Page 18 of A Spell of Midlife Mayhem

I shook off those crazy thoughts. Maybe I’d even imagined the whole thing, simply conjured the image of my dead mother because I was stressed and exhausted and lonely and needed someone to talk to. Even my mother. Yes, maybe that was it.

But more than once?

Unlikely.

Chapter 7

I WOKE UP IN THE EARLY dawn with a cricked neck, pins and needles in my arms and (for some unknown reason) in my butt, and a spilled half cup of chocolate. Dammit. I’d fallen asleep with my head on my arms on the kitchen table again soon after Rose had called. Perhaps Panadeine and alcohol don’t mix. I hadn’t checked.

Gingerly, I got up and stretched. That was better. My body had been through considerable trauma in the past couple of weeks with the hysterectomy, but I was recovering and regaining energy daily. Sleeping at the table wasn’t sensible, but at least I could still move. That had to be positive for a Monday morning.

I cleaned up the spillage, had my blood pressure medications and got myself some coffee and breakfast. The buttered toast crunched as I ate. Would my mother’s ghost come back? I finished eating. When she hadn’t appeared, I tried again to convince myself she had been a hallucination. It didn’t work.

I had a shower and changed into something that didn’t look like I’d slept in it. Jeans, a white top and a grey merino wool sweater. Thanks to my waking early, I wasn’t rushed. Another cup of coffee would be helpful in easing me towards moderate alertness. Monday mornings weren’t my favourite times of the week.

After making my drink, I went into the living room. The pile of unmarked assignments appeared before me like a tower of guilt. I hadn’t even started on them.

For a few moments, my heart rate increased and butterflies swarmed in my stomach. The assignments had to be returned today. I had no desire to mark them, but Graham would be upset and the principal would be angry if I didn’t.

Screw them.

I was tired of doing the work of others and not be acknowledged for it. I’d worked for more than a decade at that school and been passed over for promotion at least twice for more junior and less capable colleagues. I’d always been expected to do extra work for those who didn’t want to do it themselves.

And, at home, I’d spent twenty years looking after my lazy, unappreciative husband who’d thanked me by cheating on me because I couldn’t provide him with sex for six weeks after my hysterectomy. Or maybe even since he’d lost his job months before.

Not anymore.

A newfound confidence welled within me after this epiphany. I was a capable, and now independent, woman. Maybe I was hesitant about trying new things, but right now, I had no choice. Best make the most of it. View the situation as an opportunity, not as an obstacle.

What had been in those cocktails last night to give me this new self-belief? Or had it been whatever Rachel or Rose had said? Which was what, exactly? I was hazy on the details because of the aforementioned cocktails and the fact that it was early on a Monday morning.

I gathered the dreaded assignments and headed out to the car. The driveway was empty. I huffed, exasperated. I didn’t have a car anymore. Terry had it. Shit. I still wasn’t used to being without the reliable old Toyota. Why had I let him take it?

There was no way I could walk to school with that pile of papers under my arm, especially so recently after my hysterectomy, so I had no choice but to call for a taxi if I wanted to get there.

But why should I have to do that? I changed my mind. I wouldn’t go to school. Graham and Bruce were part of the problems in my life. They took advantage of me in a professional sense. Going back to teaching there would put me right back in the same situation. I could do without this stress right now.

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