Part 2 — Two Weeks, On The Clock
Susan’s house ran like one of her property viewings: everything in its place, everything on time. Breakfast at seven-thirty. Lunch at one. Supper at six. Dorothy, who had spent forty years keeping her own hours at her sewing table, learned the timetable the way a guest learns a hotel’s rules — carefully, and with a smile that cost her something.
She tried to be no trouble. She folded her clothes small. She took her tea in the kitchen rather than the sitting room, so as not to disturb anyone’s evening. She did not use her sewing machine at all, because the whirring seemed too loud for a house that valued quiet mornings, and so her hands, which had sewn wedding dresses for brides across three counties, sat idle in her lap while the days ticked past.
Susan was not unkind. That was the hardest part to explain, even to herself. Susan brought her tea in the mornings. Susan asked about her sleep. Susan meant well in every particular. But every kindness came with an end date attached, and Dorothy could feel the days being counted down behind her daughter’s eyes. Thirteen days left. Ten. Seven.
At the end of the first fortnight, Susan sat her down with another cup of tea and said, gently, "Mum, I can stretch it one more week. But then my daughter really does need the room for her exams, and I’ve promised. You understand, don’t you?"
Dorothy understood perfectly. She understood that a room with an expiry date is not a home. It is a favour with a deadline.
"Of course, love," she said. "One more week is more than kind."
She stayed the extra week. She folded herself smaller. She thanked Susan every morning and every night, because gratitude was the rent she had been asked to pay, and she paid it without complaint. And on the last morning, she packed her one suitcase, hugged her daughter at the door, and said, "You were very good to me, Susan. I won’t forget it."
Then she walked to the end of the driveway, took out her telephone, and called Nathan.
"Mum?" he said.
"The room," she said, "has run out."
"Come now," Nathan said, just as he had said the first time. "My bedroom is yours. The couch missed you."
Dorothy laughed then — properly laughed, for the first time since the pipe burst — and a weight she had been carrying for three weeks lifted clean off her shoulders.
