Out of Time (Face the Music Book 3) Read online

  He plugged in her phone charger and set up her tablet on its stand. At least she could listen to audio books. They’d bought some last night. Him reading out the titles because she couldn’t, not easily anyway. She described it as having a black cloud right where she wanted to see.

  There was a knock on the door and a nurse came in. ‘Hi Mrs Peterson, I’m Ava. I’m one of the nurses. I just wanted to stop by and see if there was anything you needed.’

  Mike turned around at the overly happy voice. How could she work in a place like this and be happy? She smiled at him—it was a professional smile with just a hint of frost.

  He returned it. Not thrilled with the interruption.

  ‘Call me Irene. This is my son Michael.’

  Mike nodded at the nurse. She was a dainty thing, dark hair in a bun, brown eyes and honey brown skin. That his second thought was how easy it would be to pick her up and fuck her against the wall was all bad. He wasn’t becoming the kind of guy he hated, he was already there.

  But she was pretty and entirely too nice for him. Too smart as well. There was a reason the nice girls, the girls he’d like as a girlfriend, were avoiding him. Women had a sixth sense about dicks, and guys who thought with their dicks, and thought of little else but where they could stick their dick. Somehow, he didn’t remember when or where he’d become that person.

  Had it been a slow slide into sleaze? It must have been, because he didn’t remember making that decision. Maybe he’d been drunk at the time.

  ‘Mike.’ He managed to say it without looking at her in case he revealed too much about the lower levels of his mind.

  ‘Aren’t you good for helping your mother?’

  He glanced at Ava; sure he hadn’t missed the condescending tone in her voice.

  ‘Mike’s always there for me.’ His mother smiled at him.

  It was just him being overly sensitive about the whole thing. Apparently he was the only one not okay with his mother moving into a hospice for the last few months of her life.

  She’d been very blunt when telling him that. Given him the facts so he had nowhere left to turn. Part of him was glad it was all on the table, the rest of him wanted to hide under his blankets … which is kind of what he’d been doing but he wasn’t squeezing a teddy in bed.

  Ava regarded him coolly, as if she knew exactly the kind of person he was. He tried not to fidget as he held her gaze. She looked away first.

  It didn’t feel like a win.

  ‘I’ll come back a little later and take you on a tour, if you’re up for it.’

  ‘I’m not bedridden yet, and I don’t plan on hiding in here either.’

  Ava’s smile turned warm, but it wasn’t directed at him. ‘Good. I’ll see you later, Irene.’

  Mike watched her walk away. He looked at his mother but she’d returned to hanging up her clothes. He finished unpacking the other suitcase, knowing that his mother was going to send him on his way as soon as he was done.

  An hour later he walked back into the dry heat of the January heatwave. Day five of temperatures over forty degrees, the heat had to break soon. He scratched his beard, almost tempted to shave it off. He walked over to the car and unlocked it. A wave of hot air shimmered out.

  He picked the papers up off the seat and sat behind the steering wheel. Her handwriting was perfect. She’d filled them out and left the pen clipped to them, 0--- ready for this moment. She’d had it all planned out.

  He folded his arms over the steering wheel. Alone he let the dam break.

  ***

  When Ava went back to see Irene she was sitting on the bed. She didn’t look so confident now her son had gone. Lazy man, ditching his mother when she needed him most.

  She sounded just like her grandmother. That was more than a little disturbing. The last person she wanted to sound like was the judgemental matriarch of the family.

  Ava knocked on the open door. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘First time in care?’ People didn’t always cope with the change. For many it was a temporary stay on their road to recovery. For others their last stop.

  Irene nodded. ‘And last.’

  Oh. That made Ava a little sadder. ‘I’m sure Mike will be back.’

  Irene laughed. ‘I know he will.’

  Ava hoped that was true. She’d seen it go the other way too many times. Out of sight and out of mind. It would never happen in her family—even though it was nice to imagine not having to deal with her argumentative grandmother on a daily basis.

  ‘Would you like to go for a walk around?’

  ‘Yes. I need to learn where everything is before my eyesight goes.’ Irene stood up. Her short blonde hair was neatly styled. She didn’t look like she was dying. That was the hardest part.

  Ava took Irene through the centre. They talked about the kind of care she currently needed and what would happen. Irene was too calm about the whole thing, but her brave façade had fallen away.

  ‘It’s okay to be scared.’ They were standing in the shade of the veranda.

  ‘I’m not worried about dying. I faced that eight years ago. It was only a matter of time until it grew back. I’m scared for Mike. He gave up his dreams last time and I don’t want him to do that again. I don’t want to leave him alone.’

  Ava wanted to ask about her husband, but Irene wore no ring and she’d mentioned no other siblings.

  ‘This wasn’t Mike’s idea?’

  ‘No. Far from it.’ Irene looked at her. ‘He held my hand last time. I have to let him go this time.’

  This was a woman who had looked at death and decided that she was going to do it on her terms and no one else’s. Ava respected that. She’d have been kicking and screaming and showing zero regard for what others thought. Her grandmother would be horrified by the performance. She was generally horrified with everything Ava did. That she was unmarried and working as a nurse, of all things, was a terrible waste. Her father and grandmother had both suggested that she’d be better off going back to university and becoming a doctor since she wasn’t even trying to get a husband. They were hoping that if she was a doctor it would improve her prospects and more men would be interested in her.

  At twenty-four she was too old and now too unqualified to be a desirable bride for the men her grandmother deemed suitable. If that meant the old busybody stopped thrusting well-connected Indian men in their thirties at her, it would be wonderful.

  She wanted to be married about as much as she wanted to be bitten by a redback spider again. Which was not at all.

  If Mike was the good son Irene said he was, she’d be nicer to him. He had looked rather shell-shocked, which wasn’t the expression of a man off-loading a burden. Perhaps she had misjudged him.

  ‘Did you want to tell me about Mike?’

  Irene gave a little laugh. ‘You don’t have to try and be my friend.’

  ‘Maybe I’m just nosy.’ If she’d met Mike elsewhere, she’d have given herself a little time to check him out before moving on.

  She liked to hear the stories of other people’s lives. The things they regretted and the things that they’d wished they’d done.

  There were things she wanted to do but hadn’t dared. She’d been born in Australia, her father had been born in Australia … but her grandmother still acted as though they were living in India, and wanted her granddaughters to marry a good Indian man and not repeat her mistake of marrying an Aussie.

  What Ava wanted didn’t seem to matter.

  Chapter 3

  When Ava got home her mother was in the kitchen. She’d obviously only just gotten home as she was still chopping up vegetables.

  ‘Do you need a hand?’

  ‘Almost done.’ Her mother diced an onion at a speed Ava had yet to master, or even come close to.

  ‘She could’ve done this for you.’ Ava washed her hands, ready to help.

  ‘Don’t complain about what can’t be changed.’

  ‘Hmm. It could change though, i
f we complained.’

  Grandmother was at home all day, meddling and thinking up new ways to cause trouble instead of helping. That was a very uncharitable thought so Ava kept her mouth closed. She didn’t need the extra trouble that would come with voicing her dissent, as it would whip around and bite her firmly on the butt.

  Her mother shook her head.

  ‘You have the patience of a saint.’ She kissed her mother’s cheek. Whereas she was a bitch; even if she didn’t say most of what she thought, she still had those thoughts. Nice people didn’t think like that.

  ‘I have learned to choose my battles. Did you get your new roster?’

  Ava nodded. No one was going to like it but her. ‘I have to work Sundays.’

  ‘So no church.’ Her mother didn’t look at her.

  She was disappointed. It rolled off her in waves that threatened to drown Ava. Of all the people she did disappoint, she hated hurting her mother the most.

  How could she sit there and listen to a priest when she no longer believed a word he said? Surely that was the bigger sin?

  ‘No church?’ Grandmother bustled in. Papers clutched to her chest.

  ‘I have to work.’ There was no point it sugar-coating it. Perhaps her grandmother would choke on it. Stop being a bitch. Pity her because she has nothing else to do with her life but prod other people’s lives. She must be miserable on the inside. She tried to imagine what it must be like to be Grandmother … but it was hard when the old woman seemed to derive so much pleasure in the trouble she stirred up.

  Ava looked at her grandmother. She’d been a malignant presence in her life ever since she’d moved in twelve years ago.

  Her grandmother acted appalled, as if she might faint at the idea. Ava crossed her arms and waited for the tirade.

  ‘How can they make you work on the Lord’s day? It’s not right that they stop you from going to church. Isn’t your boss a Christian?’

  Ava glanced at her mother, who was biting her lip as if to stop herself from laughing. Grandmother’s performance wasn’t new, just over the top.

  ‘I’m sure that God will forgive me as I provide care and comfort to the dying.’ She said the words by rote. How many times had they been around this track? ‘Hospice care is hardly the devil’s work.’ There was no way that she was going to admit to asking for the Sunday shift.

  Her grandmother’s mouth flapped a couple of times. ‘Well, all your compassion won’t save you as you sit in purgatory for eternity.’

  Ava didn’t need to wait, she was already there. There was no escape from the torment.

  ‘Of course, if you were a doctor,’ Grandmother sighed dramatically. ‘You wouldn’t have to work on Sundays and you could attend church.’

  Ava bit her tongue. She was not going to take the bait. She would not give her the satisfaction of starting another fight.

  Grandmother narrowed her eyes. Then she thrust the papers at Ava. ‘What is this?’

  Ava looked at the papers, then wished the ground would open up and take her straight to the hell she wasn’t sure existed.

  ‘It looks like the packaging from the menstrual cup I bought. Did you fish it out of the bin?’ Her cheeks must be flaming red and her voice had taken on a slightly squeaky tone. She sounded more like a mouse than a lion full of confidence.

  ‘You are a rude girl. I found it. What is this cup?’

  ‘You shouldn’t go through the rubbish, Mother.’ Ava’s mother put down the knife and glared at her mother-in-law. ‘You have no right to go through Ava’s things.’

  ‘Someone has to watch the girl. This cup will take her virginity. Then what will we do? No one will marry her. She will never get married,’ Grandmother said, as though that was the worst thing that could happen.

  Oh for God’s sake.

  Ava snatched the papers out of her grandmother’s hand and stuffed them in the bin. ‘I’m not discussing how I deal with my period, or what I put in my vagina, with you. In fact, my body is none of your concern. My self-worth and value as a person doesn’t lie between my legs.’

  Grandmother crossed herself. ‘You are a wicked girl. I have been working so hard to find you a good husband and you ruin yourself.’

  She’d ruined herself plenty of times. Masturbation was also frowned on. She remembered coming home from sex ed at school with extra questions, only to be told that it was shameful and disgusting. For a while she’d believed her grandmother.

  ‘What if I don’t want a husband?’

  ‘You would deny me the chance to be a great grandmother?’

  Yes was not the right answer to say aloud. But it was tempting.

  One. Two. Three. Breathe.

  She swallowed the words and looked to her mother for support, but knew she wouldn’t get any. Her father would hear a modified version of this from his mother and then he’d speak to his wife and she’d bear the brunt of failing to keep her wilful daughter under control.

  ‘You expect me to live my life to please you? Do you realise how egocentric that is?’

  ‘I’m your elder. You have to listen and respect me.’ The old woman drew herself up, but still wasn’t as tall as Ava.

  The anger she’d been keeping hold of broke free. ‘Respect is earned.’

  Grandmother gasped and Ava walked away before she said anything else that she would regret. There would be trouble knocking soon enough. She shut her bedroom door and glanced around her room. An argument was now happening in the kitchen. Grandmother had been in Australia for over fifty years. Ava’s father had been born here. And yet coming home felt as though she was stepping back into the dark ages. She envied her Australian friends’ easy life. They dated and did what they wanted and no one caused them grief.

  While she’d had a secret boyfriend at uni, it had fallen apart because she didn’t want to sleep with him. No, she had wanted to sleep with him but it hadn’t felt right.

  Her only other boyfriends had been met at church and judged as acceptable by her family.

  She was tired of trying to obey and pleasing no one, least of all herself.

  She glanced around her room and wondered how many times her privacy had been invaded while she was at work. She needed a lock.

  No. She needed to move out.

  That would probably get her disowned.

  Her heart fluttered with excitement at the idea.

  She needed to start looking. She picked up her laptop and typed in the password. Then she changed the password, just in case. Grandmother wasn’t stupid and she could use a computer, even if she feigned otherwise.

  Ava didn’t notice when the fighting stopped, but she heard the tap on her door. It wouldn’t be Grandmother coming to make peace.

  ‘It’s me,’ her mother said through the door.

  ‘Come in, Mum.’

  Her mother opened the door and drew in a breath that was part resignation and part steeling herself for what needed to be said. Ava was used to it so she waited for her mother to speak.

  ‘You shouldn’t goad her.’ Her mother’s voice was calm, as though she hadn’t just been arguing with her mother-in-law about how she should be raising her daughters.

  ‘She shouldn’t be so nosy.’

  Her mother looked at the screen, but didn’t say anything. This wasn’t the first time Ava had looked at other places to live. But this time she meant it. She had money in the bank and she could actually do it.

  ‘She was out of line about the cup.’

  ‘You reckon? She is out of line and out of date and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of her trying to set me up and I’m tired of her meddling. I’m just done.’ Once it was said aloud she realised it was true. This wasn’t a hissy fit or a knee jerk reaction, or even about choosing her battles. She didn’t want to pick them, so she was packing up and leaving the battleground before she was ground down into the mud.

  ‘You don’t have to move out.’

  She didn’t have to, but for her own sanity she was going to. ‘Yeah I do. It’s ti
me I did. I can’t live here forever.’

  ‘Only until you marry.’ But her mother was smiling. ‘Your father and I were introduced. No one is forcing you.’

  ‘I want to be able to date and do what I want, without her peering over my shoulder and going through my room.’

  ‘You can date.’

  ‘Can I? Can you imagine the performance if I brought a boyfriend around that she hadn’t approved of? The insinuations.’ That her grandmother still considered being a virgin a virtue was almost enough to make get out there and lose it. She wasn’t getting any younger, her friends were out there having fun … and having their hearts broken … and she was missing out.

  No man was going to keep it in his pants to share the experience with her. The double standard irked her. And the more Grandmother harped on, the more the annoyance festered.

  Her mother sighed. ‘Be sure, because your father and your grandmother will not be welcoming if you need to come back.’

  Her mother would welcome her back, but no one else would. They probably wouldn’t let her through the door. It cut to know that following the rules was more important than her happiness.

  If she didn’t do it this time, would she ever? How far did she let herself get pushed before she no longer had the strength to get back up? If she stayed, Grandmother would wear her down.

  It had to be done. ‘I’m sure.’

  ***

  Mike threw himself into working, then seeing his mother and then going around to Ed’s to work on the songs that would eventually become the second album. By the time he got home it was midnight. Then he’d wake up six hours later and repeat. It was a brutal schedule that left him exhausted and with no time to think.

  It was exactly what he needed.

  On Saturday night he went out with Dan. Or at least, he’d wanted to. Dan had already been drunk when Mike had showed up at the flat. His flat that Dan was turning into a bit of a swamp while he stayed there. Instead of clubbing, he’d sat on the sofa and got drunk with Dan while they watched action flicks and avoided talking and therefore arguing about the dumb shit they had been fighting about. It wasn’t the same as clubbing. And it wasn’t fun.