My Mother's Secret by Julia Roberts

Author:Julia Roberts [Roberts, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800192751
Published: 2021-01-27T05:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

Wednesday, 9 January

All morning I’ve been making valiant attempts to stifle the yawns brought on by a lack of sleep last night. I hope none of the patrons in the library have noticed the weird expressions I’ve been pulling as I’ve gone about my duties. Maxine hasn’t said anything, but she did bring me a black coffee for my elevenses an hour ago, which she handed over with a knowing wink. I am so lucky to have such an understanding boss.

Wednesday is my favourite day of the week as we have Ella, a university student, come in from midday to help out. That means it’s the one day that Maxine and I can sit down to lunch together. I can’t wait for lunchtime to come as not only am I really hungry, having missed breakfast because I overslept and then had a mad rush to get the girls to school, there are also a few things I want to run past her today.

Eventually, 12.30 arrives and I leave Ella holding the fort while I head to the kitchen. Maxine already has the kettle on.

‘More coffee?’ she asks, raising her eyebrows. ‘Or are you awake enough to have a tea now?’

I normally have only one or two cups of coffee a day so I’m feeling pretty wired after my third one. It’s a relief to be able to switch to my usual beverage.

‘Tea would be great,’ I say. ‘I think I can make it through the rest of the day without any further hits of caffeine.’

‘There’s caffeine in tea, you know,’ she says, pulling the box of PG Tips out of the cupboard. ‘Just not in the same quantity as coffee.’

‘You’d be great to have on a pub quiz team with all the little snippets of information you store,’ I say reaching into the fridge for our sandwiches. ‘Not that Ben and I have been to the pub on quiz night lately, or any other night for that matter. Cheese and pickle or egg mayo, or shall we have one of each?’

‘Happy to share if you are,’ she says, in a tone of voice that suggests she’s not only talking about the sandwiches.

I get two plates and divide the sandwiches out while Maxine adds milk to our teas and then we sit munching in comfortable silence for a couple of minutes before I take the plunge.

‘This whole thing with Mum and her stillborn baby is moving at quite a pace now. Remember I told you that Grace, the receptionist at Beechmede Hospital, said the records office could take weeks or even months to look into things? Well, they rang yesterday as I was leaving Mum’s to collect the girls from school and guess what?’

‘Don’t tell me they’ve found where Jason is buried?’ Maxine says, pausing with her sandwich halfway to her mouth.

‘Not exactly, but they have given me his hospital number and they also said that there was only one area that the groundsman used for burials because the rest of the hospital grounds are prone to flooding.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.