Charming Mr Stewart

8. Little Wounded Heart

"Stop fidgeting with that." Elle now and then eyed Maya pull at her seat belt.

"It hurts, mummy."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, it won't hurt if you leave it alone, Maya!" She pulled the car off the highway. "Here, give me a look." She clipped Maya's belt back on again. "Does it still hurt?"

Maya shook her head, rubbing her chest.

Elle took a deep breath and glanced into the rear-view mirror. The highway was getting busy and her phone rang constantly. It had forced her to switch it off. It was eleven o'clock. She had wanted to be at her parents' by eleven. The summer sun was high now, scorching her hands on the steering wheel. The air conditioner could barely keep up with the heat. A slight throb in the back of her head had started an hour ago and didn't look like it wanted to leave any sooner. And Maya was whining about the stupid belt.

She turned back to her child, on the brink of tears. "Where does it hurt?" Maya showed the reddened area where the belt had rubbed. Elle grabbed the box of tissues from the back seat, pulled out a wad, and placed it between Maya's skin and the seat belt. "Keep that there, okay? We'll be at Nana's soon."

A little less than an hour later, Elle finally pulled into the driveway at her parents'. The well-cared-for garden looked greener than those of the neighbours. Elle suspected her mother was siphoning their hoses. She suppressed a giggle and nudged Maya, who had fallen asleep.

"We're here," she whispered. She left Maya to undo her own belt and went to ring the doorbell. It was nostalgic, coming back to her childhood home. It remained her central base. Especially after Blake's untimely death when she had moved back into her attic-styled room with her toddler.

After a year of missing her husband and being the town's youngest widow, Elle had had enough. Every person, place, and thing in that community had had something to do with her police officer husband, and Elle had slowly suffocated with the pain. Out of nowhere, one day she had marched into her mother's kitchen and told them she was leaving. And, just like that, within a couple of days, she had packed and followed a van with her belongings across the countryside, to freedom and numbness.

Elle rang the bell again and watched Maya get out of the car. "Don't go on the road."

"Nana not home?" Maya bounded up the steps, refreshed.

"She has to be," Elle eyed the room upstairs, its window open and the old familiar pink curtains ruffled in the dry, hot wind. "Mum?"

Seconds later, Trish's head appeared between the curtains. "Oh, you're here! I'm coming down," she yelled.

Half an hour later, in the kitchen, Trish tended to a kettle while Elle sat on the stool, patiently waiting for Chloe's arrival.

"She should be here soon," Trish said.

"I called her before I left home," Elle pulled the cookie tin to her, fished out a chocolate chip cookie, and munched.

"Well, you know what she's like," Trish poured black tea into three cups and yelled out to her husband through the open kitchen window. "Bertie. Tea!"

She slid Elle a cup. "You've lost some weight."

"Have I?" Elle beamed, stirring in a teaspoon of sugar.

"Don't sound so smug!" Trish scolded, pouring some skim milk into her own cup. "You're going to look like one of those stick figures Maya draws, all gaunt and ugly."

Elle chuckled, imagining herself as a stick figure with long, wavy brown hair. Her mother shook the cookie tin in front of her face. She grabbed another cookie and dunked it into her tea.