Bilgarra Springs Read Free Page A

but no amount of forethought seems to prepare you for the reality of it. As far as deaths go, it hadn’t even been a bad one: no drawn out illness, no pain, no dementia, no wasting away, she just quietly slipped away in her sleep one afternoon. A death in good circumstances didn’t change the fact that it just plain sucked; there was simply no other way to describe it.
    Aurora lifted her head, placed Orinoco on the bed, scrubbed her hands over her face and rose to her feet. The damned suitcase wasn’t going to pack itself and there was nothing to be gained by sitting there feeling sorry for herself. She started placing the clothes in.
    ‘You know what Orinoco, I guess this is one of those ‘welcome to the real world moments’ when you decide that, yes, life does suck as much as everybody keeps telling you that it does,’ Aurora muttered as she placed more piles of clothes into the suitcase.
    Aurora gently closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
    ‘Oh jeez girl, you soooo need to lose this crappy attitude.’
    Orinoco jumped down from the bed and left the bedroom, chocolate tail high in the air, to all intents and purposes signalling her complete agreement.
    Aurora gave a small chuckle.
    ‘Smart ass cat. My attitude must be worse than bad. Snap out of it sunshine.’
    Aurora’s smile turned wistful. ‘Snap out of it sunshine’ had been Gran’s favourite response to all the childish tantrums and teenage drama that
Aurora had dumped on her over the years. Gran had very rarely lost her cool, took most things in her stride and very much called a spade a spade. This time, however, it was Gran who had gotten Aurora into this mess.
    With a decisive huff, Aurora placed the last of her stuff into the suitcase and closed the zipper. She grabbed it off the bed and made her way to the front door, leaving the suitcase beside her shoes and handbag, ready to go. She checked her watch — 12:11. The taxi was due in nineteen minutes. She rechecked the list that she had made for another colleague, Tim, who was going to house-sit while she was away.
    She so hoped that Tim and Orinoco didn’t cross swords. Orinoco could be quite the ‘Little Miss’ when she chose to be. She couldn’t worry too much about it though; they would have to sort it out for themselves. The academic grape vine had worked to her advantage in snagging Tim to house-sit. She had helped him out of a tight spot too. He and his girlfriend of two years had just split up and he had been living at her place and as a result of the split was now ‘homeless’. The month would give him a chance to get himself together and organise himself without any pressure. It was a win-win situation.
    The list seemed complete; she could think of nothing that needed to be added to it. As a last minute check she moved through to the guest room. It all looked to be fine but Aurora couldn’t shake the feeling that she had missed something important. Then again, she got that feeling before she went anywhere and hadn’t forgotten anything major before. Best ignore it. Orinoco was weaving herself through Aurora’s legs in an attempt to snavel some attention. Aurora picked her up and cradled her in the crook of her arm, tickling her belly.
    ‘You make sure you behave for Tim. It’s get along with him or the cattery for you my friend, and we know how much you enjoyed that last time. So you just make sure you’re a good girl.’
    Orinoco titled her head ever so slightly backwards and closed her eyes. Aurora wasn’t sure whether that meant she was being ignored or not. She moved out into the hall, gave the cat a quick squeeze and placed her on the floor. A brief glance at her watch showed that it was not long until the taxi arrived and Aurora made her way to the front door. Orinoco perched herself on the arm of the lounge chair and watched as Aurora slipped her feet into her shoes, looped her hand bag over her shoulder, gave a final glance around, picked up her suitcase and went out