Little Wishes by Michelle Adams

Author:Michelle Adams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2020-11-17T00:00:00+00:00

Now

When Elizabeth opened the door and saw Alice, it was with both relief and concern. Dark bags hung under the young woman’s eyes, the skin tissue-paper fine. Her time away in Hastings had drained her. And Elizabeth feared that what she had to tell Alice was only going to make things worse. Since her day out with Tom, which even as she thought about it now was near perfect, everything had become steadily more difficult. Only yesterday she had found Tom leaning on the doorframe of the kitchen, looking out to the rear garden. When she’d asked him what he was doing there his answer had been simple enough but concerning nevertheless: pulling in the nets, he’d said. It reminded her of her mother in the months before her death, the spontaneous uncoupling of her mind from the reality of the surrounding world. There one minute, gone the next, like a little puff of smoke.

“Hello, love,” Elizabeth said as Alice moved into the porch. The chill of an early autumn day came with her, the summer already starting to fade. It did little to settle Elizabeth, who was already shivering with nerves. “How was your trip?”

“To be honest, I didn’t enjoy it much,” Alice said as she removed her coat. “I just wanted to get back.” Everything about her looked ready for some unknown event, like one of those antelopes Elizabeth had seen on a documentary last night, a perpetual awareness of the possibility of attack. “But I’m back now and today’s going to be great. Can’t believe we’re finally going to Cornwall. Is he ready to go?”

Dread coursed through Elizabeth like ichor in the veins of gods. Her body was weak, vibrating to the rhythm of trepidation as the words took shape in her thoughts. “No, love, I’m afraid he’s not. You’d better come upstairs.”

* * *

Only when she saw Alice’s expression did she realize just how much Tom had changed over the course of a few days. He had slimmed down, his cheeks were sunken, and one of his lower eyelids had drooped. It looked wet and pink, as if it was sore. Was his mouth also drooping? Elizabeth had been denying the changes, but now it was impossible to pretend. When she lay alongside him, the bottom edge of his ribs poked into hers. All night she stroked them gently, as if perhaps she could smooth them back into place, as if her love were enough to mute the blades of bone. But love was never enough. She knew that of old.

“He looks terrible,” Alice whispered.

Elizabeth had no verbal response that could soften such truth, and so she rested a hand on her shoulder.

“He doesn’t look like Dad anymore.” Sheets, hot with the sweat of the night, crumpled as Alice sat down on the bed and picked up his hand. He barely stirred.

“I called an ambulance already,” Elizabeth said, hoping it came as some reassurance.

The bedside table, normally so well ordered with a picture of Alice when she was small, was covered in a carpet of used tissues, like little pink gauze ghosts.

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