Before the House Burns by Mary O'Donoghue

Author:Mary O'Donoghue [Mary O'Donoghue]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781843512172
Publisher: The Lilliput Press
Published: 2011-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Her mother liked the hairbrush and so Maeve liked the day immediately, even if was rainy. Her mother liked it enough to brush her hair with it three different times during the morning. And she tickled the top of Benny’s head with it. Benny’s hair is coming along now. For a while Maeve thought he would stay bald forever. A boy in Eva’s class had hair so fair that it made him look bald on the sunny day of First Communion. But there is Benny’s hair, dark and licked to his head. Often there is crusty stuff among it and her mother can lift off whole flakes of it, big as leaves sometimes.

Her grandparents have arrived. Eva saw the car first and sped off to open the front door. Maeve remembers them from Eva’s Communion day, of course, but as they walk up the path she thinks that she should remember them from before then, too. Their faces should be fixed more brightly in her head, the way that if someone covered her eyes now, here in the hallway, she would be able to say what her grandmother’s hair looked like and how her grandfather had a large round mark on his cheek, velvety, and brown like a penny.

When she hugs them they hold her for a long time. She thinks that because their arms are thin it makes her feel their hugs more closely. Her grandmother’s especially. Maeve feels shut inside a cage. Plus her grandmother is wearing a flowery perfume that is rich and sweet around her neck. After the hellos are finished they go to the bedroom where Benny is sleeping. Maeve follows. Even though she sees him every day, sleeping in that strange way with his arm behind his head as if he is always ready to fight off monsters in his dreams, she never gets tired of how cute it looks. She cannot believe that she was that small once. It would be great to be able to remember what that was like. To return to a cosy time when all that mattered was milk and sleep. At least, that is how things seem to matter to Benny. As she watches her grandparents watching the shivering that runs through his sleep, the tiny sigh of air that he whushes out every so often, she thinks that being able to remember that time would be so helpful when you wanted to escape from things. From feelings like the doll disappearing into the sea when Eva threw her, and her father having to stop Maeve running in after it. She would have plunged in and let the waves close over her head if it meant bringing back that doll. Feelings like the loneliness of sitting under the stairs with her mother, having to stay still and silent when she knew her mother was crying. Like the fear of shouting in the kitchen last night, and the anger at Eva dragging her back from the door by the hem of her nightdress.

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