and Gray’s mum was sitting with Frankie at the dining table, a laptop computer open before them. Honor switched the music off and said, “Welcome home. Good day? Sit down, and I’ll make you breakfast.” Like this was our normal routine.
I said, “No, thanks. I had breakfast. With, ah, with Gray, actually. He turned up at the hospital and took me out before he went back to work. It was nice,” I added, just because I needed to tell somebody. “No. It was—actually, you know? It was awesome.”
Honor smiled with clear satisfaction, which gave me some more of the floating-on-a-bubble feeling I’d had all the way home, and said, “That’s all good, then. Frankie and I were just working on the identity documents, and starting to fill out the protection order paperwork as well. The more you do yourself, the less you spend on the lawyer, that’s what I’ve found, and she says that appointment’s today.”
I said, “I appreciate that, but you don’t need to do all that. Those things were on my list.”
Frankie said, “Honor knows exactly how to do everything, though. She’s helped heaps of people.”
“Housekeeping supervisor,” Honor said. “Which means hearing every sad story you’ve ever imagined. Immigrants. Refugees. Not much I don’t know about women starting over, or women making their lives better, for that matter. Should’ve been a lawyer, I reckon, but nah. Social worker, more like, but it’d be too frustrating. Paperwork never gets done, but houses can get clean, and women can move on. I’ll stick to houses, and help with the paperwork on the side.”
“She says she’ll go with me to the lawyer,” Frankie said, “so you can sleep later and won’t have to bother. It’d be better anyway to have her there.”
I’d been feeling so good, driving here. The wind tossing the branches of trees, the glint of the sea, the growl of the Mustang’s engine. The memory of Gray’s face. Now, I sat down and said, treading carefully, “It would be good for me to be there, too, though, wouldn’t it? I could help with the questions, since I’ve been through all of it myself. Been married to Gilead, and divorced him, too. Left Mount Zion.”
“But that’s why you’re not better,” Frankie said. “I have to say what he said about you, and the things he did. It’s embarrassing. I can’t …”
She trailed off, and Honor said, “Could be hard for Frankie to say everything she needs to, wondering if she’s hurting you, if it’s too much for you to hear. I’m a bit more like that social worker, maybe. Heard it all, seen it all.”
“But I’ve heard it all, too,” I said, uncomfortably aware of how that sounded. Jealous, was how, like I wasn’t special enough, like I wasn’t loving enough to be the support person. “I’m a nurse.”
“You’re not a nurse to Frankie, though,” Honor said. “You’re her sister.”
“I just want to get this done,” Frankie said. “And move on and have a regular life. If you’re with me, it’s not really moving on, because there are so many feelings. I’m tired of feelings. I just want to do things. Honor says she’ll help me, and that she’ll help me enroll in school, too, and go talk to them about it, find out where I fit, how I can catch up. So I can get started.”
She wasn’t quite looking at me, and I couldn’t think of what to say. I was getting some kind of odd signals. Some kind of vibrations. Not pulling me into her. Pushing me away. I stood up and said, “I’ll just … I’ll go say hi to Obedience, I guess.”
“Oriana,” Frankie said.
“Right,” I said. “Oriana. Where is she?”
“In the garden,” Frankie said. “With Iris. I’m going to be at Gray’s place today, by the way. Honor’s going to teach me how to use the computer. That way I can get a better job, not have to do cleaning like you did. I’ve done enough cleaning in my life. Dorian got to do a better job, because he knew how to do more valuable things. I want to do what he did. You need a computer for that, and for school, too, but Honor thinks I can get a used one. There’s a program that helps people who don’t have the money. They train you to use it as well. She knows all about it.”
I said, “Sounds good. That’s awesome. I’ll go find Oriana, then,” and headed out again, a familiar feeling taking over