Take a Chance (3 page)

“Jeremy!”

The same time she called, a car tooted. The combination of traffic and rain stopped him from hearing her. The wind blew the car door shut so Jem resigned herself to being wet and dodged pedestrians on the footpath to catch him.

“Jeremy!”

Fortunately this time her nephew stopped and looked around.

“Aunty Jem!” he exclaimed. “Where’s Mum?”

“I’ll explain when we get home.”

They walked quickly back to the car which stood out from the others because it was the only one with its hazard lights going.  Jem tried to open the front door and discovered it was locked. A small hand rubbed at the driver’s fogged up window and Jem saw Aidan standing on the bottom of the steering wheel and holding onto the top of it as he rocked it from side to side. Her keys were in the ignition.

“I don’t believe this,” she muttered under her breath. Louder, she said “Open up!”

“No!”

Aidan swung vigorously on the steering wheel and it locked. Now that it no longer moved he climbed off it and Jem saw him moving the rear vision mirror and turning on the interior lights.

She tapped on the window behind her seat and Daisy rubbed a clear space on the window under a smiley face she’d drawn with her finger.

“Can you please unlock the door?”

Fortunately Daisy was more cooperative. She released her door lock mechanism and Jem opened the back door and reached to unlock the driver’s door. By the time she closed the back door Daisy was nearly as wet as she was.

It took a few minutes to get Aidan into his car seat from the front and fix his “adjustments”. This was mostly because she’d never used her hazard lights and had to examine every button on the console to find the one to switch them off. There was also a minor struggle to move the steering wheel out of the locked position after she turned the key in the ignition.

It was with relief Jem pulled the car out and headed in the direction of her sister’s home. While
they were driving, the song on the radio ended and the news came on. She listened with half an ear while the children boisterously talked over each other. When the newsreader mentioned another fatality in an earlier accident that day involving a truck she quickly changed to another station.

Has
Jess died since I phoned the hospital?

Her
knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as she gripped it tighter. It was all she could do to get them all home without bursting into tears.

After unlocking the front door using her own key, the children sped in front of her leaving her to bring in their school bags
, her shoulder bag and suitcase. With water running down her neck and off her trench coat to pool on the tiled entry around her she absently wished she had thought to bring a towel from her apartment to wipe herself down.

“Go and get into dry clothes!” she yelled into the hallway
in the direction the children had disappeared as her chilled fingers undid the belt to her trench coat.

She hung
the coat up and heard three pairs of feet running up the stairs to the bedrooms so decided to phone the hospital while the children were out of hearing.

She was put through to ICU where she immediately asked about Jess. The nurse at the other end had just started her shift so she waited an eternity while the nurse looked for her sister’s file.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” the nurse told her a few minutes later when she came back to the phone. “She isn’t in ICU so I had to track her down.”

Jem felt suddenly faint and leaned against the wall before she fell.

“Shortly after coming out earlier the orthopaedic surgeon became available and she has gone back into surgery to have pins put in her broken legs and her arm taken care of. It is taking longer than expected but I have just checked with the theatre nurse. The operation is going well and they expect to have her in recovery soon.”

Jem closed her eyes for a moment and breathed out in relief.

“I heard a woman had died in that accident,” Jem murmured, wanting further confirmation that her sister was still alive.

“Yes.
She was a passenger in the other car,” the nurse replied without elaborating further.

“
When can I see my sister?” Jem asked.

“
Once she is in ICU you can come at any time but we limit the visitors to family members only and we prefer no more than two visitors at a time.”

After finishing the call
Jem realised she was shivering so she heeled off her half boots and left them near the door. She awkwardly carried the suitcase and schoolbags down the hall to the kitchen where she emptied out the lunch boxes and hung up the bags on their hooks as she had seen Jess do many times.

S
he glanced over the breakfast bar towards the family room then looked back again in shock. The room looked as though a vigorous earthquake had shaken it. Toys were strewn all over the place and from where she was standing she couldn’t see any visible carpet.

She was glad the heat pump
on the other side of the room had a remote control so she didn’t have to risk injury to turn it on. Still shivering, Jem picked up the console sitting on the breakfast bar and pressed the on button. A barely discernable sigh indicated the heat pump had started.

Leaving her shoulder bag on the breakfast bar,
Jem picked up her suitcase and kicked a path through the toys to the guest bedroom by the stairs. She set her suitcase on the bed and took a towel from the ensuite, blotted her face then unclipped her hair and rubbed it until it stopped dripping. Then she peeled off her damp clothes in favour of ugg boots, thick socks, jeans, a navy skivvy and matching jersey from her suitcase.

She went back into the family room and saw through the partially open pocket doors
a spread of toys in the lounge not much better than in the family room but at least with a navigable floor.

Aidan thumping down the stairs in his Buzz Lightyear costume caught her attention
.

“We need to get you changed,” she told him
, scooping him up.

“No,” said Aidan, more from habit than meaning it.

With Aidan resting on her hip, Jem climbed the stairs and used the remote clipped beside the hall light switch to turn on another heat pump to warm the upstairs rooms. The bedroom doors were all open and she was not surprised to see that all the children’s rooms were untidy.

In addition to the toys scattered on the floor
s Jess must’ve been in the process of changing the beds as they were all stripped with fresh pairs of folded sheets and pillowcases sitting at the end of them.

She turned her attention back to Aidan.

“Buzz Lightyear doesn’t wear a wet uniform because he doesn’t want to smell mildewy when he dries,” Jem told him as she entered his room and put him down to retrieve dry clothes from his drawers.

“What smell?” asked Aidan.

“A yucky smell,” Jem answered simply, screwing up her nose for effect as she dropped to her knees in front of him.

“Yucky,” Aidan agreed and started tugging his sleeves off his arms.

With his cooperation she got him changed quickly and the moment she let him go after his head was through his sweatshirt he disappeared out the door.

“You’re welcome,” she said towards the empty doorway.

As she stood up, Aidan raced back in, threw his arms in a hug around her legs and kissed her knees. Then he ran out of the room again.

With a small smile on her face s
he gathered the wet clothes from the bedrooms but found the clothes hamper missing from the upstairs bathroom.

Bemused
, Jem carried the clothes downstairs and added her wet work clothes to the pile in her arms. She headed to the laundry and on her way past the dining room noticed the ironing board set up with a large pile of items to be ironed sitting on the table nearby. She reached the laundry and was greeted by an overflowing hamper with the stripped sheets dumped beside it.

She thought of how much work she had left behind in her office
. There were things she still needed to do to impress Martha and possibly Nate to get the promotion yet here she was, stuck indefinitely looking after three children with enough housework to keep her fully occupied for a week and then it’d all need doing again.

Annoyed with her sister for leaving so much unfinished, Jem angrily stuffed the clothes she was carrying into the washing machine and finished filling it with clothes from the hamper. Once sufficiently full she added washing powder and started it.

From experience she knew that before she could continue working the children needed to be asleep in bed but before that could happen she needed to make up their beds, feed and bath them. Even if she could manage to do all that quickly their bedtime was hours away. Precious hours she needed to work.

Frustrated, s
he kicked the washing machine with her ugg boot which made an unsatisfying dull thud so she kicked it again and left a small dent. Not wanting to cause more damage just because she was mad, Jem lifted the washing machine lid and let it slam down. That sound was much better so she lifted the lid and crashed it down a few more times to release her pent up anger.

Lifting the lid again she spotted her work jacket swirling around in the soapy water as the washing machine filled. That and her skirt were dry clean only so she cursed and slid
her sleeves up as she dragged the jacket out and fished around for her skirt. She dumped them both in the laundry tub and cursed again.

Damn Jess. It
will be all her fault if my suit is ruined. And if she costs me that promotion I’ll kill her.

That thought suddenly reminded her of the reason why she was in Jess’s home, taking care of her children and doing
the washing. Jem was immediately swamped with guilt for thinking such a thing and worrying over trivialities like a possible promotion while her sister was in hospital fighting for her life.

She burst into tears and sank against the washing machine until she was sitting on the floor.

Please Jess, I didn’t mean it
.

She sobbed, the sound drowned out by water still filling the washing machine. Drawing her knees up to her chest she cried
for several minutes until she heard Daisy and Aidan fighting in the other room.

Get it together. You haven’t even told them yet.

Drawing in a few shaky breaths, Jem wiped her eyes with the back of her hands and patted down her pockets looking for a tissue to blow her nose. Not finding one she used the corner of a sheet on the floor beside her.

“Aunty Jem!” Daisy bellowed
from the other end of the house just as Aidan shrieked.

Jem managed to get halfway down the hallway before Daisy barrelled into her.

“Aidan’s got my fairy wand!” she complained and pulled on Jem’s hand, expecting her to sort the problem out to her satisfaction.

Jem knew Aidan would drop the wand if no one paid any attention to him with it so decided to tackle the reason she was there instead.

As they entered the family room she saw Aidan running around hitting things with Daisy’s wand. Jeremy appeared from the kitchen with his homework folder from his school bag.

“I need to tell you all something,” she said.
“How about you all come and sit with me on the couch.”

Curious, the children obligingly helped her clear toys from the couch and sat down. As soon as Jem sat in the spot between Jeremy and Daisy, Aidan climbed over and settled on her lap.

“What is it Aunty Jem?” Jeremy asked cheerfully.

Jem gently
explained that their mother had been in a car accident and was in hospital to get better so until she was Jem was staying to look after them.

As she expected, the news went over Aidan’s head and upset Jeremy and Daisy.

“Can we go see her?” Daisy asked, her brown eyes big and solemn.

“Not at the moment. She’s very unwell. In a few days when she’s feeling better we will go and see her.”

“She’s not going to die, is she?” Jeremy asked, alarmed.

Jem didn’t want to tell them she didn’t know nor did she want to upset them so she crossed her fingers and told them their mother would be fine.

“What if she’s in hospital for a very long time? Who’ll look after us then?” Jeremy demanded.

“I’ll be here to look after you all for as long as I’m needed,” Jem promised.
“Okay?”

“Okay,” Jeremy replied, subdued.

Aidan slid off her lap to play and Jem handed Daisy the wand he’d left behind.

Just as she was about to get up, Jeremy tugged on her sleeve.

“Aunty Jem, you have to listen to me read,” Jeremy told her.

“I’d love to hear you read,” Jem said and watched attentively as he pulled his reader out from his homework folder.

He opened the small book and Jem dutifully listened and tried to ignore the chaos in the room around her. Near the lounge doors Aidan and Daisy pulled more toys out from goodness knows where then started fighting over a fairy dress.