Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney Read Free Book Online Page A

out. When it rang again a few minutes later, she let it go unanswered then as well.
    I N HER SMALL COTTAGE on the northern edge of Clare, Bett put down the phone, cursing under her breath. Where could Carrie be? She had just one last-minute favor to ask her younger sister, something she’d never done. Right now, though, she had no choice. The friend she’d lined up a week ago to be her babysitter this afternoon had just rung, full of apologies, to say her elderly mother had twisted her ankle and needed to go to hospital. “Of course I understand,” Bett had said, also assuring her she’d easily find a replacement.
    Who, though? Carrie was the obvious choice. Not that Bett could tell her why she needed a babysitter. As she tried her sister’s number again, she decided to say she had a medical appointment. There was still no answer.
    “Damn,” she said, loud enough to get the attention of Yvette, wide-eyed and alert as ever, in her bouncer on the floor beside her. Next to her, in his chair, Zach was on the verge of sleep, his eyes fluttering. “Sorry, sweethearts,” she whispered. “Mummy’s not cross, I promise.”
    Tiptoeing out of the room with the phone, she dialed another number. Jane, her nearest neighbor. Bett could probably have shouted across the dry yellow paddock that separated their properties, the sound carried so well on hot days like today. As Jane answered, Bett sent up a prayer of thanks. Her neighbor was a stay-at-home mother too, but unlike Bett, she was rarely at home, filling her and her daughter’s days with a constant schedule of playgroups and outings around the Valley.
    “Of course I can mind the twins,” she said, even before Bett had finished asking. “See you soon.”
    It was all Bett could do not to throw her arms around Jane and kiss her when she arrived, smiling, her equally smiley three-year-old daughter, Lexie, beside her. Bett signed a hello and got a hello back, a quick movement of her little fingers. Lexie made another sign and Bett looked to Jane for a translation.
    “She wants to know how you are.”
    Bett gave her a thumbs up and got a thumbs up and big smile from Lexie in return.
    “Thanks so much, Jane,” Bett called from her bedroom a moment later, trying to zip up the one good summer dress she’d found on the rail. “The twins are due a sleep, but when—”
    Jane interrupted her. “When they wake up, would I look after them and perhaps feed them and change them if they need changing?” She laughed. “Bett, I know what babysitting means. Go. You look like you’ll burst a gasket if you don’t get out of here now.”
    Bett did kiss her that time. Five minutes later, having pulled a brush through her short, dark-brown curls, cursed her size-sixteen-figure, wished she had her sister’s petite blonde looks, found a lipstick that had something left in the tube—too red for this time of day, let alone for a sleep-deprived thirty-six-year-old, but beggars couldn’t be choosers—and changed her clothes after discovering a splodge of unidentified something on the left shoulder of her first dress, she was on her way into town, driving too fast.
    She made herself slow down. It was difficult. She’d got into the habit of doing everything too fast these days. Dressing, showering, sleeping—they all seemed to happen in record time. Conversely, things she did wish could be over in an instant—crying sessions, sleepless nights, with two unsettled babies—seemed never-ending. She couldn’t understand it. Time felt as if it had taken on a different shape in the seven months since the twins had arrived.
    She thought of Jane, so happy, so relaxed, taking in stride the fact that her daughter had been born deaf. She and her husband had just got on with it once the diagnosis was made, both of them learning how to sign, teaching Lexie as soon as she was old enough. Bett had never once heard Jane complain, or express anxiety about how life might be for Lexie. And here Bett was