Free The Stopped Heart by Julie Myerson

edged with something. Past ten o’clock and the sky not yet black.
    His hand comes over, reaching for her, coming to rest on her thigh. His breathing tells her that he’s not asleep.
    N EXT TIME SHE OPENS HER EYES, THE ROOM IS DAZZLING, ALIVE with sunshine. At first the voices are very quiet, a man and awoman, coming from somewhere else, close or far away, she can’t tell, not in the room, maybe the lane—
    What you don’t think about, you don’t know.
    But I do know—
    You need to forget what you know—if you value this little beating heart—
    Mary tears herself from sleep, sitting up, crying out, hands clenched as she grabs at the sheets, eyes wild, heart banging.
    â€œWhat?” Graham, eyes still closed and clutching at her, putting his arms out. “Darling—what? What is it? What’s the matter?”
    She stares around her. Trying to breathe.
    â€œIt’s that place.”
    â€œWhat? What place?”
    â€œThe shed. Where you put the dog things.”
    She stares at him, her throat hot and tight.
    â€œThe apple shed? What about it?” He’s sitting up now, eyes open, looking at her. “Mary, wake up. You’re making no sense. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Seriously, what’s the matter?”
    She gazes at him.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI don’t know what I’m talking about,” she says, beginning to cry.
    His arms now, coming around her, closing around her, shushing her. He holds her.
    â€œDarling, my darling—you were asleep. Open your eyes now—I mean it—look around you. Open your eyes and look at me. Look at where you are.”
    She does it. Still clinging to him, she opens her eyes and she looks. Sees the old chest of drawers, the brown cardboard boxesstill to be unpacked. Her jeans and bra flung on a chair. Yesterday’s scrunched-up newspaper and his bottles of pills, a comb, his loose change. The wavy light coming in through the window.
    He kisses her head.
    â€œThere,” he says. “All right now?” And when she still doesn’t speak. “That hasn’t happened in a very long time, has it?”

THREE
    I T WAS M AY AND IN THE LANES YOU COULDN ’ T MOVE FOR FOLK going on about how overjoyed they were to see the blossoms and the sunshine and the birds and the bees and so on. The lambs were growing fat on blossoms. Mother did all our beds with turpentine and salt to get rid of the bugs. The days got longer and the night frosts stopped and small brown birds bathed themselves in the dust pockets in the lane where the puddles used to be.
    A wren started to build its nest under the eaves of the shed and as usual the cat sat and watched, waiting to kill the fledglings just as soon as they hatched. And as usual Minnie and Charlie moaned and cried about it and said it wasn’t fair and why didn’t God stop it? Maybe God has better things to do, our father said.
    Bees drifted over the garden, and hollyhocks unfurled their hairy buds and stood in their lemon and salmon rows. Slowly, our mother seemed to wake up and start eating and thinking and talking again. She took the baby into the garden and laid him on a piece of sacking under the apple tree, where he kicked and cooed and watched the light flicker around in the leaves. She sat and watched him, and I saw our father watching her very hard—careful always to glance away the moment she saw his eyes were on her.
    Honey found a dead rat lying by the tap in the orchard, its pale, hairless feet curled and flies crawling over its face, and we told her not to touch it and she didn’t. The air was full of mown grass and the ripe, baked scent of the wallflowers that grew by the back door. One day Jazzy’s freckles weren’t there and the next day they were, as if someone had crept up in the night with a paintbrush and done them while she slept.
    Each warm morning the Narkets hung