I slowly slide to the floor. She’s right, I know. I close my eyes and let my hands fall to my sides. I breathe good and deep, trying not to cry. It isn’t easy. I’m wrung out, exhausted. My neck is throbbing, collarbone building a slow, dull heat that I think I’ll feel for a long time. I sit that way as the sweat cools on my skin, hearing the creak and shudder of the old house settling around me. Briefly, I imagine I hear a girl’s voice singing, tinny and off-key. Maybe Andrew left a radio on. Maybe it is ghosts. My chin sinks onto my chest, my breathing deepens. Slumped that way, despondent, I fall asleep. My tears dry on my cheeks.
I don’t sleep. Not quite. My consciousness is tidal, restless. I wake pressed against the cellar door, a cold draft slicing beneath it. I have a desperate urge to pee, so I massage a little feeling back into my legs as I try to stand up. The coat hanger falls from my lap, and as I bend to retrieve it, I discover something. A piece of paper has been slid under the door. I stare at it for a long time before picking it up, all sorts of thoughts racing through my mind—Andrew left it there it’s a trick it’s a death warrant—but when I open it, I find only a single word written there in waxy red crayon.
hello
16
Cathy can’t concentrate. She has already burned the pizzas, setting off all the smoke alarms just as she’d got the boys round the dining table, and now she can’t find her glasses. She is sure she had them earlier because she can’t read without them, but they’re not in their usual place on the arm of the sofa or by the sink. She has just begun emptying her handbag onto the counter when Danny walks into the kitchen, heading straight for the fridge. He watches his mother with some bemusement as she scrabbles through loose change and tissues and various tubes of lipstick.
“They’re on your head.” He pulls out the milk, swigging it straight from the carton. “You put them there ’cause they get steamed up when you’re cooking.”
“Wow. I must be losing it.” She laughs, but it doesn’t feel funny, not at all.
Danny gives her a sarcastic smile. “Going senile, more like. Must be your age.”
She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even reproach him for drinking out of the carton like she normally would, saying,Danny Maddon, were you born in a barn?She just sighs and picks up her phone.
“What’s up, Mum?”
“Huh?” She looks at him over the top of her glasses. “Oh, I’m just worried about your aunt Hazel, that’s all. I still haven’t heard from her. Her phone’s off and she’s not at your grandparents’, where she should be. I don’t know what to do.”
Danny shrugs. “Who cares? It’s not like you even saw each other these last five years.”
Cathy reaches for her glass of wine. She’s not normally a daytime drinker, not with a toddler to look after all on her own, but she thinks she could happily finish this bottle and tuck herself into bed. Her brain is buzzing, restless.
“It’s different now. We’re older. She wants to make up. Besides, she’s had a lot of problems recently.”
“You mean her divorce?”
Cathy frowns. She doesn’t know how to explain it all to Danny and she’s too tired to try. He’s only fifteen anyway, how can she expect him to understand? So she settles for a nod, a quick downward turn of the mouth.Sure, why not.
“Did you watch the video I sent you?”
“Honestly, Danny, I’ve barely had time to think, let alone watch a—” Cathy stops mid-sentence, her eyes widening behind the lenses of her glasses. “Fuck,” she whispers, then reaches for her bag. “Hey. Can you look after Scout for me? I just need to head out.”
“Sure.”
“He’ll probably wake up from his nap in the next half an hour, so I’ll try to hurry.”
“Mum?” He looks at her, his face serious. Cathy wonders if he might reach out to try to stop her leaving, as though some ill omen has passed behind his dark brown eyes.
She forces herself to smile. “Yes, hon?”
“Be careful, okay?”
Be careful.Danny’s words follow her all the way down Knox Row like the tail of a comet. The way he’d looked at her, as if trying to read what was underneath the surface. Cathy had always promised herself to be honest with her kids. It wasn’t that her own parents hadn’t been—they’d been distant and hard to reach, but never dishonest—after all, it was her mother who’d told her frankly about the growth on Hazel’s spine when Cathy had been just eight years old, still sleeping with her cuddly lamb tucked under her arm.
“Your sister’s got to have an operation to remove it.” Her mother had been reading a letter over breakfast, her face pink and shiny from the shower. “It’s a tumor, but they don’t think it’s dangerous. They’ll have to put her under.”
“What does that mean?” Cathy asked.
Her mother glanced at her, almost irritated. “It means they’ll put her to sleep.”
Cathy dropped the spoon into her bowl. Milk sprayed everywhere, flakes of soggy cereal. Her eyes filled with tears. “Like Gandalf?”
Gandalf was their old cat, the very first Persian their mother had bought. With his long gray hair and keen amber eyes, hehadlooked like a wizard, but his full name—hispedigreename—was Gandalf Lomond Baudelaire, which Cathy had thought was just about the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.
“Don’t be silly, Cathy,” her mother snapped, but she hadn’t said no, so for the weeks leading up to Hazel’s operation, Cathy had been extra kind to her, just in case she didn’t wake up after her operation. Like Gandalf.