Free My Brother's Shadow by Tom Avery Page B

more; then, when she began to speak she did so slowly, like I was madder than I knew I was. “You arrived on your own, Kaia. There was no one else in the crash. Do you mean the driver? He wasn’t hurt.”
    My eyes were filled with tears now. “Not the driver,” I said. “The boy, the boy.”
    The doctor took a step back towards me, placing her hand on my shoulder. “I’m going to seeabout that food. Then I think we’d better do a few more checks, sweetheart.”
    I didn’t reply but watched the doctor disappear through the door.
    I sat stunned for some time, possibilities racing through my head. Then I remembered the something rough lodged in my pocket. It rasped against my dressing gown as I pulled it out and brought it up to my face.
    A long, green-brown horse chestnut leaf. I saw him then, my boy, a smiling face, deep gray eyes, hair as black as coal. The world spun around him.
    Summer had almost arrived when he left. I had been asleep, “in a coma,” the doctor said, for four weeks. And in that time a warm breeze had crept in to replace the spring rain and remove any doubt that the frost was over. The boy had left. I asked after him one last time. I asked my mum, but she stared at me as blankly as the doctors.
    â€œOh, my Kaia” were her first words when shewalked in yesterday, the day I woke up. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.”
    I looked her up and down. She was wearing a white shirt and a green vest over the top. Pinned to the vest was a name badge, her name badge. It looked distinctly like a uniform.
    â€œYou’ve started your job, Mum,” I said.
    We grinned at each other for a long time. Then hugged for a long time. I cried and laughed and we hugged some more, me and my mum.
    â€œI’m sorry, Kaia,” my mum whispered again and again into the top of my hair, and I knew that she meant it. I knew she meant it for everything. I was sorry too.
    When we finally let go of each other, Mum took hold of my hands and kissed my forehead.
    â€œHave you seen all your cards, Kaia?” she said.
    I looked back at the wall, covered in cards. “
My
cards?” I said.
    â€œI didn’t know you were such a popular girl, sweetheart.”
    I
didn’t know I was such a popular girl.
    â€œSome of your friends have been in so many times, bringing you all sorts of things. Luzie and Angelica and a boy.” At this my mum winked at me. “Shadid.”
    I found myself blushing.
    My mum leaned across me, behind the metal stand (an IV drip, I now know), to a bedside cabinet. She opened the top drawer. It was stuffed with books, bags of sweets, pencils and paper, and on top, Luzie’s magnet game.
    â€œSome teachers came too—Mr. Wills came on the first day; Harry came, he brought you these paints.” Mum held up a tin of watercolor paints, a pad and paintbrush. “Jo’s been a few times, been telling you about some sunflowers she’s planted for you, getting big, she says.”
    Again my eyes filled with tears and I thought of the boy, my boy, who had made all this possible.



THE END
    Through the open window, summer sunlight slants into the room and I hear the call of a distant bird, nesting high in the welcoming arms of an ancient sycamore (
Acer pseudoplatanus
). I realize that it is far too warm for the blankets that lie across my legs. Before I shift them my eye catches, again, the slender leaf, pinned with my many cards against the wall. For one last time I whisper to the boy, with a secret smile, “Goodbye, friend.”
    My mum walks in, her uniform creased. She smiles at me, her eyes aglow. I stare at her. She stares at me.
    â€œYou have such a lovely smile, Kaia,” she says.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    In all things, my first and highest thanks go to God, whose goodness towards me knows no bounds.
    Many people read this book before it got to “official” hands. Chief amongst them were a