Life as I Know It (22 page)

My working hours at Chisleworth & Partners suddenly seemed very tame, I thought half an hour later, as I stepped around Elsie’s vacuum cleaner with an armload of dirty laundry
and hurried down to load the washing machine. Elsie had changed the children’s bedding and piled the dirty sheets and duvet covers onto the clothes I’d gathered off their bedroom floors. At a rough guess I reckoned there were at least five loads of washing to get through today alone.

“Mummy, when are we going to move the hutches to the shed?” Nicole asked as I passed her, dropping socks and vests from the pile as I hurried to the utility room.

“As soon as the washing is in.”

“I want to play in the sandbox,” Toby whined, jumping up and down. “Can I go out now?”

“Yes, go on, Toby. Close the door behind you.”

“I thought we were going to the farm,” Sophie reminded me.

“We’ll go at lunchtime and get something to eat there,” I told her as I shoved sheets into the machine and closed the door.

I looked around as I hurried into the playroom and saw Teddy sitting on one of the beanbags. He was rocking to and fro, talking silently to himself again. I went and crouched down beside him, noticing that he still had pancake syrup on his chin.

“Would you like to draw again, Teddy?”

He gazed up at me as if only just registering my presence, so I stood up and fetched the drawing pencils and paints and put them on the new table.

“Come and draw something,” I coaxed. “You did such a lovely picture yesterday. Look, Teddy, I’ve put it up on the wall.”

His gaze wandered to the peg board and stopped at his picture. His eyes widened slightly and I thought I detected a faint smile.

“Come on. We need lots of lovely pictures to make the room look colorful.”

Teddy got up and shambled over to the table, then sat down
on one of the blue plastic chairs I’d bought and put his ball on the table next to him. I watched as he picked up a crayon and bent his head over the paper, then I slipped quietly back to the kitchen to find Nicole standing impatiently with her hands on her hips.

“Can we go and move the hutch now, Mummy?”

I groaned. I’d thought Stephen’s demands on my time at Chisleworth & Partners could be exhausting, but trying to balance the needs of this family was like organizing a military operation. Putting things into perspective, however, I realized that although I felt I was being run ragged, each child was only requiring a reasonable amount of my time. It was when everyone’s needs had to be considered simultaneously, while I was also planning ahead for the next meal, the next event, the next day, that I felt completely overwhelmed.

I took a deep breath and looked out the window at the thin autumn sunshine. You can do this, I told myself firmly as I hurried off to find a jacket. Returning a moment later, I squared my shoulders and gave a bright smile. “Okay, Nicole, let’s go.”

Karen pulled on a shaggy cream and gray jacket above a black ankle-length skirt that had metal rings hanging on it and clumpy Doc Martens–style boots. She lifted the other end of the new wooden folding table and followed us outside.

“There were two phone calls while you were asleep,” she informed me as we walked down the garden behind Nicole, who was jumping around like an excited colt. “One was from a woman reminding you that Sophie is supposed to be sleeping over at her daughter’s house this evening.”

“Did you take a name and directions?” I asked anxiously over my shoulder.

She nodded. “Yes, it sounded easy enough, and Sophie seems happy to go.”

I could hear the hesitation in her voice and glanced around at her anxiously.

“And the other one?”

“Was from a man. He wouldn’t give his name. He just asked if you were okay, and when I told him you were recovering, but asleep, he hung up.”

I grimaced.

“Sounds like it might be the man from the park.”

She nodded again. “That’s what I thought.”

We’d arrived at the gap in the conifers, and Karen gasped, staring round her. “I didn’t know this section of the garden existed! It’s almost as big as the back lawn.”

I grinned as I let the table down. “I know. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Look at my digger, Auntie Karen,” Toby called. “I’m making roads and a tunnel.”

I left Karen bending over the sandbox and went to the toolshed. I was about to open the door when it opened of its own accord and an elderly man came out with a rake in his gnarled hands.

“Mornin’, Mrs. Richardson,” he said. “Looks like someone’s been having fun and games down here.”

“The children needed something to do,” I said with a smile. “I hope you don’t mind if you have to share the toolshed with the rabbit hutch. It’s getting rather cold at night to keep them outside.”

“It’s your shed, missus,” he said, walking off through the conifers.

The next two hours passed in a blur of hutch moving, pegging washing on the clothesline, reloading the machine, and dispensing drinks and cookies to the children and coffee for Karen, myself, and Jim. Teddy spilled some of the newly purchased children’s paint on the playroom floor and went into a fit of hysteria, apparently thinking he was going to be smacked, but I cleaned it all up and assured him that accidents were bound to happen.

At twelve o’clock, despite the fact that my shoulder was beginning to feel quite sore again, we all bundled into the car and Karen and the children guided me on the twenty-minute journey to an open farm. Once there, we started our visit by trooping into the old barn restaurant for filled jacket potatoes and cola drinks. The afternoon passed in a pleasant haze of feeding animals with paper bags full of sheep nuts, petting the small animals, watching the children play on the hay bales and pushing Teddy endlessly on the swing in the children’s playground.

“Do you know, Karen,” I commented as I swung Teddy back and forth, being careful to use only my good right arm,” I think we ought to have a swing at home. I mentioned it to Sophie when I first saw the size of the back garden. Teddy obviously loves it, and if we get one of those big contraptions with more than one swing and a glider thing, they won’t have to fight for a turn.”

Karen turned to check on where the other children had gotten to, and seeing they were out of earshot, she said quietly, “You know, sis, I can understand that your memory was wiped by that lightning strike, but the strange thing is that your whole personality seems to have changed. All these years and you wouldn’t let them have a swing in the garden, and now you’re suggesting it like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I’m not criticizing, believe me. I like the new you. But, I mean, didn’t you say the
hospital had referred you for some therapy? Don’t you think you should go and talk to someone? They can’t have intended for you to just walk out of there so completely changed, with no backup or anything.”

“Yeah, I’ve got that appointment for next week,” I replied, shoving the swing high into the air with Teddy hanging on tightly. “I’m to talk to someone in the psychiatric clinic. I’ve got the details somewhere.” I took a deep breath and kept up the rhythmic pushing of the swing. “The thing is, I don’t want to go. I’m happy as I am, Karen, and I think the children are happy, too.”

“Last night,” Karen continued in a low voice, “when Grant was trying… you know. You told him you weren’t Lauren. I heard you.”

“I meant I can’t remember being Lauren,” I said, keeping my eyes firmly on the back of Teddy’s Wellington boots as they came and went.

“What I don’t understand,” she went on, “is why you have changed so dramatically. Just because you lost your memories of who you were before, it doesn’t mean you’re not actually still the person you were before. I mean, how come you suddenly don’t mind handling animals? You hated them before, Lauren. What has changed that? And what about your newfound attentiveness to the children? I don’t mean to be unkind, but the Lauren I grew up with was selfish and vain. As long as she looked good and did what she wanted when she wanted, she was happy. How can you have altered so much?”

I fell silent, not knowing what to say. I’d been right in thinking it was going to be difficult keeping the truth from Karen. Her sister was dead. I was not Lauren. Perhaps I should sound her
out—maybe try to prepare her a little for the eventual revelation that I was not her sister.

“Do you believe that everyone has a soul?” I asked her tentatively as Teddy swung to and fro in front of us. I was thinking of what she’d said about her mother telling her that everyone’s soul was of equal importance, and of her belief in reincarnation and karma.

Karen nodded, frowning.

“And do you think our souls make us the kind of people we are?”

I glanced sideways and saw her studying me.

“Is it because you nearly died?” she asked softly. “Did you have some kind of out-of-body experience?”

I nodded, surprised how easily she was following to the place I was leading her.

“I’ve heard it can happen to people when they’re near death,” she continued in hushed tones. “Did your life flash in front of you or something? Did you realize the error of your ways and what your family meant to you?”

“It wasn’t exactly like that,” I said carefully, not looking at her. “The thing is…”

I stopped, not knowing how to put it. I couldn’t very well blurt out, “Well, the thing is, I think my soul was divided into two when I was struck by the lightning.” I stared at Teddy’s back for a long moment, then shrugged.

“Something did happen before I was brought back by the doctors. I think the lightning strike caused something drastic to happen to me.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not sure, Karen. But I think that when I suffered the heart failure, I did actually die.”

I glanced sideways to see that Karen’s mouth had dropped open.

“So you did have an out-of-body experience then? Can you remember being ‘dead,’ is that it?”

I decided to take the plunge and tell her the truth as far as I knew. “What if I told you two people were struck by the lightning, in two different places, and at exactly the same time?”

“Two?” I could see her mind churning, trying to work out what I was getting at. “Who was the other one?”

“A twenty-eight-year-old woman from Epsom, called Jessica Taylor.”

“And…?”

“What if both victims had what you call ‘out-of-body experiences’ at the same time? And suppose one of them actually died?”

Karen’s face had paled and she dropped her voice so Teddy wouldn’t be able to catch her words.

“You’re frightening me, Lauren! What are you getting at?”

“What if the one who died shouldn’t have? Suppose for a moment she was still needed too much by her family for them to lose her like that?”

Karen put her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. “You’re not saying the soul of one woman went into the body of the other?”

I stopped pushing the swing and turned to face her. “I’m saying exactly that. Only Jessica Taylor wasn’t intended to die, either. In fact her injuries were far less severe than Lauren’s.”

“You’re talking about Lauren as if you’re not her again,” Karen wailed. “I knew you should have seen someone in the psychiatric clinic earlier than next bloody week! It’s ridiculous the way they’ve just let you out of hospital like this with no immediate support!”

I grabbed her wrist and stared into her eyes. “Look at me, Karen. I’m not Lauren. Look into my eyes. Can you see Lauren there?”

I watched as her eyes gazed into mine, searching for something familiar. I saw her own eyes widen with a flicker of fear and she pulled away from my grasp.

I plowed ahead. “Lauren died. But for whatever reason, some of Jessica’s life force—my life force—went into her.”

“I’m not listening to this,” Karen said, pulling Teddy from the swing and looking around for the others.

I touched her beseechingly on the arm and she stopped and stared at me.

“You’re not well,” she said.

“I am well,” I replied firmly. “In fact my injuries are healing incredibly quickly. You said yourself how well the burns were looking.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Humor me,” I said, with the beginnings of a hopeful smile.

Karen’s expression relaxed and she looked quizzically into my face.

“You’re asking a hell of a lot, little sister.”

We walked slowly
along beside the sheep field with Teddy swinging his feet between us. The other children were still playing in the play area but we could see them from where we were.

“Let me get this straight,” Karen whispered after a while. “You’re saying your soul’s in the wrong body?” I nodded.

“Shit, Lauren! They’ll cart you off to the funny farm if you come out with this sort of claptrap at the hospital!” Karen exclaimed. “Maybe it’s just as well you haven’t been to see the shrink. They’d tie you to the couch and write a bloody thesis on you.”

“That’s why I didn’t say anything to the doctors.”

“So you’re telling me you’ve got this other woman’s life force keeping you here with us?”

“Yes—only, as I was trying to tell you, Jessica Taylor isn’t dead, either. I’m both of them, Karen.”

Karen stared at me in silence for what seemed like several minutes, then shrugged.

“That must be a bit complicated.”

I stopped walking and faced her. “You don’t believe me.”

Karen sank down onto a nearby bench and continued to stare at me.

“What the bloody hell do you expect? It’s all so far-fetched, so incredible. And anyway, if I believed you it would mean that my sister is dead.”

“I’m so sorry, Karen,” I whispered. “I believe that Lauren died when the lightning bolt hit her. I understand from what the doctors said that medically speaking her injuries would have killed her. I was struck in the same instant, only time has shifted slightly and both bodies have survived simultaneously.”

“Now I know you’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

The silence hung in the air between us, and Karen edged slightly away from me.

“We had our differences, Lauren and I,” she said at last. “But she was still my sister. I loved her. I don’t want her to be dead.”