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  Shocked, Jem pushed her foot out which turned her chair to face the window. Her blue eyed, blonde, Nordic features looked pale against the darkened rain splattered glass. Without hesitation she responded “My sister Jessica Reardon.”

  Chapter 2

  The fire fighter told Jem her sister Jessica was very lucky to be alive. Witnesses had told him that a truck had lost its brakes coming down the hill and had swerved to miss a car travelling too slowly in front of it. Unable to compensate fast enough in the wet conditions, the truck had hit the motorway median barrier and had partially flipped to take out the car travelling beside it. Her sister had been travelling behind the truck in the fast lane and hadn’t been able to stop in time.

  The driver of the truck was expected to survive whereas the two men in the car partially under the truck had died at the scene and a pregnant woman from that car had been rushed to North Shore Hospital along with Jessica. All he could tell Jem about her sister was that when the ambulance took her away she was unconscious and had internal bleeding. The only relief Jem felt was when she learned that Jess had been on her own in the car. At least her two nephews and niece had been spared.

  When the call ended she held the phone tightly as she absorbed what she had been told. Finally she opened her bloodless fingers and her phone dropped into the bag by her feet. She snatched up the bag and ran into Cherie coming out of another office. Trying to hide her distress Jem quickly explained the situation. Cherie hugged her and told her to take all the time she needed and if Duh-boss didn’t like it she’d tell him Jem was having a holiday she’d long since arranged. As intended, the usual disparaging comment about their boss gave a semblance of normalcy and kept her from breaking into tears.

  On the way down in the elevator Jem fumbled open her notebook and started a list of what she needed to do as a distraction from the brevity of her thoughts. She started with “collect kids” and finished with “phone Coco”. She couldn’t contact her brother-in-law as earlier in the day he had left on a flight to Nadi, Fiji for a feasibility study to link Lautoka Hospital’s software with a hospital in Brisbane. He would be gone for a fortnight and the first week involved him travelling around the outer islands to set up links to the medical outposts. She doubted there would be phone coverage where he would be. Even so she left a message on his cell phone promising to contact again when she had more news.

  In the lobby she grabbed a telephone directory and thumbed through until she found Jessica’s closest friend’s phone number. She wasn’t sure who had Aidan, Jess’s two year old but Mel would. She would also know when Daisy would finish kindy. Jem programmed the number into her cell phone. She wasn’t quite ready to make the call.

  Somehow she made it to her car in the impersonal car park building. Her hands weren’t quite steady enough to unlock the driver’s door so she used the remote. After collapsing onto the driver’s seat Jem shut the door, took a deep breath and phoned Mel. She gave her the news about Jess as coherently as she could and found herself consoling Jess’s friend.

  Fortunately Mel had Aidan and the necessary car seats as Jess hadn’t been sure she would be back in time to collect Daisy so had left them with her. Mel apologised for not being able to look after the kids for longer but she and her family were booked on a flight later that day to Melbourne where her daughters were going to be flower girls at her brother’s wedding.

  After ending the call, Jem took a few deep breaths and started the car. As she threaded through slow traffic to get on the motorway, Jem bit her lip in an effort to hold back her tears. She was numb with worry and felt emotionally drained and it wasn’t even midday. Keep it together, she told herself sternly as a tear escaped which she smeared away with the back of her hand.

  In this case the weather turned out to be a blessing in that it kept her mind occupied. The heavy rain made it difficult to see past the frantic wipers ineffectively swiping the deluge from the windscreen. Crossing the Harbour Bridge on the outer lane, her car was buffeted by strong winds and she found herself rigidly holding the steering wheel to compensate.

  The traffic was denser than she expected for this time of day and combined with the weather conditions it moved at a frustratingly slow pace. As her car crawled past the Takapuna exit she spared a few moments to glance to the right and see a blurred North Shore Hospital go slowly by. She wished she could go straight there but needed to collect the kids first. It was just as well as she had been told that Jessica would be in surgery for some time and Jem would rather be doing something than just sitting and waiting to hear any news of her sister’s condition.

  The traffic slowed further as she approached the Sunset Road overpass. She soon found out why. As the motorway curved downhill she could see flashing lights ahead. Just past the next exit, traffic cones had narrowed the motorway to one lane. Beyond the police cars Jem saw an overturned truck with part of a car visible beneath its side. The front of a red Toyota people mover was crushed against the back of the truck and Jem knew she was looking at Jess and Jason’s car.

  How did she survive that?

  In the heavy rain a police officer waved an ambulance out from the site of the accident. It did not have its lights or siren on and it quietly merged with the traffic.

  This is where it had happened. It was worse than her imagination allowed. Shaken, she took the Constellation Drive off ramp so she wouldn’t have to go past the remains of the vehicles.

  Jem took a series of side streets to Mel’s single storey brick and tile home and pulled up in the driveway. Her umbrella would be useless in the strong wind so she didn’t even try to retrieve it from the back seat. Wind howled around the door as she forced it open. Using both hands so it wouldn’t slap back against her she got out.

  Her hair was soaked by the time she reached the covered porch to enter the house and water seeped down the collar of her coat. Mel must have been watching for her because the door opened as she was about to knock. Once inside, Jem gratefully took the towel Mel offered. After she wiped her face and tried to blot her hair she did a double take at Mel’s obviously bottle red hair.

  Jem had told her everything she knew over the phone and knew if she brought up the reason she was there again they would both be in tears which wouldn’t help anyone. Instead she sought to lighten the mood.

  “You look brighter than usual,” she offered as she tried to ignore the water dripping off her coat onto the tiles.

  Mel fingered her red locks which matched her reddened eyes.

  “I did it to remind my husband I’m hot stuff,” she said sniffling, playing along.

  “Was Dave in danger of forgetting?”

  “Not really. I just got sick of looking like a housewife and mother. It is a bit more than I expected though.”

  “Look on the bright side. You could put on fishnet tights, a short skirt and do really well on K’ Road.”

  “That wasn’t the look I was going for either,” Mel laughed faintly, knowing well that Jem was teasing.

  Hearing voices, Aidan came running out of the lounge.

  “Aunty Jem!” he shouted and ran towards her, nearly knocking her over as he locked his arms around her knees.

  “Hello, cuddle pie,” she replied as she pried his arms off and picked up the brown haired toddler dressed as Buzz Lightyear for a hug. The brief contact left wet patches on his costume.

  “I not cuddle pie. I space ranger. To fin-tee and beyond!”

  “I bet you’re a great space ranger,” Jem told him as she scrambled to hang onto him as he manoeuvred onto her back for a piggy back ride. His response was to loop his arms around her neck tightly.

  “You can’t see me!”

  “Mel did you see where Aidan went?” Jem asked as she slid her hand under his to allow her to breathe then pretended to look for him under a side table and behind the large potted ficus in the corner. She didn’t want to go further than the entry and leave footprints on the carpet.

  “No idea,” Mel answered to giggles coming f
rom behind Jem’s head.

  As she gave Aidan a tickle Mel glanced at her watch. “Time is getting away on us. Kindy’s due to finish in about quarter of an hour so I took the car seats out and put them in the garage. That way you can drive in and might be able to install them without getting soaked.” Taking in Jem’s bedraggled appearance she added “any more than you are.”

  Mel looked at Aidan. “Come with me space ranger. You can operate the control to the spaceship landing bay.”

  Aidan didn’t need to be asked twice. He slid down Jem’s back and followed Mel towards the internal access garage. Reluctantly, Jem went back out into the storm.

  Pulling up at the kindy without a moment to spare, Jem was grateful for Mel’s assistance in putting the car seats in. It would have taken her a lot longer to figure out on her own. She had left after promising Mel that she would text her daily reports on Jess’s progress.

  Jem unlatched Aidan’s harness and he launched himself between the front seats onto her lap. She had barely enough time to grab him to reduce the impact.

  “I a careful driver,” Aidan told her as he tugged on the indicator lights and randomly pressed the radio station settings.

  “When you’ve got your licence,” Jem replied as she pulled his hand off the steering wheel and turned the indicators off. “We have to get Daisy now.”

  She awkwardly got out with him in her arms and tucked her coat around him. Walking quickly she dodged other parents taking their children home. Inside the kindy she spotted Daisy sitting on the mat with a handful of other children.

  “Who are you here to collect?” A teacher she had never seen before enquired.

  “Daisy Reardon,” Jem replied as Aidan ran to a craft bench and tried to work a pair of scissors with both hands.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know if you’re listed to be able to collect her. I’ll have to check our files.”

  “No need for that. She’s Daisy’s aunt.” Jem saw the head teacher walk towards them. “I know her.”

  Several minutes later Jem was relieved to strap Aidan back into his car seat. After leaving the craft table with hacked up bits of paper and dropping a pair of scissors into paint sitting beside an easel he had tipped out a container full of cars and another filled with blocks. Despite Daisy reminding him it was time for lunch he had protested the whole time Jem tried to pick things up.

  Then he had clung to the kindy’s verandah pole on the way out as he “hadn’t finished playing yet”. As she tried to remove him she thought there could be some humour to be found in yanking Buzz Lightyear from a verandah pole. She hoped the teachers found it because in her position she couldn’t feel less like laughing.

  She drove back to the city, taking care to get onto the motorway beyond the accident. The children were remarkably uncurious as to why she was collecting them instead of their mother so she decided to wait until they collected Jeremy before giving an explanation.

  Daisy and Aidan fought over who got to press the elevator button in her apartment building so Jem settled it by saying they could take turns. Once inside she fed them lunch.

  As they ate she logged in on her laptop and accessed her work calendar. She typed with the phone tucked under her chin as she juggled appointments and changed meetings, finishing up with an email to Cherie to delegate the essential work between the software developers and sales reps that she couldn’t do remotely.

  By the time she had completed that task the children had finished eating. She pulled out a box of toys kept on hand for their visits, leaving them to play while she packed a bag of things she would need while staying at their house.

  After setting a small suitcase by the front door she watered her numerous pot plants then checked the things she had done off her list and phoned the hospital.

  Because of privacy issues the best she could get out of the nurse in ICU was that Jessica’s operation was going well and that she was expected in post op in another half an hour. Jem bit her lip to fight tears of relief and was grateful for the distraction of Aidan going back to the table for another sandwich then putting marmite coated hands on her lounge window as he tried to open the ranch slider leading to her balcony.

  After cleaning up they left early and had plenty of time to spare as they waited for Jeremy near the school entrance. While they sat in the car Jem discovered that Aidan could press the button on his car seat and escape the harness. Then he roamed the car trying to put the windows down. She quickly caught onto his game and locked the windows from the driver’s seat. Unfortunately he had been fast enough to unwind the windows enough to get his head and shoulders wet which went well with the still damp patch on his front from where he had leaned against her wet coat while having another piggyback ride.

  While they waited, the contrast of the warmth in the car kept fogging up the windows. Jem repeatedly leaned across the front passenger’s seat to wipe the clouded glass. After doing this several times she finally spotted Jeremy. She pressed the window down button but nothing happened. By the time she recalled she’d locked the windows Jeremy had passed the car. Jem opened the door to get out and was immediately yanked back by her seat belt. She groped for the release button and leaped out of the car.

  “Jeremy!”

  The same time she called, a car tooted. The combination of traffic and rain stopped him from hearing her. The wind blew the car door shut so Jem resigned herself to being wet and dodged pedestrians on the footpath to catch him.

  “Jeremy!”

  Fortunately this time her nephew stopped and looked around.

  “Aunty Jem!” he exclaimed. “Where’s Mum?”

  “I’ll explain when we get home.”

  They walked quickly back to the car which stood out from the others because it was the only one with its hazard lights going. Jem tried to open the front door and discovered it was locked. A small hand rubbed at the driver’s fogged up window and Jem saw Aidan standing on the bottom of the steering wheel and holding onto the top of it as he rocked it from side to side. Her keys were in the ignition.

  “I don’t believe this,” she muttered under her breath. Louder, she said “Open up!”

  “No!”

  Aidan swung vigorously on the steering wheel and it locked. Now that it no longer moved he climbed off it and Jem saw him moving the rear vision mirror and turning on the interior lights.

  She tapped on the window behind her seat and Daisy rubbed a clear space on the window under a smiley face she’d drawn with her finger.

  “Can you please unlock the door?”

  Fortunately Daisy was more cooperative. She released her door lock mechanism and Jem opened the back door and reached to unlock the driver’s door. By the time she closed the back door Daisy was nearly as wet as she was.

  It took a few minutes to get Aidan into his car seat from the front and fix his “adjustments”. This was mostly because she’d never used her hazard lights and had to examine every button on the console to find the one to switch them off. There was also a minor struggle to move the steering wheel out of the locked position after she turned the key in the ignition.

  It was with relief Jem pulled the car out and headed in the direction of her sister’s home. While they were driving, the song on the radio ended and the news came on. She listened with half an ear while the children boisterously talked over each other. When the newsreader mentioned another fatality in an earlier accident that day involving a truck she quickly changed to another station.

  Has Jess died since I phoned the hospital?

  Her knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as she gripped it tighter. It was all she could do to get them all home without bursting into tears.

  After unlocking the front door using her own key, the children sped in front of her leaving her to bring in their school bags, her shoulder bag and suitcase. With water running down her neck and off her trench coat to pool on the tiled entry around her she absently wished she had thought to bring a towel from her apartment to wipe herself down.r />
  “Go and get into dry clothes!” she yelled into the hallway in the direction the children had disappeared as her chilled fingers undid the belt to her trench coat.

  She hung the coat up and heard three pairs of feet running up the stairs to the bedrooms so decided to phone the hospital while the children were out of hearing.

  She was put through to ICU where she immediately asked about Jess. The nurse at the other end had just started her shift so she waited an eternity while the nurse looked for her sister’s file.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” the nurse told her a few minutes later when she came back to the phone. “She isn’t in ICU so I had to track her down.”

  Jem felt suddenly faint and leaned against the wall before she fell.

  “Shortly after coming out earlier the orthopaedic surgeon became available and she has gone back into surgery to have pins put in her broken legs and her arm taken care of. It is taking longer than expected but I have just checked with the theatre nurse. The operation is going well and they expect to have her in recovery soon.”

  Jem closed her eyes for a moment and breathed out in relief.

  “I heard a woman had died in that accident,” Jem murmured, wanting further confirmation that her sister was still alive.

  “Yes. She was a passenger in the other car,” the nurse replied without elaborating further.

  “When can I see my sister?” Jem asked.

  “Once she is in ICU you can come at any time but we limit the visitors to family members only and we prefer no more than two visitors at a time.”

  After finishing the call Jem realised she was shivering so she heeled off her half boots and left them near the door. She awkwardly carried the suitcase and schoolbags down the hall to the kitchen where she emptied out the lunch boxes and hung up the bags on their hooks as she had seen Jess do many times.

  She glanced over the breakfast bar towards the family room then looked back again in shock. The room looked as though a vigorous earthquake had shaken it. Toys were strewn all over the place and from where she was standing she couldn’t see any visible carpet.