***
It's ages later. I lift my head. The sun is high and I hear the wuzzling drone of a blow-fly winding its way through the house. All else is silent - dead silent. Dread knots my stomach. Billy! This can’t be real.
Then I hear it. Achingly sweet, it bursts on me like a heavenly choir. Billy is jumping in his cot, raging for food! I laugh and cry and scream all at once. My voice wails out, full of bitter-sweet, uncontrollable relief.
With great effort I reach for the brush on the dresser, drag it through my damp hair and dab my blotched face. I have to pull myself together. I tell myself the weather beaten angel was nothing more than a figment of my crazy imagination and that I’m alone here. Why would my closest neighbours, who live one hundred and eighty kilometres north want to come all that way in the wee small hours? The enormous will it takes just to wipe my nose and straighten my hair defies description. Like a clumsy wind up doll, I stagger mechanically towards Billy’s cot. He chirrups when he sees me and stretches up chubby arms, love and joy radiating from his trusting little face. I’m his world, his wretched wrecked world. I grit my teeth against the pain.
Suddenly, I hear the sputter of an engine as the peel of a heralding bird slices the new morning. Then there is the scrape of the gate and footsteps coming to my door! My heart leaps to my throat. The neighbours are really here! Clutching Billy tight, I flop down on the floor with a thump. He laughs, then sprawls backwards on the carpet, bumps his head and cries.
Just a breath away I hear Cassandra’s husky clay-pipe voice ringing in my ear.
‘We’re only helpless, dear, when we believe we are.’
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