Leave Me Breathless

I smile as Molly starts backing away, taking another poster from her purse. ‘I’d better go, I have another ten of these to put up before my lunch break is over. Thanks, Hannah.’

‘No problem at all. I’m looking forward to it.’ I slip the key in the lock of my door. ‘And if you need any help with the planning, you know where I am.’

‘You’re a gem. See you at the pub tomorrow. We can talk more then.’

As simple as our plans are for a drink together, I’m excited. I’m making my own plans with someone I actually want to spend time with. I can be myself. Drink wine to my heart’s content without worrying I might say the wrong thing or upset someone.

The next day, I do what I’ve done every Saturday since I arrived in Hampton. I take an hour’s taxi ride to Grange Town and visit the park. I sit on my usual bench, and I wait, feeling something between excitement and apprehension.

It’s exactly five past ten when I see them, and my heart speeds up, my spirits lifting high. ‘Hey, Mum,’ I whisper, watching as Pippa pushes her down the path toward the lake. They stop in their usual spot where the swans always seem to congregate, and I laugh a little when Pippa pulls out a bag of seeds and drops it, sending the bird feed scattering everywhere at her feet.

‘Always so clumsy,’ I muse, thinking of all the times as kids when we used to wreak havoc with our accident-prone chaos. Like that time Mum asked Pippa to rinse the pasta and she dropped the pot halfway to the sink after tripping over nothing. I laughed until my sides felt like they could split. Then Pippa laughed, too. Then she slipped on a piece of pasta and took me down with her. Mum screeched, Dad smiled fondly, not looking up from his newspaper, and Pippa and I rolled around on the floor. We had beans on toast for dinner that night.

And there was that time when we were teenagers and I was working on my final piece for my art examination. Pippa kicked the leg of my easel as she passed, sending my canvas face-first to the dining room rug. I remember staring at it, my paintbrush hanging limply in the air. Pippa cursed. Spewed her apologies fast as she scooped up my piece from the rug. Looked at it in horror. And I laughed because it was crap, anyway, and I was stalling starting from scratch. Pippa thought I’d lost my mind. Mum told us she hated that rug. And Dad was smiling again. Dad was always smiling. We were all always smiling.

Then I went to the university, got a job in a gallery, and met . . .

I quickly shake my thoughts away and focus on my mum and sister, starting to laugh again when Mum, looking rather lucid today, points around her wheelchair where all the ducks and swans have descended, pecking up the feed. It’s chaos, wings flapping, Pippa shrieking, Mum laughing. It’s a good day for her. She looks so beautiful when she smiles, always has, though her smiles are not as frequent these days.

My stomach starts to ache from my laughing as Pippa waves her arms around like a madwoman, trying to scare the birds away. It’s an ache I remember fondly. Because Pippa and I were always getting into scrapes and laughing our way through them. And Mum and Dad always seemed to take pleasure from that. My sister and I were the best of friends, only two years between us. We were joined at the hip. Peas in a pod.

I sigh, and the inevitable wave of sadness I was trying to avoid comes over me. I wish I were over there with them. I wish they could know I’m here. I wish I could laugh with them. And more than that, I wish I could once again be the cause for their laughter. When I left home, I no longer made them laugh. I made them worry. And then I broke their hearts.

A tear falls, and I rush to wipe it away as I watch my sister push Mum out of the park, back toward the care home. I didn’t want to leave the park feeling sad, and yet my mood is flat as I head back toward the main road to get a taxi back to Hampton. ‘See you next week, you two,’ I say, looking back. But they’re gone.

Another week to wait. Another lifetime. How long will it be before I’m left sitting on the bench, hoping to see them, and they don’t show up for their Saturday-morning walk around the park? What happens when Mum’s too ill to go out?

I can’t bear to think about it.