Page 12 of A Spell of Midlife Mayhem

I held the phone tight for ten minutes after the nurse rang off, trying to comprehend what had happened and how that would affect Aunt Ruth’s life. How dreadful! She’d always been a bit of a recluse, but now that might become worse if she lost her mobility.

An unbidden idea crept into my mind like a prowling panther. My mother’s ghost telling me that Aunt Ruth would teach me ‘the art’, whatever that was. And now Aunt Ruth was terribly injured and would require home help after leaving hospital.

And I was half a world away.

I shuddered at the thought.

Chapter 5

I PLACED THE PHONE back on its receiver and headed for the kitchen, reeling from the news about Aunt Ruth. Her medical team could tell her what care arrangements her aunt would need, but how could she help from the other side of the world? Maybe she would require adjustments to her house for easy access. Modifications to her car—if she had a car. Did she even drive? She might need daily home help or a live-in carer.

There was too much I didn’t understand about the situation and about Aunt Ruth’s life. Whenever we talked over the phone, she asked me about my life, and in the past year, how I felt about my mother’s death.

My mother had never talked much about Aunt Ruth, and Aunt Ruth had never talked much about her sister either. She’d grown apart from her since my mother emigrated to New Zealand as a young woman.

She hadn’t shared much about her own life. Or was it that I hadn’t asked her to share a lot?

A pang of guilt swept through me. I had always been so busy that whenever I sat down to talk to someone—and especially Aunt Ruth, it seemed—I would dump my problems and frustrations on them rather than listen to theirs. I wasn’t a good niece.

Or a good friend. Perhaps that was why I didn’t see my friends often. Not only was I too busy to meet up with them, but I wasn’t there for them in a deeper sense when we did catch up. Now that I came to think about it, I only remained close to Rachel, my oldest friend.

Friendships enrich lives. I’d been so busy with work and family that I’d never stopped to appreciate the people around me. I’d lost sight of the value of close friendships, and a deeper connection with Aunt Ruth.

I made a white hot chocolate and carried it through to the living room, too rattled by the awful news about Aunt Ruth to go to bed. How long had Aunt Ruth waited until someone found her? Who found her? A dog walker? A local farmer? Whoever it was, I owed them a debt of gratitude.

If someone hadn’t come along, she might still be lying where she’d fallen. I grimaced. She could still be lying in a field in unbearable pain, unable to move, with no one knowing she was missing.

I sipped my drink. I needed to help Aunt Ruth, but could I do that from little old New Zealand, nearly twenty thousand kilometres away? I’d have to make phone calls at night because of the time difference. Or, if I wrote an email, I wouldn’t get a reply for hours.

That would make everything harder, wouldn’t it?

It would be a lot easier if I was there in the UK for a couple of weeks to help Aunt Ruth settle back into her home, while I called around and found appropriate help for her before I returned to New Zealand.

Yes, that would be best. But I hadn’t travelled much myself before, and never on my own. I’d been as far as Australia with Terry and Rose. England was a long, long way from here. Though putting it more accurately, New Zealand was a long, long way from anywhere.

I finished my drink, which had cooled somewhat because I’d forgotten about it as my concerns mounted. How could I afford the flights to the UK and back? We barely had enough to cover our weekly bills and food on my teacher’s salary.

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