After Care

A novel

Sequel to "Taking Care"I

n the preceding novel "Taking Care", Arnold Adams, a retired country accountant in rural New South Wales, enjoys a quiet life with his wife May until abruptly everything shifts.. On an otherwise ordinary day she asks him to take care of everyone and without giving it much thought he promises that he will.

When he returns from shopping however, she has had a stroke and has gone into a coma.

Her command stays with him and even while he sits at her bedside in the hospital, he recalls what she has said.

And so he sets out to fulfil her command. Whoever looks like they might need taking care of, he offers.

Thomas Fortesque has a Ph D in physics but he is homeless and fraught with mental anguish. He becomes the first of Arn's protegees and moves into Arn's shed.

Ace is a sixteen year old runaway ward of the state. She is next, as he becomes her guardian.

The three of them, along with Arn's beloved pooch Albert, work gently to create a new kind of household.

While May remains on life support in the hospital, she continues to inspire him and perhaps somehow even instruct him. In moments where decisions have to be made, she seems to be there in a subtle form urging him along. She even appears to be able to communicate with both Thomas and Ace as well.

Arn finds himself carried along by wave after wave of activity, seemingly supported at every moment by his comatose wife. Small miracles keep happening.

Then he is told he can bring his wife home, even though she is still unconscious. He sets his lounge up as a home ward and his neighbor Myra, who is a nurse, is employed to monitor her, as she is connected to life support.

To everyone's amazement, within a day, May opens her eyes. She is back. She wants a cup of tea, she wants to see all the people that her husband has helped and she wants all the life support turned off.

The doctor is horrified but she insists.

Once it is done, she breathes and calmly she says what she needs to say to each of them.

Then she closes her eyes for the last time.

But it is not the end.

What May has begun continues to unfold.

This is After Care.