Tuesday.
Home a little after six. Keys in the bowl, shoes off, and she was already in the kitchen doorway before I'd straightened up. Pen behind her ear. Grinning — I hadn't seen that grin in days.
Mum. My classmate wants the roll-ons.
Which roll-ons? I said, bag still on my shoulder.
The Scion roll-ons, she said. The ones in the hallway drawer. Every one we've got.
She must have said something at school. Some small, offhand thing between classes. Didn't ask what. Didn't want to spoil it.
Friday I'm back at school anyway, she said. I'll just take them.
Said it the way she says everything useful — flat, quick, as if it were nothing at all.
Stood there in the hallway doing the sum.
Not Penny. Penny is still thinking it over, kindly, a few weeks at a time. Not anyone I'd have guessed, either. A seventeen-year-old's friend, and a school bag.
My first order.
It's been a tight few days. Since Thursday, really — Mum's pills, the counting, the phone face-up on every surface in case Dad rang. Hadn't noticed how high I was carrying my shoulders until they came down an inch, right there between the shoe rack and the fridge.
She didn't make a speech. She doesn't. No I'm proud of you, no big look.
Just a day, a plan, and a bag.
Funny. In this house, support turns up as logistics.
Her first paper is a week away now. A week. Nothing I can do about the studying — can't sit the exam for her, can't even test her on the Modern History dates anymore without getting an eye-roll. So I did what I can.
Soup. Sweet corn, carrot, a little lean pork, a few slices of ginger, the pot on low with the lid left slightly open. Nourishing, nothing too heating. The kind that fills the flat with a smell like someone's taking care of things.
And the driving, of course. Drop-offs, pick-ups, the long wait outside with the engine off. Somebody's got to be the car park attendant.
Everyone has a job this week. Hers is to study. Mine is soup and the keys.
Took the roll-ons out of the drawer and lined them up on the bench. Counted them. Then stood there a while, not counting.
Haven't thought yet what to charge a seventeen-year-old's friend.
Or how you hand something over, the first time.
Stirred the soup instead.