Esti and I slumped through the next two days at work and school. I was looking forward to Esti breaking up for the holidays; I desperately felt like she needed a rest, a proper break. She told me that Beth was still acting fine, which unsettled me greatly. I couldn't help but feel like that was leading up to something worse.
To add to the stress, Holly was relentless when I got back to the office on Thursday morning; she demanded a rundown of the entire event before I had time to take my coat off. And on the Friday she pulled me into three more meetings and committed me to four more trips between January and February.
'You are aware we have other photographers here, aren't you Holly?' I said, my sharp, angry tongue getting the better of me.
'Yes, but Ronnie dear, none of them are you. International representation, I thought this was important to you?'
I didn't respond; I went to my office and slammed the door in frustration. And then I felt stupid, like an immature teenager again. I only had another week until I had to leave for Budapest; I'd be returning late on Christmas Eve. An infuriated exasperation propelled from my lungs as I sat at my desk and watched the next few months of my travel calendar fill up with red entries. I stared at it, I stared at it and stared at it.
And then I knew what I had to do. So, before I left work on Friday... I did it.
I left work on that afternoon elated, I even left early; so early, that I told Esti I could pick Daniel up from nursery.
That would be amazing, sweetheart. He'd love that. Xx
Excellent, do you need to tell nursery I'm getting him? xx
Not anymore. X
I had no idea what she meant by that, but I was just going into a tunnel and I lost signal, so I didn't have time to ask her.
When I arrived at Daniel's nursery, he ran to me and called me 'mum' again. That seemed to be what he'd settled on over the past two days. Esti was 'mummy', and I was 'mum'. I was still very much in the early stages of adjusting to it.
The night before, Esti had just left for the shop for some garlic and tomatoes, and I heard Daniel call out from his bedroom.
'Mum?... Muuuum?'
'She's just popped ou-' I called back, but then I remembered. I went to him immediately; he wanted to show me that he'd spilt an entire cup of juice over his bed. 'Ah...'
'Dropped it.' He said, scratching his cheek and holding the empty cup.
'You did.'
'Sorry.'
'Do you see now why mummy doesn't let you have juice in your room?'
'Ah... yes.'
I changed his bedding before Esti got back.
At nursery, one of the smiley attendants approached me, Daniel was still in my arms.
'Hi there,' she said in her jolly way. 'You must be Ronit?'
'That's me, yes. Hi.'
'My name is Julia, it's lovely to meet you Ronit. It's great you're here actually, because we've got something for you to sign, if you have time?'
She was so polite, I felt I didn't have a choice. 'Of course, what is it?'
'Oh brilliant! It's just a guardian form. Just this way, thanks so much, that's great.'
I followed her further inside the long nursery hallway.
'Tha's Julia.' Daniel told me as he pointed ahead.
