The Food of Love by Amanda Prowse

Author:Amanda Prowse [Prowse, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781503940048
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2016-11-30T18:30:00+00:00

Freya remembered little about the dash to the hospital; could hardly recall the way her daughter’s limp frame had been strapped in for the journey, the way her lank hair fell towards the floor or the kindly words of the paramedic, informing and reassuring with well-rehearsed phrases, issued from lips immune to the deep panic she felt. The only thing she could recall were Lexi’s eyes, fear etched across the pupils, as she held her mother’s gaze.

‘Sorry, Mummy,’ she muttered listlessly, while Freya shook her head and ran her fingers over her child’s translucent skin, taut across the meandering veins on the back of her hand.

The young male doctor in the emergency room was aloof, cool with flashes of irritation. He seemed to prefer looking at his clipboard and notes than at his patient. Freya took an instant dislike to him.

She, however, was too busy processing the images of her daughter’s naked body, seen for the first time in an age, when they had removed her clothes and placed her in a hospital gown. It had taken all of her strength not to howl.

Lexi’s thin skin was pulled tightly over her breastbone. It looked so fragile; she feared it might tear at the slightest movement. The buds of her chest, where a bust had been promised, were now flattened, and the curve of her ribs stood proud over a concave stomach. The mere sight of her caused both her and Lockie to weep. The collarbone looming large beneath her jutting jaw, and her arms, pale bones where the elbows looked disproportionately large: these were the images that would haunt her dreams.

Freya wanted to take the young doctor outside the ward and shake him, make him aware that, yes, this was self-inflicted, but that a mental illness with physical effects was just as worthy of treatment as any that was purely physical. She doubted he would have felt the same way had he lived long enough to become a parent and love a child unconditionally. He was, however, the conduit between her sick child and the treatment she needed, and for that reason she smiled and nodded in all the right places, keeping her opinions to herself.

‘What’s the matter with my daughter?’ Lockie stood, meeting the young man eye to eye.

The doctor took a deep breath and began, speaking freely in front of their child in a way that did even less to endear him to her. ‘Early indications suggest that as well as bone loss, she has a heart issue that’s fairly typical with prolonged anorexic behaviour.’

‘So it is her heart?’ Freya needed it confirming.

‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘She’s at the age where—’

‘Lexi,’ Lockie interrupted him. Freya could see from the set of her husband’s jaw that he too took offence at the man’s manner. ‘She has a name and that name is Lexi.’

The doctor was silent for a beat, and then continued. ‘Lexi,’ he stressed, in a way that was more placatory than sincere, ‘is at an age where she

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