Homeward Bound

Homeward Bound Chapter 26

We somehow managed to get through dinner and another night that had me tossing and turning, even with the chain across the door and Tibbles on mum's bed, which seemed to be her preferred place to sleep now.

I got up before mum as I couldn't stick it anymore. I had a few mugs of tea, checked on her because she seemed be in a deep sleep. I felt half compelled to wake her but the other half told me to leave her alone. She'd been through a lot in the last few weeks. Maybe her brain and body had got to the stage where it needed real sleep. So I left her and went to have breakfast alone, or almost alone, Tibbles came out and began to wail, first to be let out then to come back in and then for something to eat. I gave her one of the smelly cat sachets that mum bought for her when I was sure a can of every day cat stuff would do her, it had when I'd taken care of her.

I decided to slide open the only drawer in the living room I'd not gone through when cleaning and it was like seeing their life on paper. There was I thinking I'd got rid of it all and here was more, much more. What I found though was two envelopes with the solicitors name on them. I knew that I had just found the copies mum had mislaid.

I took both to the kitchen and pulled them out to take a closer look at them. The thicker of the two had Mr and Mrs Tucker on it. The slimmer one had just dad's name on and hadn't been opened. I could only assume dad had known what it was and had decided to just place it in the drawer with the other for me to find on his death.

I used a knife to slit the unopen one and pulled it out. The wording was of a type that only lawyers used, but I pretty much got what he had been on about. Dad had left me as the trusty of an investment that he had clearly kept hidden from mum until now. It also said that I owned his car and half the bungalow. He must have had a great trust in me not throwing mum out. Damn him, I thought with fondness. He knew I cared even from afar.

I put it all away and decided to slid it back in the drawer for now, as the phone went off. I stood there and worried about answering it. I heard mum stir from her bed and the fear that this could be the one person I didn't want her to talk to had me taking the call, getting a shock of my life.

'Cara?' David asked.

'Yes,' I confirmed.

'Look, I really would like to take you out to dinner, or lunch, today,' he pressed me.

'I don't think...' I began.

'Cara, please,' he begged me, sounding like he was near the edge.

'I...' I began.

'I'll make it worth your while,' he cut over me again, with a hint that he knew something that could help me. Could I really chuck up him helping me?

'Okay, where?' I asked him, sensing mum going into the bathroom, to the toilet.

'Come to the brown cow, alone,' he ordered.

'Of course, what time,' I pushed him, looking at the bathroom door and knowing any minute now she was going to come out.

'Eleven,' he offered before he cut the call his end and mum came out of the bathroom my end, frowning at me because I was still holding the phone.

'What was that?' she asked me.

'Wrong number,' I lied.

She tutted and rolled her eyes. 'Had a few of them over the last week, trying to sell me something or other.'

I just smiled at her and wondered what David was so anxious about. How did he fit into what was becoming a very bizarre set up?

'Do you think we should find this will?' mum asked going out in to the kitchen and putting the kettle on, fussing Tibbles on the way.