passing streets. She wanted to go home and crawl into bed and pretend none of this had happened, that it was Sunday and she could sleep as late as she wanted.

Instead, she should shower and make herself presentable, then start a formidable list of calls. Work, to explain why she wasn’t coming. Someone else would have to cover the front desk at the chiropractor’s office. The insurance company, Emma’s doctor, the therapist, the treatment program…

Her mind skipped. Please, God, let there be room.

Ian. She should at least let him know, although chances were she wouldn’t actually have to talk to him. She’d leave a message on his voice mail or with his secretary. He probably wouldn’t even call back. Never mind phone his daughter and express concern.

After all, Emma could eat if she wanted. She was just being stubborn. Melodramatic. Ridiculous. Taking her to doctors and therapists was playing her game, pampering her.

He could not, would not, admit that his daughter had a real problem and was thus flawed in any way. After all, he’d had the perfect life, the perfect wife, hadn’t he? Kathleen thought bitterly. Why shouldn’t he have the perfect daughter, too?

She’d like to believe it was because he wasn’t perfect. In his rage and intolerance, Ian had made it easy for her to believe he was at fault: his demands, his expectations, his irritation with the tiniest mistake or flaw in appearance or failure in school or on the tennis court or at a dinner party.

What was becoming slowly, painfully apparent was that her expectations, her smugness, had hurt Emma as much if not more. Jo had once tried to convince Kathleen that Emma felt free to lash out at her mother not because she was angrier at her than she was at her father, but because she felt safer with her, knew Kathleen loved her. Kathleen hoped it was true.

But she couldn’t absolve herself. If she were warm, supportive and accepting, why hadn’t Emma been able to shrug off her father’s unreasonable criticism? Why hadn’t she recovered, after Kathleen left Ian and she’d no longer had to face his sharp, impatient assessment daily?

Would she be lying in the hospital, so perilously close to death, if her mother hadn’t failed her, too?

Kathleen didn’t say another word on the short drive home. Jo parked right in the driveway instead of on the street, as she usually did, so Kathleen was able to trudge up the concrete steps, stumble on the tree root that had lifted part of the walkway, and make it onto the front porch before she realized she didn’t have keys and would have to wait for Jo.

Fortunately, her roommate was right behind her to wordlessly unlock and let her in. Once inside, Kathleen glanced at the clock.

“Don’t you have an eleven o’clock class? You could still make it if you hurry.”

Jo shook her head. “No big deal.”

“Go,” Kathleen ordered. “I’m fine. Really. I’ll take a shower, make my calls, and go back to the hospital. Anyway, Helen must be right behind us. She’ll be here any time.”

Jo hesitated, then said, “Okay.”

She bounded upstairs, returning almost immediately with her bright red book bag. “You know my cell phone number. Call if you want me. I’ll leave it on even in class. Promise?”

Kathleen produced a weak smile. “Promise.”

The moment Jo shut the front door behind her, Kathleen sank onto the bottom step. She would shower; she had things to do. In a minute. Maybe in a few minutes. Right now, she needed to sit, be alone and regroup.

Pirate, the seven-month-old kitten they had rescued and adopted the previous fall, poked his fluffy Creamsicle orange-and-white head around the corner from the living room. His right eye, which had been hanging from the socket when Jo and the girls found him, didn’t gaze in quite the same direction as the other eye, so the veterinarian wasn’t certain how much he saw out of it. They didn’t care. The fact that he had two eyes was a victory.

Kathleen discovered suddenly that she didn’t want to be completely alone. A warm, fluffy, purring cat on her lap would make her feel better.

“Kitty, kitty,” she murmured, and patted her thigh.

Pirate took a step toward her.

The doorbell rang. Scared by the morning’s events, the kitten bolted again.

Helen must have forgotten her keys, too, Kathleen thought, heaving herself to her feet. But, wait— She’d come from work. She’d been driving. Walking away in the hospital parking lot, she had had her keys in her hand. Kathleen remembered seeing the silly hot-pink smiley face attached to a key ring that Ginny had given her mother for her birthday dangling between Helen’s fingers.

Mind working sluggishly, Kathleen was already in the act of opening the door before she had reached this point in her recollections, or she probably wouldn’t have answered the doorbell at all. She didn’t want to see anybody, even her brother, Ryan.

But the man standing on her doorstep wasn’t Ryan. In fact, he was a total stranger. One who…wasn’t scary exactly, but could be.

At a little over six feet, he wasn’t unusually tall, but he was broad. Big shouldered, stocky, with strong legs and powerful arms and neck. His hair was dark and shaggy, his eyes some unnameable color but watchful, and his face was blunt-featured, even crude, but somehow pleasing, the only reason Kathleen didn’t slam the door in a panic.

He was the kind of man she couldn’t picture in a well-cut suit, the antithesis of her handsome, successful ex-husband. This man had to work with his hands. Like her brother’s, they were nicked, callused and bandaged, the fingers thick and blunt-tipped. In one hand, he held a gray metal contractor’s clipboard.