Finding Their Forever Family by Caroline Anderson

Author:Caroline Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-12-29T21:10:42+00:00

* * *

Emily and the children went, and the house felt weirdly empty. He reminded himself that that was a good thing, because his mother needed quiet, but it still felt somehow wrong.

His mother woke a little later and called him, and he tapped on the door and went in, to find her sitting on the edge of the bed looking helpless.

‘I can’t get dressed,’ she said crossly, and he could tell she was on the verge of tears. That shocked him, because his mother never, ever cried. Well, that wasn’t quite true. There’d been a lot of crying when his father died, but since then she’d just soldiered on. Maybe for too long...

He sat down on the bed beside her and put his arm round her shoulders. ‘It’s OK. I can help you.’

‘You can’t. Not really, not enough. I must have hurt my left wrist as well when I fell, and I’ve been lying here thinking about it, and there are all sorts of things I’m not going to be able to do for myself. I can’t even make a cup of tea, because I can’t lift a kettle with either hand, and anyway there’s all the personal stuff, like getting washed and dressed.’

‘I can help—’

‘No! Oliver, you can’t,’ she said, her voice firming up. ‘I know you’re a doctor, I know you’ve seen it all, but you haven’t seen mine, and you’re not going to. You’re my son, not my doctor, not my carer. Can you ask Emily to come and help me, please?’

He sighed quietly. He hadn’t anticipated this at all. Perhaps he should have done. ‘She’s not here.’

‘Not here?’

‘No. She’s gone home with the children for the weekend. I told her we could manage.’

‘Well, I can’t, apparently, and you aren’t going to do those things for me and that’s an end to it.’

‘So what do you suggest?’ he asked, feeling totally blindsided by this, because he really, really hadn’t thought it through.

‘I’m going to ring Catherine.’

‘Catherine?’

‘Yes, Catherine. My sister. Your aunt.’

‘I know perfectly well who you’re talking about, Mum, but what are you suggesting? That she comes and stays here?’

‘No. I’m going to ask if I can go and stay with her for a few weeks. I’m sure she’ll say yes, and it’ll give me some company in the day.’

‘Weeks? Really?’

‘Well, why not? She’s alone, I’m alone, she’s got a garden suitable for Berry, she can walk her—I don’t see what’s wrong with it. Emily will have enough to do without worrying about me and the dog, and anyway, she won’t be here in the day so what happens then?’

He frowned. ‘It might not be Emily.’

‘What do you mean? You said she was going to stay here and take over from me for a little while.’

‘She is—she was, but it’s a heck of an imposition, and I assumed you’d be here, so I was thinking of getting an au pair. She could help you, just until your other wrist is better.’

She frowned. ‘Never mind about me,

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