Free Other People’s Diaries by Kathy Webb Page A

expected to get this far, had thought that Jeremy would wake and the decision would be taken out of her hands. The consequences of this would be horrendous, she knew that. But she could face them tonight, once she’d nailed this placement.
    Her eyes found her keys she’d tossed on the counter the previous night. Slowly she walked across and weighed them in her hand.
    Could she really do this?
    It wasn’t as though she was abandoning anyone. She wasleaving Bianca and Sam with Jeremy. Sam was his responsibility as much as hers. And Bianca hadn’t let anyone look after her for years.
    Decision made, she stepped into her skirt and pulled the suit jacket over her pyjamas. She’d shower at work. She always kept make-up and toiletries there for when she went to the gym. The gym that had averaged two hundred dollars a visit this year, given her level of attendance.
    Rebecca pulled the magnetised shopping list off the fridge. She drew out the pencil. I’m sorry, but I just had to go to work , she scrawled.
    She hesitated. Her usual sign-off, I love you , seemed wildly inappropriate, but its omission seemed even worse. Love, Rebecca , she finished finally.
    Her handbag was next to the front door and she slung it over her shoulder. Without looking around, she opened the door. With a soft click, she closed it carefully behind her.

L illian took a deep breath, pulling air down into her lungs. It was cool, but warm whispers promised a hot day. Spring had lasted for only a heartbeat and already the long summer was underway.
    She walked faster, relishing the feeling of her muscles stretching, her stride covering the ground easily. Her first thought each morning was whether or not the dizziness and loss of balance were back. Each time she swung her feet to the ground without the feeling that the world was tipping around her, she felt a rush of relief.
    Around Lillian the city still slept. A morning walk had been her ritual for years. It had begun when Kyla and Daniel were small. She would bundle them out of the door early with three bananas stuffed in a plastic bag. They’d walk down the street to the creek, its bank shrouded in scrub.
    In the early days she’d sing to them. She’d sing different things – children’s songs and her own favourites. But it was always the morning song they asked for, the song she made up as she went along and was different each day. She’d delight them with references to themselves, and her memories of those mornings were of laughter and her arms wrapped around both of them.
    As with so many other things, though, the children had grown out of it without her quite noticing when it happened. One dayshe had realised they hadn’t sung the morning song for a week and that most of the time she sat by herself while they climbed the trees and chased each other madly. And then the children had started sleeping in, not wanting to leave their beds.
    So Lillian had started going alone. She’d been walking these streets for years, yet she never tired of it. She never went the same way, never saw the same thing. Except for Ross of course. Regardless of which way she walked she always saw him.
    As if her thoughts had conjured him up, his tiny van appeared around the corner. He had to have spotted her in plenty of time. The street was long and straight and there wasn’t another soul about. But Ross only began to slow down twenty metres from her, the piercing whine of his brakes hanging in the morning air.
    Ross reminded her of a six year old boy, testing his nerve and his BMX to see how long he could make a skidmark. Far from worrying about the people sleeping in the nearby houses, he seemed to delight in as much early-morning noise as possible. Lillian smiled and stepped off the road.
    â€˜Lillian!’ he called out of the window. ‘How are you this beautiful morning?’
    â€˜I’m fine, Ross,’ Lillian smiled. ‘And