Page 26 of The Secret Life of Beatrice Alright

‘That’s my mammy,’ Ellie tells him.

‘See. I told you we’d find her,’ he says as he sets Ellie down. She runs to me.

I scoop my little girl into my arms and nuzzle my face into her hair that smells cool like the frosty air outside.

‘Oh, Ellie. You scared me. Where did you go?’

‘I needed to do a wee-wee,’ she says, with a simple shrug.

‘Oh.’

‘I didn’t wet my pants or nothing,’ she continues proudly.

I look up at the man, who is still standing next to us, waiting either to be thanked or dismissed or both.

‘Where did you find her?’ I ask, still shaking.

‘The car park.’

I inhale sharply. ‘Oh, Ellie, no. What did we say about cars?’

‘They’re dangerous,’ Ellie parrots.

‘I don’t think she meant to cause any trouble,’ Mr stranger with an unusual accent says. Dublin, but with a hint of somewhere in America sticking to some of his words.

‘Well, thank you,’ I finally say. ‘Thank you very much. I’m so grateful you brought her back inside. I was worried sick.’

‘Ellie told me you work here, so we knew we’d find you.’

‘Oh, did she?’

I cringe, realising my many warnings about not talking to strangers have clearly fallen on deaf ears.

‘Don’t be too hard on her,’ he says, ‘I think she got just as much of a fright.’

I wasn’t planning to be hard on Ellie. Every second of this mess is my fault. I never should have left a four-year-old alone in a damn broom cupboard all day; but something about thisstranger telling me how to parent my daughter rubs me the wrong way.

‘Well, as I said, thank you very much for your help, Mr…?’

‘Shayne,’ Ellie says, introducing him with a gummy smile.

Ellie and Shayne seem better acquainted than I would like.

‘Thank you, Shayne,’ I try again and I wait for him to acknowledge my gratitude and leave.

‘You know, you should really have a word with the crèche. Anything could have happened to Ellie out there.’ He throws his thumb over his shoulder, towards the car park.

‘Oh, we don’t have a crèche on-site,’ Órlaith says and I can almost see the cogs in her brain turning. Now that the panic is over, I have no doubt she is wondering what Ellie is doing here in the first place.

‘Oh.’ He half smiles, befuddled. ‘But Ellie said you worked here.’

I want to tell him he already said that, but instead I unzip an uncomfortable smile and say, ‘I didn’t just leave my child running around a car park while I was working, if that’s what you’re implying.’

‘I wasn’t.’ He folds his arms. ‘But, since you mention it, I did find her alone in the car park. And you were working.’

‘Who says I was working? I didn’t.’

He’s staring at my uniform. Órlaith’s eyes are on me too and I will her to keep her mouth shut. Thankfully, it’s Ellie who speaks.

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