She’d just pray that he (as it turned out) or she would love God and love people. She said that everything else would fall into place if he could do that. When her husband would come home from work, we’d be talking and laughing, and I could see he was a little bit jealous, but then she’d turn her eyes on him, and he’d just melt. She had love enough for a whole world full of people. I don’t think he resented me. He knew she needed someone around. We’d eat and I’d head off home and be back as soon as I thought was polite the next day. She was like a magnet. Then my older brother took off for the city, and my mum had a really bad turn and ended up in the psych ward again. Hours away. They said it might be for months. I couldn’t afford to keep the house. I was stuffed. Next day, when I turned up for work, she’d already cleared their spare room and set it up for me. Took me to the shop and let me choose my own sheets and stuff. Then we drove her old ute to my place and picked up the bit of furniture there was, and we stacked it in one of the sheds at her place, for when mum might come home. I moved in. Just like that. Nothing needed saying. Her husband was working more and more so we had a lot of time. She started to teach me, using all the energy and enthusiasm she would have poured out on a whole class. Some things she taught me from books or the internet, but mainly, as I discovered later, she taught me how to see. She taught me how to learn. She opened my eyes to things I hadn’t ever seen or thought about. She never made me feel stupid for not knowing. I was like a sink hole, and she was just filling me to the brim with good things. She was getting really big too. Full of good things. So we thought. When her waters broke, she laughed and cried. So did I. I called her husband, and he was there with the car in about 8 seconds! It was 90 minutes to the hospital so we got going as fast as we could. The bag had been packed for about a month. The baby-carrier was fitted. We sang nursery rhymes all the way there, interspersed with a few guttural 43
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