Play On (Play On 1)

I’d tried to explain it to Seonaid and was met with resistance at first.

“No.” Seonaid shook her head stubbornly. “You won’t have time.”

“How so?”

“Because you’re going to apply for university.”

I didn’t want to talk about that. A block of ice settled in my stomach. “No. I’m not.”

Seonaid flinched at my tone. “Nora …”

“Do you think your friend, Trish, would talk to me about it? Let me visit the kids once in a while? A volunteer entertainer?”

She looked at me like she was half afraid I was losing my mind. “A children’s entertainer?”

“Yes.”

“And you used to do this back in the US?”

“Yes.”

“And Jim knew about it?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you mention it before?”

“What’s the big deal? And I’m mentioning it now, aren’t I?”

“The big deal is the timing, Nora,” Seonaid insisted. “It’s been ten months. Not a long time in the grand scheme of things … but you need to start moving on with life. Going after the things you’ve always wanted. Like an education.”

“This is what I want,” I said. “Are you going to help me out or not?”

Despite not understanding it, at all, Seonaid did put me in touch with Trish. And Trish, although surprised a twenty-two-year-old would be interested in being a children’s entertainer, gave me a shot, despite my lack of professional credentials.

I have to admit to being secretly pleased when she gushed about how brilliant she’d thought I’d been when I acted out chapters from the first Lemony Snicket book.

“Trish said you were amazing.” Seonaid looked at me suspiciously that night. “Like really bloody good. She’s surprised you’re not in an acting program.”

The praise settled deep in my bones, alighting an ages-old longing and ambition. I didn’t show how much the words affected me, though. “That was kind of her.”

Seonaid narrowed her eyes, studying me as if she were trying to uncover all my secrets. “I worry about you, Nora,” she whispered.

“Don’t.” I gave her a small smile. “I had the best time with the kids today. I feel better than I’ve felt in a long time.”

“Good,” she murmured, but the concern in her eyes remained.

“Ye’er here,” Jan, the staff nurse, said as she approached me in the corridor en route to the children’s common room. As supervisor, Trish was usually busy on the days I visited, so Jan was the one who I dealt with mostly.

“As promised.”

Jan grinned at me. “I’ve never met a more dedicated volunteer.”

I wanted to smile but after my last visit, I was worried I’d be told not to come back. “And the parents are okay about me visiting?”

A parent had been here last week and had been, as was their right, full of questions about my business at the children’s hospital. She hadn’t been impressed to learn I wasn’t a professional children’s entertainer, but someone a member of staff knew. She insisted on sticking around to watch me, and I’d had to shove my nervousness aside, and pretend to be Peter Pan telling stories to kids who needed to stop growing older and sicker for a while.

“Mrs. Stewart thought ye were very good with the children,” Jan reassured me. “She was miffed she hadn’t been told about yer visits, which is fair enough. I thought all the parents had been made aware of ye, but she must have slipped through. Anyway, she’s happy to let Aaron continue to participate in yer visits.”

Relieved, I exhaled. “Good. I love my time with the kids.”

Jan shook her head at me, grinning. “Ye either have the biggest heart of any young woman I’ve ever met, or ye’er hiding from something when ye come here.”

I sucked back my next exhale like she’d slapped me.

Rubbing my arm in comfort, she said, “I think it’s a bit of both. And no matter … the results are the same. Ye’er doing a good thing.”

My tension melted as I realized she wasn’t going to press me about my reasons, but led me toward the common room and announced me to the kids.

Poppy, a little girl who had kidney disease and was treated with four-hour dialysis three mornings a week, beamed at me. “Nora.” She gave me a tired smile, and I grinned, peace moving through me rapidly, my whole body relaxing. The day I visited was a dialysis day for Poppy and despite how exhausted she was after treatment, she’d insisted to her mom that she be allowed to stay and listen to my readings. Jan always set her up in a big comfy chair with a lap blanket, and her concerned mother collected her at the end of my visits. Although Poppy’s mother was concerned about leaving her kid after treatment, and rightly so, she understood that her little girl needed to feel like there was more to life than her kidney disease.

And some American chick dressed as Peter Pan, acting out stories, took her away from that for a little while.

Why the Peter Pan costume, you ask?

“What the hell have ye done?” Roddy said as I approached him in the church at Jim’s funeral.

“What?”

“Yer hair?” He glowered at it.

“I cut it.”

“Aye, ye dinnae say. Ye look like fuckin’ Peter Pan.”

“She looks bonny.” Angie gave me a kiss on the cheek, her eyes welling up, her lips trembling. “She’d look like an angel no matter how she wore her hair. Jim would think so too.”

“Jim would lose his heid.” Roddy grunted. “He loved yer fuckin’ hair.”

That’s why I cut it off. “I felt like a change.”

“Peter fuckin’ Pan,” Roddy grumbled as we shuffled into the front pew together.

It made sense to me, not only because of the hair, but because of everything the boy who couldn’t grow up represented.

I smiled, taking in the room. Seven kids today, all of whom I recognized from last week. “Hey, guys,” I marched into the room with a swagger a la Peter Pan. “You ready to go on another adventure?”

“Uh … Peter?” Jan said, sounding amused.

I looked over my shoulder. “Yeah?”

Jan approached me and spoke in low tones. “There’s someone else who wants to visit with ye today. Would ye mind? Her name is Sylvie. Her mum, Nicky, was a nurse here and Sylvie got used to being around us. Nicky passed away not too long ago. She lives with her uncle but her dad sees her when he can. She was supposed to be with her dad today but he had a work emergency and Sylvie asked to be dropped off here. It’s becoming a regular occurrence. We don’t mind. It’s the wee lass we feel for.”

It sounded like a terribly sad situation. I understood those. “It’s definitely no problem.”

She disappeared to fetch Sylvie and I grinned at the room, my fists on my hips, my feet braced apart. “Are you all ready?”

“What are ye reading today?” Aaron quizzed from his place on the couch. He was holding an iPad in his hand, but his attention was on me.

“Oh, I’m taking you on the best adventure today. Just you wait.”

After talking to the kids for a minute or so, one of the double doors opened and Jan walked in with her hand on the shoulder of a tall, pretty girl. She wore her white-blond hair short, so the ends tickled under her chin.

My breath lodged in my throat.

Jesus Christ.

She looked like Mel.

“Nora—I mean, Peter, this is Syl—

“Sylvie Lennox.” The girl stepped out from under Jan’s hand. “I’m ten and I stay with my uncle Aidan in Fountainbridge. We stay right on the canal there.”

All I could do was stare, not just because she reminded me so much of Mel, but because she was so much younger than I’d first thought. Ten years old. And yet, there was an otherworldliness about her. Experience. Losing her mom.

“Hey Sylvie. I’m Peter Pan.”

“No, you’re not,” she said quite seriously as she walked over to me. She slowly lowered herself to the ground and crossed her legs. “Jan called you Nora. And you look more like a Nora than a Peter. Plus … Peter Pan is fictional. And a boy.”