The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern Read Free Book Online Page B

horrible that I can’t even write it, there was a light knock on the door and it was quickly opened by Rosaleen.
    ‘ There you both are,’ she said, as though she’d been searching high and low for us.
    I quickly moved my mouth away from Mum’s ear and sat back down on the bed. Rosaleen stared at me as though she could read my mind. Then her face softened and she entered the room with a silver breakfast tray in her hand, wearing a new tea dress that exposed her flesh-coloured slip down by her knees.
    ‘Now, Jennifer, I hope you had a lovely rest last night.’
    ‘Yes, lovely.’ Mum looked at her and smiled, and I felt so angry at her for fooling everybody else when she wasn’t fooling me.
    ‘That’s great so. I’ve made you some breakfast, just a few little bites to keep you going…’ Rosaleen continued nattering like that as she moved around the room, pulling furniture, dragging chairs, plumping pillows, while I watched her.
    A few bites, she’d said. A few bites for a few hundred people. The tray was loaded with food. Slices of fruit, cereal, a plate piled with toast, two boiled eggs, a little bowl of what looked like honey, another bowl of strawberry jam and another of marmalade. Also on the tray was a teapot, a jug of milk, a bowl of sugar, all sorts of cutlery and napkins. For somebody who normally just had a breakfast bar and an espresso in the morning, and only because she felt she had to, Mum had a task on her hands.
    ‘Lovely,’ Mum said, addressing the tray before her on a little wooden table and not looking at Rosaleen at all. ‘Thank you.’
    I wondered then if Mum knew that what had been placed in front of her was to be eaten by her, and wasn’t just a work of art.
    ‘You’re very welcome. Now is there anything else you want at all?’
    ‘Her house back, the love of her life back…’ I said, sarcastically. I didn’t aim the joke at Rosaleen, her being the butt of that particular comment wasn’t the intention at all. I was just letting off steam, generally. But I think Rosaleen took it personally. She looked shaken and—oh I don’t know—if she was hurt, embarrassed or angry. She looked at Mum to make sure she wouldn’t be broken by my words.
    ‘Don’t worry, she can’t hear me,’ I said, bored and examining the split ends of my dark brown hair. I pretended Iwasn’t bothered but really my comments were causing my heart to beat wildly in my chest.
    ‘Of course she can hear you, child,’ Rosaleen half-scolded me while continuing to move about the room fixing things, wiping things, adjusting things.
    ‘You think?’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘What do you think, Mum? Will we be okay here?’
    Mum looked up at me and smiled. ‘Of course we’ll be okay.’
    I joined in on her second sentence, imitating Mum’s hauntingly chirpy voice, so that we spoke in perfect unison, which I think chilled Rosaleen. It definitely chilled me as we said, ‘It will all be okay.’
    Rosaleen stopped dusting to watch me.
    ‘That’s right, Mum. It will all be okay.’ My voice trembled. I decided to go a step further. ‘And look at the elephant in the bedroom, isn’t that nice?’
    Mum stared at the tree in the garden, the same small smile on her pink lips, ‘Yes. That’s nice.’
    ‘I thought you’d think so.’ I swallowed hard, trying not to cry as I looked to Rosaleen. I was supposed to feel satisfaction, but I didn’t, I just felt more lost. Up to that point it was all in my head that Mum wasn’t right. Now I’d proven it and I didn’t like it.
    Perhaps now Mum would be sent to a therapist or a counsellor and get herself fixed so that we could start moving on with our chemical trail.
    ‘Your breakfast is on the table,’ Rosaleen simply said, turned her back on me, and left the room.
    And that is how the Goodwin problems were always fixed. Fix them on the surface but don’t go to the root, always ignoring the elephant in the room. I think that morning was when I realised I’d grown up