The Hibiscus Road School was perfect. It was the only non-Catholic school in the area with the reputation for discipline the Stones were looking for and, most importantly, it was a good thirty minute drive from the school most of the children in the area would be attending. Bill thought it best to separate Samantha from her former classmates and give her a fresh start, but Anne couldn’t see the point. So far as she could tell, human nature hadn’t changed much since she was a kid; when it came to reputation, word of mouth travelled faster than a station wagon.
When the school year began, Bill left Anne in charge, confident that he had done his part. In the past year, he had left his role as a government penny-minder and thrown himself into the private sector with gusto. A skilled freelance accountant stood to make a lot of money if he was willing to put in the hours, and private school cost a lot of money. An added incentive was time apart from his wife. His daily attempts at a goodbye kiss were thwarted without fail by a turn of her cold, exquisite cheek, her stiff shoulders and straight back bringing down the boom gates on any chance that his passion might ever be reciprocated. His love hadn’t diminished a drop since the day they met, but it was draining from her like lukewarm water through a sieve.
The first day of school was just as Anne remembered it. A gaggle of mothers were struggling to part with an assortment of eager and/or terrified children. The well-adjusted kids tore off into the playground with their friends before their mothers had a chance to wipe the lipstick from their faces, and the ones who clung to their mother’s skirts were comforted and bribed and cajoled through the gate like little death row inmates being led to the gallows. Anne had only been five for a month before the school bell summoned her for the first time, and her mother would have dragged her back home for another year of tea parties and dress-ups without her father wrenching lose her iron grip. Anne wondered what it was like, the bereavement of being separated from one’s child.
‘Right then, I’ll be back to pick you up at four o’clock.’
Without kneeling to meet her daughter at her level, or even bending, Anne looked down into the emerald eyes that were, unnervingly, identical to hers. The urge to take the child into her arms and kiss away whatever fear she might be feeling should have been overwhelming, but the thought of touching the unresponsive, alien skin any more than was absolutely necessary repulsed her to the core.
‘Off you go.’
Samantha shuffled past the swings and slide and sat down on a bench at the edge of a bed of petunias. The cheerful floral faces seemed to raise to meet with the stoic face of the child whose mother had all but rejected her. Anne turned on her heel and left with her head held high, ignoring the murmurs of condemnation from the other mothers as she passed by.
‘Cold fish, that one.’
‘Not a motherly bone in her body.’
‘Poor little dear.’
Anne could hardly blame them for what they must have been thinking. They had every reason to sit comfortably in judgement. They were dutiful, loving women who were deservedly blessed with healthy, lively children.
Good luck to you, Anne thought.
I hope they fall off the swings and crack their fat little heads open.
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