All My Children

Janet Simmons was an exhausted single mother of four. The waking hours she didn’t spend at work were spent taking her children to school, making them dinner, cleaning up after them, making sure they went to bed on time, sorting out their arguments, driving them to their friends' houses. It was a relief when she collapsed into bed for a full four hours sleep before her alarm interrupted her and she would start the racy routine again.

On this particular Saturday morning it didn't look like Janet was going to manage it. Her youngest daughter had been playing with Janet's alarm clock the night before and ruined the settings on it. Woken up by loud squabbling from the twins, Janet rushed to get ready in less than half the amount of time she normally had.

She brushed her teeth while using the toilet and combed her hair in the shower. Janet struggled into her work clothes as she hopped around the house, gathering her keys, wallet and phone which were never where she left them. As she staggered down the upstairs corridor tugging on her socks, Janet stepped on a plastic action figure and felt as if it had pierced through her foot. Suppressing her urge to swear extremely loudly, Janet hollered instead at the culprits.

"Chuck! Caleb! I told you to keep your toys in your room!" What she got in response were a couple of mumbled assurances that they were listening, which told Janet that they were not.

She finally hit the ground floor and stuck her head in the living room. Chuck and Caleb were sprawled out on the sofa in pyjamas, fighting for possession of the TV remote. Janet would have thought that at their age, they would have grown out of petty selfishness but her twelve year old sons often liked to challenge her ideals.

"Give it back, you butt-head!" Janet spied her bag sitting on top of the TV and zoomed over to it, throwing her bits and bobs inside.

"Caleb, what have I said about calling your brother names?" she muttered angrily as the zip on her bag broke.

"But I was watching first!" Caleb complained.

Janet whizzed around. "I don't care who was watching whatever stupid show, just behave yourselves and get along. Have either of you seen my shoes?"

The twins stared at their mum, their eyes wide. Their freckled faces split into beaming smiles and they laughed at her, mockingly wiping tears from their eyes.

"Mum, you've got toothpaste on your chin," Chuck gasped hysterically.

"And your trousers are inside out," Caleb added, whooping. Annoyed and a little embarrassed, Janet felt no shame as she stripped off her trousers and turned them the right way out.

Chuck and Caleb recoiled and covered their eyes; Janet ignored them and sprinted to the kitchen to wash the toothpaste off her chin – how had she not noticed? That wasn't important. What was important was that a near-naked Amy was sitting in the open pantry cupboard, systematically eating all the cookies from the assorted biscuit tin.

Janet checked her watch to see if she had enough time to deal with this small crisis. According to her watch she did, but that was only because it had stopped after three in the morning. Janet tore it off her wrist in disgust and looked instead at the clock on the kitchen wall. She had two minutes to leave the house or else be horribly late. No time to deal with Amy then.

"Amy, have you seen my work shoes?" Janet asked, rubbing her damp face with a kitchen towel. Amy experimentally licked a custard cream then threw it back in the tin, offended.

"No, Mummy," she said innocently. There was jam in her hair. Why was there jam in her hair? Who let Amy near the jam? She was only six but she still got into more trouble than a curious toddler.

If Janet took a moment out of her hectic life to think about it, she would realise that Amy acted out merely because she could. No-one kept a close enough eye on her. It was only last month that Amy had succeeded in flushing the car keys, Caleb's retainer and Jenna's library card down the toilet. Janet was still paying off the plumber.

A light bulb turned on in Janet's mind: Jenna. She would know where her work shoes were. Of all her children, Jenna was the most sensible and reliable. She didn't ever need to be reminded to do her homework, or brush her teeth before bed, or not to feed play-dough to the (now dead) hamster.

Janet called Jenna downstairs and she appeared within moments, tall and pretty and not in pyjamas. She was holding up Janet's work shoes triumphantly.

"I could kiss you," Janet said gratefully, taking the shoes and shoving her feet into them as she headed towards the front door.

Jenna followed her. "What time are you coming back?"

"Six," Janet replied, putting one arm through the sleeve of her jacket and not bothering about the other arm.

"Six?" Jenna repeated, horrified. "I thought you said you were going to finish early today?"

"I did but," Janet had one hand on the door. If she didn't leave in the next ten seconds she would be late. "They've scheduled a really long meeting later that I can't miss. You didn't have plans, did you?"

Janet opened the front door. She wasn't really listening as Jenna complained that of course she had plans, she had had those plans for three weeks and they hadn't changed at any point. She was supposed to be going to her boyfriend's poetry reading at four – but how could she do that now she had to stay home until six and watch her siblings?

"I'm really sorry, Jen. I'll make it up to you," Janet said from inside the car. She drove away and didn't even hear Jenna murmur that that was what she always said.

Janet drove around the corner and straight into traffic. She was twenty minutes late to work but her boss brushed it off. That should have been Janet's first clue that something was awry, but she optimistically took it as a sign that her luck was improving. She applied a chipper attitude to her work and had an unusually productive day.

It came as a crippling blow when she was fired.

The last minute meeting had been called because the company couldn't afford to employ so many people anymore. The last ten people hired had lost their jobs, Janet included.

She spent an hour in the office parking lot, crying pathetically in her car. She couldn't go home and tell her children. They would look at her with sad faces and ask if they were going to be okay and how could she answer without lying?

A light tapping on her window made her jump. When she saw a man standing outside, she frowned in confusion. Rubbing the last of her tears from her face, Janet rolled down her window and was dazzled by the full force of the magician's appearance.

His great height was aided by the long purple top hat and the majority of his body was covered by a purple cloak with white roses embroidered all over the silky material. His hair was pink and his entire essence gleamed with glitter. He smiled at Janet and, sweeping his cloak to the side, threw rainbow-coloured glitter in Janet's face. She blinked.

Janet Simmons was a relaxed married mother of two. She had so much time for herself. Looking after her children wasn't much of a task as she shared the responsibility equally with her doting husband, Derrick. They both worked from home, which was a docked boat on Southside River.

Like every Saturday morning, Janet rose to the sound of seagulls squawking outside. She rolled out of bed, took a long bath, brushed her teeth and combed her hair all the while swaying slightly with the constant bobbing of the boat. Smelling something delicious coming from the kitchen, Janet put some clean clothes on and headed towards the heavenly scent.

Derrick was making breakfast at the stove and the twins were sitting at the table, helping each other with their homework. As she walked towards her husband, Chuck pointed at his brother's paper.

"No see, you have to do the brackets bit first," he said. Caleb looked at his brother and grinned fondly.

"Thanks, Brainbox." Janet didn't know why she felt a sudden urge to ask Caleb what she had said about calling his brother names. Caleb never called his brother anything insulting; they rarely disagreed let alone argued with one another. Swatting the feeling away, Janet kissed Derrick on the cheek in greeting.

"Good morning, darling," Derrick said warmly. Janet returned the phrase and then laughed.

"Why is there jam in your hair? Who let you near the jam?" Janet chuckled. Derrick looked surprised and wiped his head with a kitchen towel. Janet's head began to hurt and she winced. She felt as if she had forgotten something seriously important.

Derrick asked Janet if she was feeling okay – she looked a little pale – and Janet replied that she just needed some air. She kissed the top of Chuck and Caleb's heads and left the boat, wrapping her cardigan tighter around her small frame as the wind gushed through her.

A single glance behind showed Janet her life: a simple red boat floating in place on a beautifully clear river. There were a few other boats nearby. The community was small but friendly; it was hard to be hostile when you lived in such a magnificent patch of paradise.

She turned her back on the picturesque view and headed towards the small park a little way ahead. The sun was directly in front of her, partially obscuring her view of the dewy grass and trees. The trees were in full leaf; a few birds twittering in nests built high up them. Janet's footsteps crunched on the gravel, marking out the singular path towards the horizon.

Her thoughts kept circling back to the feeling that something was missing. But what could it be? She had a loving, healthy relationship with her husband; two cheerful, pleasant sons; a roof over her head; a good living. There was nothing in Janet's life that she could complain about, nothing she was ungrateful for. Yet Janet couldn't shake the gnawing sensation that something was amiss.

There was someone up ahead: a teenager holding the hand of a younger girl, maybe about five or six – Janet could only see their silhouettes because the sun was behind them. She briefly wondered why they were out so early and where their parents were - when they stopped walking. Janet too stopped, to see what they would do.

The teenager took a few slow, questioning strides in Janet's direction. Her back straightened, her steps became faster until she was actually running towards Janet, her hair flying behind her. In a rush she had reached Janet and threw an embrace at her, hugging her tightly. Janet was dimly aware that the teenager was crying real tears as she stood there limply, not knowing what to do.

"Oh Mum," sighed the girl. "We've been looking for you for so long."

The girl kissed Janet's cheeks and this prompted her to hold the girl at arm's length. The younger girl had caught up by now and was staring at Janet with big doe-like eyes, full of speechless joy.

Finally taking in Janet's expression of confusion, the teenager's mood sobered rapidly. "You don't know who I am, do you?" she asked softly. Asking the question broke her heart.

Janet wished she had the guts to lie to her. A lie would make her feel better – but she didn’t know her at all.

"What about me?" the little girl piped up hopefully.

Janet looked at the girl. Her small nose, pink dress, box of cookies in hand. She didn't recognise her either. Janet only saw an ordinary little girl with what was probably her responsible older sister, out for a walk in the park. She felt bad for them, certainly. They had obviously mistaken Janet for their mother, whom Janet presumed was missing or worse. She began to tell them how sorry she was for their situation.

Wait a minute. Cookies?

"Amy." Janet looked at the teenager. "Jenna." There was no doubt in her mind. These were her daughters. As the three of them hugged each other desperately, a cloud passed over the sun and temporarily cast them in a cooling shadow.

When the cloud moved on again, Janet was sitting in her car in the office parking lot. A uniformed security guard was tapping on her window, motioning that she had to leave. Janet nodded to say that she understood, started up her engine and gripped the steering wheel tightly.

Yes, she had lost her job, but it wasn't the end of the world. She and her family would get through this – somehow – as long as they were together.