Okay, so I am going away until the 1st and I am laptopless, so I'm going to try and write as much as I can tonight, but no updates from me till probably the 2nd.
This chapter is all for Erin, yup.
Disclaimer: today I had an encounter with my ex's best friend. It was awkward.
A week before Healy's third birthday, Audrey starts skipping classes. It's not because she hates school, she doesn't. Not at all. But her father has started cutting down the amount of time they spend visiting her mother. They used to go a few of times a week, they get tea on their way home from picking Audrey up from school, and they eat it in her hospital room. A good few hours. Saturday or Sunday they'll be there all day. She'll bring a book, or her father will help her with her homework. Healy would play, or gurgle or sleep. And then it was a couple of times a week, then once a week. Sometimes they wouldn't go at all. Now, she's lucky if they go twice a month. And she knows why, though she pretends otherwise when her father says he's just too tired. The doctors, the nurses, they're all trying to talk to him about ending it, turning off her life support. He thinks by completely avoiding the hospital then they'll no longer ask him about it. He won't answer the phone if he knows it's them. But Audrey can't do it, can't keep going to school and then home and then school and then home over and over and know that her mother is in the city, and maybe she can't talk back, and maybe she can't hear her, but she deserves someone to visit her.
So, she ducks out of school most lunchtimes. Takes off any recognisable part of her uniform and jumps on the tube. She's done this journey so many times she could do it with her eyes closed. Four stops, change tubes, another two. Five minute walk. Inconspicuous in a hospital, she knows the back routes, knows how to get in without going through the front door (three years and journalists and paparazzi are sometimes still outside). Sometimes nurses stop her, sometimes doctors throw her cautious looks, but she looks sad and lonely and wonderfully pathetic. Dying parent in the hospital, who cares if a kid isn't in school? And it's not like she doesn't do work. She easily curls up in a chair and works through her books. It's a lot quieter than a classroom.
There's one doctor, Erin, who soon catches onto her, but she's nice and sneaks her cookies and fruit juice when she can. Sometimes she helps, sits with her when she's struggling with math problems, or she'll test her on her science and history and geography, or anything else that she needs to do. There's other doctors that threaten to phone her school, but she has no idea if they ever actually do so. No one has ever mentioned anything, no one has ever stopped her from leaving. She doesn't think they'd mind. They don't like having her in the classroom. And it's not like they can phone her father. It's not like they can wait until he visits. He hardly ever visits.
It's a new teacher, Mrs Huntington that starts to become concerned. Audrey likes her, she thinks. She treats her like normal, like she's not an eleven year old on the verge of a breakdown, gives her the same homework, the same pressure as everybody else. And then it all comes out. Her father is called into school where he tries not to cry, and besides a wobble of his bottom lip he manages it quite well. Audrey remains quite stoic, defends her actions because she thinks she's done the right thing. Her grades aren't slipping. So she misses a couple of afternoons here and there. It's not hurting anybody. They don't believe her. They have eyes on her almost constantly. They arrange for her to have counselling during lunchtime recess. And the lady is nice, she is. But she doesn't know why she's there. She doesn't need someone to talk to about her feelings. She's okay.