Nobody's Perfect by Stephanie Butland

Author:Stephanie Butland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction

Chapter 13

Early February

I

T’S TWENTY-FOUR HOURS after admittance before Daisy opens her eyes. She’s on a drip to keep her hydrated, but the skin on her lips is still drying to a too-pale pink. Kate has found a lip balm in her bag and rubs a little of it along Daisy’s lips. It’s as she’s doing this that Daisy stirs and opens her eyes halfway.

‘Hello, sweetheart,’ Kate says. ‘I’m here. We’re in the hospital. Everything’s all right.’

Daisy makes a tiny nodding motion before her eyes close again. ‘She opened her eyes,’ Kate says to everyone who comes in, as though the words are a protection, a charm.

Spencer visits on Sunday afternoon, Richenda in the evening, and they all watch Daisy sleep. Kate won’t be moved from her chair, except to take a shower before her mother leaves. She eats little, says less. Daisy sleeps on.

On Monday, Spencer arrives after school. He brings a card, made and signed by Daisy’s class. ‘I see the hand of Wendy,’ Kate says, as she looks at the butterflies that she can imagine everyone was encouraged to draw. The thoughtfulness of it makes her tearful. Everything makes her tearful, today: now that Daisy’s temperature is coming down and her breathing is easier, Kate can start to let go of some of the pressed-down fear that’s clogged her since the Saturday-morning phone call.

‘Wendy and Jilly send their love,’ Spencer says. ‘And they said they’d love to come in as soon as you and Daisy feel up to it. Lots of the parents are asking after you both.’

‘I feel as though nothing but this room is real.’ Kate lets go of Spencer’s hand to press her palm to Daisy’s forehead. The chart at the foot of her bed tracks her temperature, taken by nurses at twenty-minute intervals; but Kate still needs to check for herself. She trusts the feeling of Daisy’s skin on her palm more than she trusts a thermometer. ‘Is that weird?’

‘That’s not weird,’ Spencer says, and his voice is soft, partly because no one can help but be quiet around Daisy, even though she’s clearly so soundly asleep, and anyway they would really all rather she was awake. ‘So long as you don’t forget about me when I’m not here.’

‘Of course not.’ Kate thinks about her flat and Spencer’s, about school, about the trampoline in her mother’s garden, Beatle and Hope snuffling in hedges on walks. She shakes her head as though dislodging a dream.

‘Daisy looks so little.’ Spencer holds Kate’s hand, tight.

‘Yes,’ Kate says. ‘Well she is, really. We forget.’

He’s brought a brie-and-bacon on walnut sandwich, and although Kate doesn’t think she’s hungry she eats it all.

‘I spoke to your mum. She’s coming in with clean clothes for you both, and magazines and fruit. She says she wasn’t sure if your phone was on, but to text her if you want anything else, or I’ll let her know when I leave.’

Kate thinks about saying, all I want is for her to get better. Instead she nods.

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