Page 26 of The Inn on Bluebell Lane
“I almost did,” Ava replied, and then stuck her thumb in her mouth. “School’s long,” she told Ellie, speaking around her finger, so her words were garbled. “And I don’t like sitting on the rug for story time.”
“I’m sure there were lots of nice toys to play with,” Ellie replied, trying to rally, even though her heart had sunk right down to her toes when she’d heard about her oldest daughter. “Is your teacher very nice?” she asked Ava.
Ava shrugged, her thumb still in her mouth. “She’s okay. Jess was really grumpy.” Spoken with relish, like only a younger sibling could.
“I see.” Ellie had had such hopes that the first day would have been, if not brilliant, then at least okay. Adequate. She’d so wanted her daughter to find a friend, or someone who could be a friend one day. Or even had a class with an inspiring teacher, or at least liked the food in the cafeteria. Something. “And Ben?” she asked Gwen, stroking Ava’s hair.
“Yes, he seemed all right. He played football with some boys. That was as much as I got out of him.” Gwen gave her a tired smile. “The house is sound, thankfully. John came back and showed me around just now. The two rooms affected have been closed off—your bedroom and the guest room beneath. We took out all your clothes and things, and I’ve put them in a room downstairs. John says nothing is actually dangerous, as long as we keep out of those rooms.”
“That’s good to hear.” Thank heavens for small mercies, Ellie thought. At least she’d have her pajamas for bedtime. “Thank you for doing that. I’ll just go see how the others got on today.” She was desperate to check in with the children, find out for herself how they’d managed. Maybe Jess’s day hadn’t been that bad, after all…
“They didn’t really tell me much, I’m afraid,” Gwen said, like an apology. “Supper’s in a few minutes. Bacon pasta.” She smiled at Ava. “Ava, darling, do you want to help me stir the sauce?”
“Thanks, Gwen.” Ellie headed into the hallway as Ava ran over to help her grandmother.
As Ellie mounted the stairs, she breathed in the plaster dust still lingering in the air and tried not to cough. It could have been so much worse, she reminded herself, and yet when she dared to peek into her bedroom and saw the jagged, gaping hole in the middle of the floor, she had to acknowledge this was pretty bad. How much would it cost to fix that, on top of the other renovations? When would they be able to be back in their room? Closing the door again, and locking it for good measure, she decided she’d think about all that later, and went in search of Josh, Ben, and Jess.
“Hey, Josh.” Her younger son was lying on his bed, reading a Horrible Histories book. Ben was on the other, playing on his iPad. Ellie perched on the edge of Josh’s bed and smiled at him. “How was school?”
He shrugged, his gaze glued to the book. “Okay.”
Okay was better than some of the other words he could have used, Ellie told herself. Josh could be so quiet, so sensitive. When he found something he loved, he was full of enthusiasm, but his first instinct was to hang back, wait and observe. Even in Connecticut, it had taken him a while to make friends, and she worried about him here. What if he wasn’t able to find a friend?
“Is your teacher nice?” she tried again, and Josh just shrugged. He clearly wasn’t in a talking mood, and she knew there was little point in pushing him. Ellie turned to Ben. “What about you, Ben? Good day at school?”
“Yeah. Okay.” He didn’t look up from his screen.
“Granny said you played soccer?”
“Football, Mom,” Ben replied in a joking, put-on British accent, and Ellie smiled.
“Right, football, darling,” she replied in the same sort of voice. “Spot on.”
Josh gave a little giggle, and Ellie’s smile deepened. It was moments like this one, simple and small as it was, that lightened her heart and made her able to face the next day.
“So you made a few friends, playing football?” she asked Ben, and he rolled his eyes.
“I mean, I hardly know them, but, yeah, I guess.”
That was as emotional as he was going to get, Ellie thought wryly, but she was satisfied. She decided to go in search of Jess, beard that lion in her den.
“All right, you two,” she said as she rose from Josh’s bed. “Dinner’s in a few minutes and no screens afterward, okay? Ben? Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” he replied, and she had a feeling he hadn’t taken in a word she’d said.
When Ellie went to find Jess, her older daughter was curled up on her bed, her back to Ellie, a pillow clutched to her chest. Ellie’s heart ached at the sight of her.
“Jess?” she asked gently as she came into the room. “How was your first day of school?”
“Horrible,” she replied in a muffled voice. “I hate everything about it. Everything. I don’t want to be here. It completely and totally stinks.”
Ellie hesitated, unsure what tone to take when Jess was clearly feeling so emotional. Sympathetic? Bracing? It was so hard to know sometimes how to pitch it. She sat on the edge of the bed and touched her daughter’s back, but she flinched away. “First days are always hard, aren’t they,” she murmured. Hers hadn’t been much better than her daughter’s, all things considered.
“As if you know.” Jess hunched her shoulders further, away from Ellie. “You’ve never moved halfway across the world, to the lamest place ever.”
“No,” Ellie agreed equably. “You’re right, I haven’t, at least not before now. But I did start a new school when I was thirteen, where I didn’t know anyone, and that was pretty hard.” She still remembered the sinking feeling in her stomach, like a pit opening up inside her, when she’d walked into the cafeteria that first lunchtime and seen a sea of tables without a single empty seat. Was there anything more dispiriting than having nowhere to sit in a middle-school cafeteria? Was that what Jess had faced today—or worse?
“It’s not the same,” Jess said, still clutching her pillow. “It wasn’t a different country.”