Second Chance by Sian James Read Free Book Online Page A

his feet.
    He patted my hair before he left and said I was a good girl. I wanted to bite his hand. Auntie Jane always said he was a mean bugger so he had no right to pretend to be nice. He put some money on the table. ‘Here’s what was left from your pension, Miriam. Jane says you need to keep that to pay the milk and Katie’s school dinners.’
    â€˜Thank you, Ted,’ my mother said meekly. But I could see it was much less than Auntie Jane left us.
    â€˜This isn’t enough,’ I said when he’d left.
    â€˜Jane lets us have some of her housekeeping,’ my mother said. ‘We’d never manage on my pension. And she buys all your clothes as well. She never lets you go short of anything, does she?’
    I’d always loved Auntie Jane but had never realised quite how much we owed her.
    Up until then, not wanting to be too much of a burden on the Lord Jesus, my prayers had been only for my mother’s recovery; from that evening, I added Auntie Jane, with a postscript that Uncle Ted should bring us our groceries until her complete recovery, but please, please, let it be soon.
    Uncle Ted, big, loud and handsome came the following week as well, but not until seven o’clock. He’d already been to see Auntie Jane in the hospital. He was annoyed that she was taking tea round to the other patients instead of resting.
    â€˜Jane is always kind,’ my mother said, tears in her eyes.
    â€˜Jane is always a fool,’ he retorted. ‘She must learn to put first things first. And the first things are her husband and the farm.’ He glared at my mother and me so that we realised what a burden we were.
    I unpacked the groceries, refusing to meet his eyes. But when I’d finished putting everything away, I was astonished to see that he was holding my mother’s hand and smiling at her. ‘You get off to bed,’ he told me, ‘I’ve brought along a pack of cards to teach your mother to play whist. It’ll do her good to have some company, won’t it?’ His voice was sickly sweet.
    After a while he followed me out to the back-kitchen where I was washing my face and hands before going to bed. ‘I’m going to try to persuade your mother to try for a little job I saw advertised in the Cambrian News last week. It’s the woman from that big house, red brick with a double garage, next to the surgery in Meadow Lane, who’s wanting part-time help. Not too far to walk. Suit your mother down to the ground. You talk to her about it tomorrow. Get her used to the idea. She’s looking very well these days. She’ll manage fine.’ His voice was ordinary again, loud and harsh, and I preferred it like that.
    â€˜I know she’s better,’ I said. ‘She brushes the floor now and washes the dishes, but I don’t think she’d like anyone telling her what to do. And what if the woman started shouting at her? She’d cry and come home. That’s what happened when she went down the shop last week and she was still crying when I came home from school.’
    â€˜You leave her to me,’ Uncle Ted said, smiling again.
    It was the last thing I wanted to do. I went to bed but couldn’t sleep until I heard his car driving away and my mother coming upstairs. What had he been saying to her? Why was she humming under her breath? I was disturbed without quite knowing why. I think you almost understand a whole lot of things when you’re a child; there’s one step missing, but you’re almost there.
    In the morning I asked her why he’d stayed so long. ‘He’s lonely without Jane, I suppose. He was always fond of me, always wanting to hold my hand when he could.’
    Was that all he did? Even now, I’m not sure. But he carried on bringing us our groceries and always stayed for an hour or two after I’d gone to bed, and though I wasn’t happy about it, had to admit that his visits, all his