It all started with Freshers.....

Part Thirteen - Moving in

We moved in together at the beginning of February. We took one Sunday and just moved. I was now twenty three weeks in. The stress was unreal. I couldn't, more like was banned, from lifting any boxes. Instead I was left with Cathleen and Cora and we cleaned the house together from top to bottom. As boxes arrived we started unpacking.

"Cath, help me move that bookshelf," I asked her. I wanted it against the other wall in the spare room.

"Ciara, you're really not meant to be," she protested weakly.

I waved a hand dismissively. I wasn't a woman who liked to be dependent on others. "Look I'll not tell!"

Reluctantly she nodded and we half dragged half lifted the empty bookcase. Quickly we threw the books into the bookcase. Even in our haste I was able to put them in a kind if order. They'd almost been stacked how they'd go on the bookshelf anyway. My favourites at the top by author. Then the middle classics and the last shelf biography sand random bits. I was a reader. My other bookshelf housed my childcare books on the top shelf alongside some of my A-level ethics books. The middle shelf was other books I'd come to love. Then the bottom shelf a few of Stephens. He wasn't as much of a reader as me.

Cathleen and I unpacked the laptops putting them out on the desk which had once been in Stephens room. Stephen's A-Level revision books went into the top drawer and my work went into the next. The two laptops sat side by side.

"Yous will fight over in here," Cathleen joked.

"Unlikely, I plan on using the table," I replied lightly.

We'd lucked out on the furniture front. Really lucked out. I'd gotten a kitchen table and chairs quite cheap off of eBay and Cormac, Cathleen's boyfriend, had built them up for me and they were currently sat in the corner of the kitchen.

"I suppose. You're more flexible with study. I've seen you write an essay with Ciara perched on the sofa beside you babbling away," Cathleen remarked.

I laughed. "And I call myself dedicated."

She rolled her eyes. "Never met a harder worker than you, pure brain box that you are."

Cora tugged at my arm. "Ciara, tired."

I frowned. Her Mammy was right beside me. I suppose she thought I was going to take her to bed seeing as I was here.

"If we make up my, our," I corrected myself, "Bed and pushed it against the wall. She'd be okay if we built up pillows around her?"

Cathleen thought hard for a second. "Even if you lay with her for half and hour then I did. You know like time share?"

"Do you want to go with her?" I asked. I wasn't tired. I wanted to keep going.

"No, she'll be okay with the pillows, it's just if you're tired say."

"I'm fine."

Cathleen nodded. "Right missy. We'll make this bed for you."

We headed down the hall where Cormac was helping Stephen screw the headboard onto the bed. It was Stephens bed. We'd bought it off his Mammy much to her displeasure.

"There's sheets in the cupboard," I said thinking out loud.

"We're not rushing. We'll make it properly," Cathleen told me.

However I was already gone to get sheets to put the boys under a little pressure. Cormac sensed I was rushing him and he picked up his pace. Cathleen and I got the runner to cover the board of the bed and the boys tossed the mattress on for us. Quickly we made the bed and got Cora settled for her sleep. Cathleen wanted to lay beside her for ten minutes whilst I started unpacking the little kitchen stuff we had.