The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2723 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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I finished the soup and asked Hannah to take some and a slice of bread over to him. Trish offered to go with her but I told Hannah to do it on her own.

“What was all that about?” asked Stella.

“Giving them a chance to become reacquainted.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I’m not sure if he was loyal to the memory of his time with Ingrid or jealous of losing his loco parentis role to Simon and me.”

“What his one chance, compared to your several?”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” I replied.

“Let’s face it, what’s he got to offer he doesn’t have the Cameron millions nor someone to act as a mother to his father—bit dead in the water, isn’t it?”

“People assume my taking in the children is based upon my need to feel fulfilled as a mother.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, that was fulfilled with Meems and Trish, and even the nursing with Cate and Lizzie. Arguably then we needed each other, but since then the other children have decided they wanted a mother more than I needed to be one.”

“So does this mean you just got sneakier?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Cathy, we know you’re a sucker for a sob story because you’re naturally very generous, but isn’t this just a question of manipulating the kids so they ask you to be their mother, because to them you seem like a fairy godmother who’s offering further magic if they ask in the right way?”

That seemed to hit me between the eyes. I had always thought my motives were honest and informed by the needs of the child or children concerned rather than my own whilst accepting that when you do good things for someone it gives you as much pleasure as it does to them. That I might have been effectively grooming them to ask to call me their mother or Simon their dad left me feeling confused about everything. Not so much the good Samaritan as Munchausen’s Samaritan. If this were even partly true it would destroy me. Instead of just looking to give the children a kind and loving home, I was doing it because I needed it more than they did—how sad is that?
I went to my study and shut the door. Perhaps I should let Hannah go and stay with David instead of living with us. The girls will be upset for a while but it’s not as if she wouldn’t see them every day.

I thought about every one of them but couldn’t see a similar opportunity for them to be with someone else they could be better off with. I wasn’t sure about Hannah either, but I needed to talk to David about her future. They came back to the kitchen together as I went for a refill of my tea mug. They both seemed in good spirits.

“Hi, Mummy, David’s going to do a salmon for dinner.”

“Hello, sweetheart, I thought cottage pie would be easier, at least that was what I thought to do.”

“If that’s what you want, boss, that’s what I’ll do. I just thought the salmon was nicer.”

“Fine, do the salmon then.”

“Can I help?” asked Hannah.

“David?” I asked.

“Sure.”

I almost felt like offering a bike ride to see what she’d really like but it would have been naughty of me and it was raining. Instead I went over my workshop and spent an hour building a wheel. I hadn’t finished it, but I had done the lacing, fitting the spokes though the hub and into the rim. I’d tighten them later and true the wheel as I did. It’s as much an act of patience as anything else having the wheel mounted on the jig—like a pair of forks—through which you slowly spin it as you work to check it’s balanced and spins straight.

Hannah had got fed up with playing with dead fish and gone off to play on her computer instead, I called David into my study.

“I see Hannah and you have become quite close again.”

“Yeah, she’s a lovely kid.”

“D’you miss having her staying with you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Would you like me to see if she’d like to stay at your place again?”

“It’s a lovely thought, Cathy, but she sees you as her mother and Simon as her dad, and while it would please me, I don’t think it would be good for her. She told me she shares a room with the other girls and loves it—she was lonely before. I hadn’t realised it nor did I appreciate what Ingrid was up to. She’s had enough uncertainty and trauma, you can offer security and a loving home, you’re a natural mother and she appreciates the difference from what she had before. I couldn’t offer a fraction of that and I also realise how wrong I was earlier. I’m sorry I acted like that, I really am.”

“Okay, I’ll leave things as they are. I’m not entirely happy for her to call me mummy, but it seems to be what she needs to do.”

“She does because she feels you love her for herself and that you enjoy her being here.”

“As long as she feels loved here, we must be doing something right.”

“Cathy, I feel loved here—and I’m only the bloody cook.”

“You’re one of our extended family and a good friend, David as well as a terrific cook. We love you for both.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s the second time you’ve thanked me for nothing.”

“Nothing? You saved my life, Cathy and that gave me a chance to see what things were really like. You’re practically an angel, doing good works of big and small proportions wherever and whenever you can. You see things that need to be done and do them without further discussion. It doesn’t always make you popular, some people resent your good works, but only because they feel guilty that they hadn’t appreciated the need.

“I died today, Cathy, you brought me back from the void, moments longer and I’d have been gone. It has changed my perspective a little and it’s also enabled me to appreciate some of what you do. I saw your little girl, Billie, she watches everything you do and reports to some golden woman—the chief angel, I suppose. I’ve also seen the golden light inside you as well as a whole rainbow of light surrounding you at times. Tom has said you’re special—he don’t know just how special you are.

“Dear lady, I am in total awe of you and it’s my pleasure to serve you and your family to enable you to carry on your good works. Julie and Trish think you’re an angel, I think I agree with them.”

Before I could argue with him or challenge his assumptions he went back to the kitchen and the salmon we’d have for dinner tonight. For me it was back to the drawing board or should I just accept the kids are here because they’re supposed to be and the same goes for me and all the other adults. It works as well as any other theory, like some crazy goddess put us altogether for some reason known only to herself, either that or I’m in some sort of corny story written by someone with a very strange sense of the dramatic and rigid idea of decency and integrity—perhaps I’d feel happy to meet her.