The Runaway by Grace Thompson Page B

understanding, Sophie.’
    ‘You have to be, in this job,’ Sophie said, ‘I threaten to leave sometimes , when she gets a bit much to cope with, and remind her she’s lucky to have me.’
    ‘I’m sure she knows that.’ Faith tried not to smile.
    The work of running the home and keeping Mrs Thomas company between times was not arduous. She did some shopping, using only the nearby corner shops and became known to the shopkeepers as a quiet person unwilling to stay and chat and satisfy their curiosity. She joined the library, choosing books for her personal enjoyment as well as others which she read to Mrs Thomas.
    Outwardly she was relaxed and content. She hid her grief well. Walking away from Matt and Carol, and Winnie, seemed to belong to a previous life or a half-remembered dream, except for the moment when she had signed away all rights to her child. The worst time waslast thing at night when she waited for sleep to claim her. That was when visions of a baby came to torment her. She saw a child who was sometimes upset and crying as she leaned over her little girl’s cot. The worst times were half-waking dreams when she saw Matt looking down at the baby, grief distorting his dark eyes. Those dreams brought guilt as well as tears.
    Surely he wouldn’t have been allowed to keep the child? She knew she had been cruel by not registering the child in Matt’s name. She had lied, and had explained that she had been only a lodger there until she could find a place for herself and her child, that talk of marriage was no more than Matt’s optimistic hope. Her decision not to keep the child had made circumstances change and the child would now go to foster-parents until an adoption could be arranged.
    She felt waves of guilt that cut into her heart like knives as she thought of her own experiences but hoped and believed that today things would be more carefully monitored and the little girl who was her daughter would be placed with a loving family. She had to believe that or she would lose her mind.
    If only she weren’t so alone. She thought of her sister, building up an imaginary picture of her, smiling, words of sympathy issuing from a face almost identical to her own. Her life had been separated into stages, but the birth and her latest cowardly escape was definitely the worst. The time with Matt and all that had happened before, was over. This was a lull before what would happen next. Would the new stage be the one in which she found her sister, Joy?
    If by some miracle we find each other, what would she think of me, abandoning my daughter after the miseries of my own childhood? Perhaps she would turn and walk away again. That thought, together with imaginary pictures of her baby, meant another sleepless night.

chapter three
    M rs Thomas had help around the house for many of the routine duties and Faith found that she was expected mainly to make sure their work was satisfactory. Apart from this there were the evenings when she and Mrs Thomas listened to music or watched the television and the afternoons when she read to her for an hour.
    Faith dealt with the shopping and chose the menus for the meals, which she often cooked when the woman employed for that pleasant task was unable to come in. Gradually, as the weeks passed, the cooking became one of her regular tasks as the cook became less and less reliable and eventually gave up altogether. Faith didn’t mind this but secretly hoped that she wouldn’t be given more work if the cleaners left!
    The one potential problem was Mrs Thomas’s so far unseen son, Samuel. He phoned often and each time the call left her employer subdued and clearly upset. Faith dreaded meeting him. From the little Mrs Thomas had told her about her son, she gathered that Samuel did not approve of her caring for his mother, even though they hadn’t met. He wanted Mrs Thomas to move into a retirement home, something his mother refused to consider. ‘While I have you to look after me,’ she