Take a Chance

by Simone Jaine

  He tasted like coffee and smelled like Bulgari.

  The sensations were heady and she kissed him back as she looped her arms around his shoulders. His hands moved to her hips and pulled her firmly against him. She felt his arousal and pushed back, loving the knowledge that she had this effect on him.

  The sound of the kitchen door opening behind them brought them back to reality. Abruptly Jem and Eben broke apart. Eben turned away and spread his hands on the kitchen bench and looked out at the rain through the window.

  Jem pushed a hand through her hair and looked at Daisy.

  “Can I drive the car this time?” she asked.

  “No,” said Eben and Jem.

  “It’s not fair. I never get to drive the car,” Daisy said as she trudged back down the hallway.

  Jem arrived in ICU to find the curtained partition around Jess’s bed almost closed. Through a small gap she saw a group of doctors standing around the bed. She was alarmed by the presence of all the people in white coats. The nurse from yesterday saw her and left the nurse’s station.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “It’s just the consultant taking the house surgeons on rounds. She’s making them familiar with the circumstances of each patient in ICU.”

  Jem let out a breath in relief. “Do they know when Jess will be well enough to wake up?”

  “I expect when this crowd moves on I’ll have instructions to withdraw the medication which is keeping her asleep. Then depending upon how long it takes to get out of her system it could be anytime.”

  Jem felt an anxious thrill run through her.

  “She will wake up won’t she?”

  The nurse smiled sympathetically.

  “Head injuries are tricky things. With any luck she will wake up and everything will be fine.”

  Jem stood to one side as the curtain was pulled back and the stream of doctors emerged. The nurse slipped past them and took the clipboard from the glossy haired brunette consultant who had a few words to say to him. The nurse nodded and a quick conversation ensued.

  On the way past, the consultant paused beside Jem. She was about a head shorter than Jem and looked older than she had from across the room.

  “Your sister is doing well. We’re taking away some of her meds and she should be awake soon.”

  “Thank you,” Jem said.

  The consultant smiled at her then joined the group of doctors awaiting her at the next bed.

  Jem sat down in the chair beside her sister’s bed, took Jess’s hand in her own and started to tell her about their morning.

  It was after eleven when Eben dropped into the seat beside her, Aidan securely held in one arm, his Wiggle plaster moustache still in place. Surprised, Jem looked at him. He looked a little disgruntled.

  “I’d planned to give you the whole day to yourself but something has come up. I tried dealing with it keeping Aidan with me but I’ve discovered I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. Is it okay for you to take him and pick up Daisy and Jeremy?”

  “Of course it is,” Jem said in surprise. Having most of the morning to herself had been wonderful and she had only been looking after the children with Eben’s help for two days. Without him she wouldn’t have been sure of her mental state. She couldn’t imagine how single parents managed.

  Eben put down a squirming Aidan who ran to the other side of the bed. Jem smiled at his expression of relief. His eyes moved from dark blue to grey as he leaned forward and kissed her. It was almost over before she closed her eyes.

  “Thanks,” he murmured.

  “Anytime,” she murmured back and smiled.

  The sound of a chair being dragged got their attention. Aidan had taken it from another patient’s bed and was trying to reach the window to open it.

  “I have to go. I think this is what you call tag-team parenting,” Eben said.

  He patted her shoulder.

  “Tag, you’re it.”

  After collecting Daisy from kindy and feeding her and Aidan lunch, Jem dressed them warmly and took them to the playground in the hope of wearing them out since it had finally stopped raining. She had even been prepared with an old towel to wipe the swing seats.

  Instead, the activity seemed to have given the children their second wind. Jem sat on a bench as they clambered over the climbing frame. She wished she could mainline their energy.

  Afterwards she took them to the supermarket to get a few things for dinner. Aidan wouldn’t stay seated in the trolley and when he did she had to remember not to leave it in reach of the aisle shelves. He ran around and got in other shoppers way while Daisy campaigned for various treats of dubious nutrition and made a lot of noise when Jem told her no. The only thing that made the whole activity bearable was the smiles she got from other shoppers after observing the brightly coloured sticking plaster under Aidan’s nose.

  By the time they were close to the checkout Jem felt frazzled from all the arguments with Daisy and from continually retrieving Aidan while replacing items he’d tossed into the trolley. Then she heard a child screaming and looked up from the packet label she had been inspecting.

  Daisy stood hanging onto the end of the trolley frame looking at the contents while Aidan was sitting in the trolley seat quietly scraping the icing off some buns with his finger through a hole he’d made through the plastic bag holding them.

  She watched a young mother drag a screaming toddler past the end of the aisle. Before today, upon seeing and hearing children performing in the supermarket she used to wonder why the parents couldn’t keep them under control. Now she had complete empathy for the young mother while all the while thinking thank goodness that racket isn’t coming from one of mine.

  Funny how one’s perspective changed one’s views.

  Her cell phone started playing Ode to Joy just as she and the children were getting out of the car in the garage after picking Jeremy up from school. She fished the phone out of her shoulder bag and raised it to her ear.

  “Jem, we have a problem,” Mark told her without a preliminary greeting.

  “Then you can take care of it. I have enough problems of my own,” Jem replied, leaning over the back seat to reach Jeremy’s school bag.

  “Need I remind you that the promotion hasn’t been announced yet?”

  Jem raised an eyebrow as she shut the car door then pushed the button to lower the garage door.

  “What’s the problem?” she asked cautiously while following the children into the house.

  “The venue for my presentation has just phoned Cherie and cancelled because they had a flood and…”

  “But it’s stopped raining,” Jem interrupted as she retrieved Jeremy’s lunchbox from his school bag and put it on the kitchen bench.

  “No. The flood was inside. Some prankster turned on all the taps in the men’s room and flooded out most of the ground floor. They’ve got professional cleaners in but they’ve been told they have to shut for a few days to give the carpets time to dry properly.”

  Jem recalled looking for Aidan and hearing the sound of water running when he came out of the men’s room. She wouldn’t put it past him to have turned all the taps on just because he could.

  “What do you want?” Jem asked, potential guilt urging her to hear him out even though her gut told her otherwise. She would bet that the venue’s employee was exaggerating their problem to be rid of their booking so they would be free to take the one willing to pay more.

  “We need another venue to hold my presentation in. Cherie’s being terribly unhelpful and said everywhere worth having is booked up without even trying to see if there have been any cancellations. Since you’re on holiday I thought you could be helpful and phone around.”

  “Mark, my sister is in hospital and I am looking after her three children, two of which are pre-schoolers. I assure you I am not on holiday.”

  “If they’re that young they probably sleep a lot. You’ll have plenty of time to do this.”

  “I do not have time to phone aro
und,” Jem told him through gritted teeth.

  “Then perhaps you can think of somewhere else we can hold the presentation. My apartment isn’t suitable… Does your apartment building come with conference facilities?”

  “No it doesn’t. Anyway I’m not at my place. I am looking after my nephews and niece in their house…”

  “Is that in your sister’s house on the Shore we visited that time between meetings?” Mark asked.

  “Yes.”

  Jem became distracted seeing the children outside bouncing together on the trampoline. She rapped on the kitchen window to get their attention. When they looked her way she covered the receiver.

  “One at a time!” she yelled.

  “…will work out perfectly,” said Mark with enthusiasm.

  Outside, the children were getting a few bounces in before getting off. Jeremy landed near Daisy’s feet which made her bounce high and she smacked her head against his on the way down.

  They both screamed then started crying. Jem raced to the kitchen door and opened it.

  Please don’t let there be blood. I don’t think I have a Wiggles plaster big enough for their heads.

  “Inside now!” Jem commanded.

  As they trooped inside making various degrees of noise she heard a voice calling her name. She belatedly realised she still had the phone up to her ear but had no idea of what Mark had been saying.

  “Mark I have to go. Can we discuss this later?”

  “No need. I’ll just tell Cherie that she can track down all the guests and tell them that the location of the presentation has been changed to your sister’s house. That’ll give her something to do,” he chuckled.

  What?

  The next thing she knew he’d hung up. She stared at the phone in disbelief. She couldn’t believe the audacity of the man. Sure she’d been distracted but she knew she hadn’t agreed to host a presentation in her sister and brother-in-law’s home.

  Silently fuming, Jem realised he hadn’t even asked after her sister even though she’d told him Jess was in hospital; for all he knew she had something contagious like Ebola and they were all under quarantine.

  Hmm. It was tempting to phone him back and suggest a variation of that theme. Jem started scrolling through her contacts list to find his name.

  It probably was Aidan who flooded the conference bathroom, her conscience niggled.

  Damn.

  She turned the phone off. If Aidan was the mastermind behind the venue’s supposed catastrophe she was indirectly responsible. She grudgingly felt obliged to help out.

  Jem slipped the phone back in her purse and came back to the reality of the two children crying in front of her, each blaming the other for their injury. They were making too much noise to be overly hurt.

  No blood, thank goodness.

  Maybe a lollipop would fix things. She opened a high cupboard and reached for the lollipop bag on the top shelf, removed three and gave one to each child.

  “How come he gets one?” Jeremy asked, pointing at Aidan.

  “His ears are sore from the noise you two made,” Jem told him. “When you finish your lollipop how about you read me a story?”

  Relieved that the children accepted her reason so readily she took a lollipop herself.

  She was entitled. After all, as far as Mark was concerned she’d proved she was a sucker.

  Jem was preparing hamburgers for dinner when Eben arrived home that evening. She didn’t know how he had spent his day but whatever he had been doing had left him in a good mood. As she arranged the assorted fillings on the buns she told him how Jess was improving then about Mark’s phone call.

  He was pleased to hear the news of Jess’s progress in that she no longer needed the medication keeping her in the coma. He was less than pleased to hear that Mark had decreed Jase and Jess’s home to be the venue for his presentation.

  “With everything you have going on here why didn’t you tell him no?” he demanded. “It’s his presentation so he should be the one running around to find someone else to coerce to use their home as the venue and not taking advantage of you.”

  “There’s a bit more to it,” Jem said then explained why she felt obliged to help out.

  “I still don’t like it,” Eben warned “but all right. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Jem gave him a big hug.

  “Not at the moment but thank you anyway,” she said but neither moved to let go.

  Instead, Eben tightened his hold, enjoying the feel of her body pressed against the length of his. He lowered his head and was about to kiss her when they heard a shriek. Something flew through the air and bounced off his arm.

  “What’s going on?” he called towards the family room instead.

  “Jeremy’s throwing my rubbers around,” Daisy wailed. “One of them is stuck in the ceiling light.

  Eben reluctantly released Jem to sort out the latest child induced drama. After he was out of sight Jem fanned herself.

  It’s so hot in here. I must have left the oven door open.

  She looked at the oven and saw she had forgotten to turn it on.

  A couple of hours later Jem was taken aside as soon as she entered ICU. The nurse was a different one from the night before and she gently told Jem that despite the medication being withdrawn her sister had not woken up.

  She didn’t say much more but Jem inferred the nurse intended to prepare her for the possibility that Jess would never wake up.

  With a comforting pat of her hand to Jem’s arm, the nurse carried on with her duties, leaving Jem standing rooted to the vinyl floor in shock. Before her, she saw the curtains of the patient bays twitch in the breeze of a nurse briskly pushing a squeaky trolley past. Behind her, each tick of the analogue clock on the wall sounded ominous as though marking off each remaining moment of her sister’s life.

  Deep inside, the shock gave way and she silently screamed at the unfairness of it all. Her sister Jess had a loving husband and three wonderful children who all needed her. Jess had to live. Jem knew could never be anything but a poor substitute for her sister. She couldn’t keep up with Jeremy’s mind or keep up with Aidan full stop. She couldn’t even put pigtails in Daisy’s hair.

  Why Jess? Why, why why?

  Feeling distraught, Jem hurried towards her sister’s bay and slipped behind the curtain. She kept moving until she reached the chair near the head of the bed where she sank down beside Jess and took hold of her hand.

  Jem swallowed hard to hold back the pain welling up inside. Giving into tears wouldn’t help Jess. She angrily wiped at her eyes and willed her sister to wake up.

  Her sister continued to lie motionless.

  After a few deep breaths Jem began to tell Jess about her day.

  In the early hours of the morning Jem woke with her head resting against the edge of her sister’s bed. Her arm had gone numb from partially lying on it to keep it in a position where she could still hold Jess’s hand. She twitched her fingers, trying to restore her circulation and was rewarded with Jess’s grip momentarily tightening in hers.

  Jem leaned forward and pressed the buzzer.

  “Jess, can you hear me?” she asked softly.

  The nurse who had spoken to her earlier whipped back the curtain and strode up to her.

  “My sister just moved her hand,” Jem excitedly told her.

  “That’s great news,” the nurse exclaimed cheerfully as she moved forward to check the monitors.

  She glanced at the clock and looked back at Jem.

  “When I’ve finished here I’m going to page the consultant on duty. When she arrives she may want to run a few tests which will take a while. In my experience now that your sister is back with us she will probably spend most of her time sleeping. How about you go home, rest and come back refreshed in the morning?” the nurse suggested as she moved in to check Jess for herself.

  Twisting her neck to get the kinks out, Jem’s eyes latched on the clock above the nurse’s station. The time w
as almost 4am. She would get fewer than three hours sleep before she had to be up to take Jeremy to school.

  “I’ll be back later Jess, I promise,” Jem said then gathered her things to return home.

  Knowing Jess was finally responding provided enough stimulation to keep her alert for the drive home. However, by the time Jem let herself inside the house she was struggling to keep her eyes open. She opened the bedroom door and in the gloom saw a shape move under the bedcovers.

  Eben.

  It said something that she was too tired to care. She lethargically peeled off her clothes and fumbled under the pillow for her nightshirt. Not finding it, she decided to put on something of Eben’s rather than switch on the light to search for her nightshirt and have the possibility of him waking to see her there naked.

  In the first drawer she opened she found a pair of pyjamas. Too exhausted to cover more than what was essential she slipped Eben’s pyjama top over her head then crawled between the sheets of what had become her side of the bed. Pulling the blankets over her shoulders, she quickly succumbed to sleep.

  Chapter 7

  Jem felt the bed shudder beneath her as though she were in an earthquake. Then a childish voice yelled “Wakey, wakey,” and a weight dropped on her stomach.

  Her eyes flew open as the weight rolled off her.

  Aidan.

  “Aunty Jem, Uncle Eben! There’s someone at the door!” Jeremy called out from the next room.

  A moment of panic surged. She had forgotten to set the alarm clock when she had snuggled up to Eben.

  What’s the time?

  Scrambling out of bed Jem grabbed her dressing gown and glanced at the clock then snatched Aidan mid-jump before he could land on Eben. It was ten to eight, later than she would have liked but still possibly enough time to get Jeremy ready and off to school before the bell rang.

  If she hurried.

  She looked at Eben to see how he was handling the disturbance. He had burrowed further under the covers.

  Not a morning person.