Life as I Know It (12 page)

“Yes please,” she said dreamily. “I love her so much.”

“What about you, Nicole?” I asked.

Nicole was holding a small multicolored guinea pig with a reddish-brown forelock sticking out just above its eyes.

“Can I have this, instead of a rabbit?” she asked.

“Of course you can,” I smiled. “Have you thought of a name?”

“Ginny,” she said, smiling to herself. “Like Ginny Weasley in Harry Potter. She’ll be my Ginny pig.”

I laughed at the joke. Nicole might be quiet, but she had a quirky sense of humor. I realized that there was a possibility I could grow to like these children. The thought was sobering. So far my first day with them had been a heady mixture of new discoveries about the family unit and how it ticked. I’d seen my part of it as a bit of an adventure, rather like I imagined a visiting auntie might feel. Although I believed their mother was dead and I had resigned myself to playing her part, at least for the time being, that was all it had been to me, a role, like I was an actress committed to performing a part in a new play. The Richardsons had meant no more to me than a dreamlike fantasy family, the result of a fluke of time and the elements.

Now, as I watched Sophie stroking her rabbit and Nicole snuggling the guinea pig under her chin, I felt a twinge of some unidentified emotion. After only a few hours in their company I felt a responsibility to them that I hadn’t expected to feel, certainly not so quickly anyway.

“Don’t forget we can’t take the animals with us today,” I
cautioned. “It’s getting late and we have to find a good safe place for the hutch, fill it with sawdust and hay, and put the food and water in. Tomorrow, as soon as… er… I’m awake, we’ll get it all sorted out and come back for the animals.”

“I want to take mine now,” Sophie said, giving me a measured glance.

Shaking my head, I told her firmly no. We would fetch the animals tomorrow.

“You’ll change your mind tomorrow and you won’t let us have them!” she cried. “You said we couldn’t ever have pets. I knew it!”

I watched in dismay as she snatched up the rabbit and flounced off to the other end of the shop.

After a few seconds, I followed her and found her staring fixedly at some bird feeders, the rabbit nestled in her arms.

“Sophie?”

She didn’t answer at first, so I stooped down to her level and spoke gently but firmly.

“This rabbit is very lucky,” I told her. “She’s going to belong to a sensible girl who knows that she wouldn’t be happy sitting in a box all night. She wouldn’t, would she, Sophie?”

Sophie shrugged her shoulders and I plowed on. “We’re going to come back for her, I promise. But it is going to take time to prepare her new home properly.”

Sophie stuck out her bottom lip and dragged the toe of one of her pretty pink and white shoes across the floor, and for a moment I thought she was going to argue further.

But then she nodded and handed the creature back to the pet shop man, who was hovering nearby, waiting to carry the hutch out to the car.

Nicole meekly handed her guinea pig over, too, then came and slipped her hand into mine as we walked to the exit. It was a strange feeling having her small warm hand in mine, and I squeezed it reassuringly, though whether the reassurance was for her or for myself, I wasn’t sure.

We had just closed the rear door of the car on the large hutch, a run, a bag of sawdust, hay, and rabbit food, when Grant appeared with the twins. He was lugging a huge bag of silver sand on his shoulder.

I opened the door again quickly and he threw the heavy sack into the back, eyeing the pet equipment as he did so.

“Good grief, Lauren,” he said, straightening up and wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. “Have you bought the whole shop?”

“Actually, it’s not exactly bought yet,” I grinned. “I said you’d be in to pay for everything in a minute. He’s waiting to close up.”

Grant turned and went grumbling into the shop, while Toby jumped up and down with excitement. “Daddy says we can come back tomorrow and pick up the sandbox,” he cried. “It’s green and plastic and it’s really big. I’ll have to work very hard with my digger tomorrow to make the hole big enough!”

“That’s splendid, Toby,” I said, opening a back door so he and Teddy could squeeze themselves into their seats among the bags of hay. “This is going to be an exciting half-term break, isn’t it?”

Helping Teddy with his safety belt, I glanced into his troubled eyes and gave him a reassuring smile. “You’ll love having the sandbox, Teddy. It’s going to be yours, too.”

He was staring at the animal paraphernalia all around him,
his hands squeezing rhythmically at the ball that seemed to go everywhere with him.

“Mummy’ll be cross wiv you,” he said quietly. “When she comes home and sees all this mess. She’ll make you take it all away again.”

It felt strange
waking as Jessica on Tuesday morning. As I fed Frankie and gulped down a cup of weak tea, I realized I missed the children.

We’d had a great time in the pizza parlor the previous evening, despite the gnawing ache across my injured back and shoulder. Even Grant seemed to have been caught up in the children’s excitement as the girls told him about the pets they’d chosen, and Toby rattled on about how his digger was going to make roads and bridges in the sandbox. Only Teddy had sat quietly, slouching and staring into space with strings of melted cheese dangling between his chin and his plate, until Grant had wiped his mouth with his napkin and told him to sit up properly.

I felt bad about Teddy, I realized, as I walked around the block with Frankie and waited while she did her morning business. He knew I was an impostor, and I was pretending otherwise, making him feel he was in the wrong. But what was I supposed to do? If I told anyone the truth, they would have me
committed; and if I told Teddy he was right, I risked him telling someone else, and then they’d think he was crazy, too.

By the time I’d been back to the flat to drop off Frankie and had walked to the office it was nearly eleven o’clock.

Clara was busy typing when I slid quietly into my chair and began opening Stephen’s mail.

“You’re okay,” she called across the room. “He’s already left for court. Heavy night last night, was it?”

I laughed. “You’d never believe me if I told you, Clara.”

As it happened, I’d claimed tiredness and gone up to bed shortly after tucking the children in. And I hadn’t needed to fake it. Bedtime for four children had turned out to be an exhausting military operation. The twins had needed help bathing and drying themselves and brushing their teeth, then Grant had told me Teddy still wet the bed at night and needed to be put into a nappy. The girls had wanted bedtime stories and Nicole had begged me to brush her hair for her. I was happy to do it all, but Lauren’s burns had really started to hurt under the dressings, and the challenges of the day had finally caught up with me.

When Grant had offered to come up and share my “early night” I’d told him firmly that I was truly exhausted, and he’d looked crestfallen. I reminded him rather shortly that he was still a stranger to me unless my memories returned, which it didn’t look like they were going to, and suggested I should sleep in another room. He’d shaken his head adamantly at the idea and promised he’d stay on his side of the big bed.

Too tired to argue, I had flopped into Lauren’s bed at nine-thirty, wearing one of her silky nighties, and had fallen asleep the minute my head touched the pillow.

Getting up at nine-thirty wouldn’t do, I told myself, as Clara thrust a cup of coffee under my nose. I’d lose my job if I came to
work as late as this on a regular basis. Now that I knew my fantastic theory about occupying both bodies alternately seemed to be actually true, I realized that somehow I was going to have to work out the timings better.

It was just that I wasn’t sure how on earth I was going to manage it. Lauren couldn’t go to bed before nine every night, and next week it was going to be worse because she was going to have to be up by seven to get the children to school without ruining my—Jessica’s—social life. How could I possibly be in bed by seven o’clock every evening?

“This has to be one special kind of guy,” Clara commented. “You were miles away, Jess. Are you going to tell me all about him?”

An image of Dan popped into my head. She was right, he seemed like a really nice guy. I liked him. Throwing down the mail, I groaned and put my head in my hands. I knew that there was something more than friendship brewing between us, but what was the point in pursuing it when my whole life had just been turned upside down?

“Girl,” Clara said, her fingers pausing on the keyboard as she studied me across the room. “You and I are going to have a serious chat at lunchtime. This I want to hear.”

By lunchtime I had caught up with the typing of various notes I had taken for Stephen the day before, and leaned back in my chair, flexing my shoulders after a morning spent bent at the computer. Clara pushed back her chair and reached for her coat.

“I know you’re about to scurry off to walk that dog of yours,” she said as she handed me my jacket. “So I thought I’d walk with you.”

I was about to protest, when I realized I was being selfish. I had wanted the time I walked back and forth to the flat to think
about what was happening to me, but Clara was a good friend and I didn’t want to upset her.

We grabbed the sandwiches we’d bought earlier from the girl who did the rounds of the local offices with her sandwich basket, and headed out of the office just as Stephen strode up the steps unbuttoning his overcoat. “Going out, ladies?” he commented. “I hope you won’t be too long. I’ve got some injunction statements I need to dictate.”

“We’ll be back within the hour, Mr. Armitage,” Clara replied sweetly.

Stephen scowled and I thought he was going to protest, but he seemed to change his mind and he opened the front door and disappeared inside, leaving Clara flashing me sympathetic glances.

“He’s never really gotten over you moving out after you found out about the barrister lady he was wining and dining, has he?” She looked at me sideways from under long, dark lashes.

“I think he thought I’d forgive him and go crawling back after spending a few months on my own,” I agreed, quickening my pace. “Come on, Clara. We’ve got to walk all the way back to my place and still have time to eat.”

“Is the barrister still on the scene?” she asked as she hurried along beside me.

“As far as I know, it never did blossom into a relationship. I think Stephen was testing the water with her and she wasn’t as interested as he’d hoped.”

“Did you never consider going back to him?”

“Clara, his two-timing was the best thing that could have happened to our relationship. It wasn’t going anywhere.”

“I think he might have wanted more from you, you know. He seemed really keen. I thought you two might even get married.”

“I didn’t want to get married, Clara. Maybe that was the problem; that Stephen wanted more than I was prepared to give.” I turned to face her as we hurried along, conscious that after meeting Dan my protestations of independence might no longer be quite as vehement as they had been previously, but I forced out the old adage anyway. “I want a career, not a husband. I want to be able to afford nice things, not settle down and have babies. Not yet anyway,” I allowed.

“Stephen would have been able to give you nice things. He must earn plenty of money.”

My mind went to Lauren’s extravagant wardrobe, her jewelry, shoes, and bags. “I don’t want to settle for being a kept woman,” I explained. “I want to achieve a good job and a top salary for myself.”

“Maybe he just wasn’t the right guy for you, then. But there are plenty more of them out there, you know; you don’t have to live your life alone.”

I thought of Dan again and felt a shiver run through me. Clara might have a point there, I thought, but I pushed the notion away and shook my head.

“My strategy has been not to let anyone get close enough for me to find out, and it has worked pretty well up until now,” I told her.

Clara shook her head, but refrained from talking anymore since I was setting a fast pace and she was having trouble catching her breath. We arrived at the flat in less than ten minutes to be greeted by Frankie’s ecstatic barks the moment she heard the key in the lock.

As I pushed the door open, Frankie leapt up at me and tried to lick my face.

“This is one happy dog,” Clara commented as Frankie turned
her attentions to my friend and began to bound in circles around her.

“Sit down, Frankie!” I called from the kitchen as I poured tap water into the kettle. “And you too, Clara, please take a seat.”

We ate our sandwiches while the kettle boiled and then I made us both a cup of coffee.

“So tell me all about him,” Clara said, eyeing me over her mug as she sipped at the coffee. “I assume that it’s Lightning Man who’s been hogging your thoughts?”

I grinned at her.

“Clara, you are so unsubtle. And yes, I have been thinking about Dan, and yes, he is rather gorgeous. We went out for a drink last night.”

“Drink? You? I’m surprised you didn’t put the poor guy off—I bet you ordered water!” She narrowed her eyes at me. “So what did you do after the drink that left you so exhausted you were late this morning?”

I stood up and took the empty coffee mug out of her hand, depositing it in the kitchen. The activity gave me a moment to gather my thoughts. I couldn’t very well tell Clara the truth; she’d think I was crazy. I fetched Frankie’s lead and attached it to the dog’s collar before answering.

“I came home early and went to bed—alone. I think the lightning strike on Saturday wiped me out more than I realized. I’ve been feeling very tired.”

Clara narrowed her eyes, considering this information. She obviously chose to believe me, though, because she got to her feet, pulling on her coat as she did so.

“You poor thing. Are you going to contact him again?”

“He said he’d call in a day or two.”

“Let me know if he does. I’m dying to know more about him.”