Page 52 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

After several weeks in hospital, and even though she’s not entirely ready to go home in that she can’t walk unassisted – and that includes going to the bathroom – Josie finds herself discharged with her pelvis and one leg healed enough that she can get around on crutches.

And she finds that she wants to. Lying in bed all day is not her scene.

Or it might have been – she might have once thought it was a nice idea on a rainy day or something – but she never wants to do it again.

Ever, ever, ever. She also never wants to go to hospital again.

Except she’ll have to return for some outpatient stuff.

Either her mum or dad will drive her, of course.

She doesn’t have a car any more, even if she were physically capable of driving it.

Her dad said that since the car was insured she’ll get the money for it and she can buy something else. Living on the Coast does mean needing a car; she’s now a little scared of driving, though. Maybe Brett could drive her where she needs to go.

He’s been visiting. A lot. Once her mum gave him permission he took it as far as he could, coming after work, before visiting hours ended. They’d talk about everything and nothing: music, shows on TV, what his friends were doing, what the two of them planned to do together once she was able bodied.

Each time after he visited she would wonder if it was real. If he was real. Why does he want to spend so much time with her? He’s so good-looking, and sporty, and he could have anyone.

Then she had to remind herself what Trudy said to her once: ‘You never know how other people see you.’ Just because she sees herself as a loser, the way she was in high school, doesn’t mean Brett does.

He didn’t know her then. And he doesn’t know what she thought of herself then.

In some ways his regard for her is helping her overcome the way she felt at school, which she’s been carrying around without entirely realising it – she didn’t have time to think about it until she spent all those days in hospital with nothing else to do but think and watch television.

So he helps her, and one day she’ll tell him. What she can’t figure out is how – or even if – she helps him.

Once she gestured to her legs and said to him, ‘I’m not much use to you like this.’

He gave her a funny look and took her hand and said, ‘I don’t think about how you can be of use to me. I just want to be around you. You make me happy.’

Never in her life has she thought she could make someone happy just by existing. Her mum would tell her that she did but Erin has always been so consumed by worry about her that she couldn’t be called happy.

Josie has to trust it, though, doesn’t she?

What he said to her … He had no reason to make that up.

There’s something he sees in her that makes him happy.

Which means she just has to keep being her.

That should be easy. Except being back home with her parents, completely reliant on them in ways she hasn’t been since she was a very small child, might make it hard.

That’s why she needs something to focus on. The future. A plan. She has one. Her parents aren’t going to like it. But she wants to tell them about it sooner rather than later, as the longer she’s here, relying on them, the more betrayed they’ll feel when she tells them.

Her mum made a nest for Josie on the couch in front of the TV.

She has a view of the back garden, which is nice.

It means that if she wants to sit and gaze out the window, there’s something pleasant to look at.

Birds come to the bird bath that her father installed a couple of years ago.

She’s been watching them dip into the water and not just drink it but let it run over their heads and wings.

It’s this nest she’s sitting in as Erin brings afternoon tea.

‘I’m going to get fat if I keep having biscuits,’ Josie says.

‘You’re not eating that much,’ Erin says briskly, putting down the accoutrements.

‘But I’m not doing much either.’

‘You will. This is temporary.’

‘I know.’ Josie steels herself. ‘That’s what I want to talk to you about. Is Dad around?’

Erin straightens. ‘Ah … yes. I think he is. Shall I get him?’

‘Yes, please.’

Erin’s brow furrows as she leaves the room and Josie feels her stomach churn. But she has to do this. Has to say it.

When Erin returns with Paolo, Josie tries to sit herself up straighter – a losing battle at the moment – and clears her throat.

‘I really can’t thank you enough for everything,’ she says, trying to keep her voice light.

‘Of course, darling,’ her mother says. ‘We just want to support you. You’ve had such an ordeal.’

Josie sighs. She can’t accept that she’s had an ordeal because she caused it. Her temper, her distraction, her recklessness. And she won’t let Erin turn it into a reason for Josie not to do what she’s about to say she wants to do.

‘I really mean it,’ she says, then she swallows. This is harder than she thought. ‘And, um …’ she goes on. ‘When I’m better, I’ve been thinking …’ Another swallow. ‘Thinking that I, ah … I want to move out.’

Erin stares at her and Paolo stares at Erin.

‘Move out?’ Erin says shrilly. ‘Why?’

‘It’s time I stopped relying on you for everything,’ Josie says. She rehearsed that line, thinking it a checkmate of sorts, even as she knows Erin will try to find a way around it.

‘But we love doing it!’

And there’s the way.

‘Don’t we, Paolo?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he says, her father who knows his place in this household: supporter of his wife and his daughter, never to question his wife in particular and his daughter only when his wife wants him to join her in it.

Sometimes Josie wishes he would say what he really thinks.

Or maybe this is what he really thinks and her thoughts are unkind.

‘We love you, my darling,’ he says. ‘We will take care of you forever.’

‘But I don’t want you to!’ Josie worries she’s yelling, although maybe it’s just because the house is so quiet. ‘I want to have my own place!’

Erin and Paolo look at each other.

‘But … why?’ her mother says. ‘Don’t you have everything you want here?’

‘I’m an adult , Mum. I need to leave home eventually.’

‘You didn’t behave like an adult when you –’ Erin stops, her cheeks bright red.

Josie hates her a little for saying that but also knows she’s right, even as she wants to make a point.

‘You didn’t treat me like an adult,’ she says firmly. ‘You made out as if having a boyfriend was the worst thing in the world. You hadn’t even met him. How could you know if it was bad or good?’

‘So this is about Brett? You want to live with him?’

‘No!’ Josie doesn’t feel ready for that. ‘I don’t even know where I’d live. I just …’ She sighs again. ‘I just want to see what it’s like.’

Paolo puffs himself up a little. ‘I don’t think we can allow this, Josephine.’

‘I’m an adult, Dad. You can’t allow or not allow it.’

She really wishes she could walk away from them, but she knew when she started this that she couldn’t and also that she’d want to.

But it had to be done. She didn’t want to spend the last of her recovery pretending she doesn’t have plans for after it.

She wants to spend that time making preparations for the life she plans to have once she can fully engage in it.

‘We need to think about it,’ her mother says, her version of not-allowing-it.

‘Fine, think about it,’ Josie says. ‘But I’m doing it.’

‘Josie –’

‘Mum, I’ve made up my mind.’

She sounds resolute, although what she said isn’t exactly the truth, because while she has made up her mind that she wants to move out, she’s less sure about how to go about it. That will come next. Perhaps she can ask Trudy or Evie for advice.

There is silence, and no one seems inclined to break it.

Then Erin pours some tea and sits down heavily opposite Josie.

‘We’ll talk about it later,’ she says, although she doesn’t sound convinced.

It’s a small victory, but also not a victory, because Josie doesn’t want to be in a battle with her parents. She wants them to be happy for her. She wants to be happy for herself. And for them.

When she moves out it will be a huge change for them all. It’s inevitable, though, and that’s the part she has to ease them into.

They all sit and drink tea, and Josie eats one biscuit only. There’s no more talk about anything other than Paolo’s work. It’s normal, and not. And they’ll all have to get used to it.