Free The Daughter by Jane Shemilt Page A

laughed . . .
    I wasn’t sure at first why we had stopped at the second bed. There was a little boy in it. Very thin, with closed eyes and spiky fair hair. He looked about six. There was a drip in the arm that lay outside the sheet. Then I saw the giraffe, dirty against the crisp white linen. Some of the bruises were green now, but there were new red and mauve ones too.
    â€œWe cut her hair to make it easier to get rid of the lice.” He spoke very quietly. “But it will also help her adjust to the hair loss. We had her permission and the permission of her parents, though, as I say, they don’t know the diagnosis.”
    I wondered how long before she would go completely bald with the chemotherapy.
    Dr. Chisholm was talking softly; it was as if he’d read my thoughts. “We don’t yet know what combination of drugs we will use. That will depend on the scan.”
    â€œJade?” I whispered. “Hello, there. It’s the doctor.”
    Dr. Chisholm looked at me. His eyes said: Doctor? The doctor?
    â€œJade has met lots of doctors now.” He sounded dismissive. “She’s asleep.”
    I ignored him. “Jade? I’m going to see your mum and dad now. I’ll tell them—­I mean, I’ll give them . . .” What? What would I tell them? Was there anything to give them?
    Her eyelids flickered open.
    Maybe it was because she had heard my voice before or maybe it was because she heard me say Mum and Dad, but for a second, less than a second, she looked at me and she smiled.
    It was only as I turned the car on the oily concrete of the hospital underground parking garage that it came to me. Of course, she couldn’t have known it was my fault or that she could have been helped so much earlier if only I had listened.

 
    Chapter 7
    DORSET, 2010
    ONE YEAR LATER
    I am immediately in a warm kitchen, tidy and teeming with color. I take in orange-­patterned linoleum, a dark red table, yellow cabinet units with white handles, a bright blue stove, and a red sofa by the wall. A fire is glowing, a television screen flickers from the corner, several large embroidered cats crowd on a chintz-­covered armchair. Bertie has followed us in; before I can stop him, he eats the small squashed pile of cat food in a bowl and then settles by the fire with a little grunting sigh. I put the old lady down on the sofa, slide off her shoes, then sit next to her. With my hand on her pulse, I scan the room quickly. There are photos on all the surfaces: an elderly man wearing a cap, digging in a garden, a dark-­haired young woman with a baby, a small boy at the edge of the sea, holding another child’s hand. Family everywhere. I am taken back to our kitchen at home, so steeped in family that I used to think if I pressed my ear against the wall I would hear the children’s voices, stored inside. When everything began to go wrong, going home was all I could think about.
    BRISTOL, 2009
    TEN DAYS BEFORE
    I drove away from the hospital as fast as I could, overtaking a student driver and then jumping forward at a crossroads before the lights changed. As I accelerated down Park Road, little groups of words slid and twisted away in my mind.
    I thought the bruises . . . there was never long enough . . . I know you told me . . . I’m sorry.
    The sun was streaming through the windows at home, lying in unfamiliar lines on the floor. I rarely returned this early. Ana left the kitchen door bolted; no one would be at home now to let me in, so I used the front door. There was a pair of sneakers on their sides, just inside. I picked them up. Ed must be here. He didn’t really need to take his shoes off because we’d taken the carpets out years ago. No curtains either. The rooms were empty spaces, shiny dark wooden floors, a piano, walls of books stacked and sorted. A refectory table so Ted could spread out his papers easily.
    Now my footsteps sounded