Scarlett - Cathy Cassidy [54]
‘I’m not leaving Clare,’ Dad says defensively. ‘I’m not going anywhere until I know the baby’s going to be OK.’
‘Of course not,’ Mum says. ‘You’re needed here. I’ll take the girls – I got a hire car at the airport, and Scarlett can show me the way. Ring me in the morning, let me know what’s happening’
‘The phone at the cottage is broken,’ I remember.
Mum shrugs. ‘Well, you’ve got my mobile number, Chris. Call me first thing.’
‘I will,’ Dad says. ‘Thanks.’
‘No problem,’ Mum says. ‘Come on, girls.’
We drive through the night in Mum’s hire car, Holly fast asleep on the back seat, me wide awake, wired, fear running through me. I can’t stop thinking about my new sister, tiny, frail and raw, not quite ready for the world. I wish I’d found a way to tell her to hang on, give it a chance.
The drive back takes forever because we don’t have a map and the signposts are kind of crazy, but finally we get to Kilimoor and I know the way from there well enough.
Mum lifts Holly out of the car and scoops her up, brown legs dangling, to carry her in. The chickens rustle anxiously from the branches of the apple tree because nobody was around to shut them in the henhouse. The front door is unlocked, the lights blazing. The power cut is clearly over. Apart from that, the cottage is just the way we left it, the kitchen table heaped with fabric, the stepladder still propped up into the open attic hatch as we edge carefully past to Holly’s room.
I pull the pink quilt back and Mum lowers Holly down gently, easing off her shoes, tucking the cover up around her chin. I drop a kiss on to her forehead, and see the look of surprise flicker across Mum’s face. I draw the curtains and switch off the light as we leave the room.
Out on the landing, Mum folds the ladder and pulls the hatch closed while I gather up the little dresses still scattered across the floorboards. If Mum recognizes them, she doesn’t say so.
She carries the stepladder downstairs, finds the back porch and props it inside, puts the kettle on, sweeps the mounds of scrap fabric off the table and into Clare’s scrap-bag. I catch the corner of the cot quilt and rescue it, spreading the patchwork out across the table.
‘Clare was making a cot quilt,’ I tell Mum. ‘She never finished it.’
Mum strokes a hand across the quilt, smoothing the surface, tracing the pattern of bright stitching that decorates each jigsaw join. ‘Plenty of time for that,’ she says softly. ‘We can take it in to the hospital, tomorrow – Clare can work on it there if she’s feeling up to it. Or maybe we could do a little bit…’
‘Could we?’ I ask. ‘I’d like that, Mum. Thanks.’
‘OK, sweetheart.’ Mum smiles. ‘No problem. But right now, you need to sleep. Bed, Scarlett. And don’t worry – it’ll all look better in the morning’
I pause halfway up the stairs, looking down. ‘Mum? You must have caught the first plane out here after I spoke to you this afternoon.’
‘Ah,’ she says, smiling. ‘Alima made the reservations over the phone. There were no late flights to Knock, but we found one going from Luton to Galway, and I took a taxi to the airport. The flight was on time, so it was just a case of hiring a car once I got there…’
‘What will your boss say?’ I ask.
‘Couldn’t care less,’ Mum says. ‘I work long enough hours for that firm – they don’t own me.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Mum, what exactly made you decide to come?’
She looks up, smiling. ‘Easy,’ she tells me. ‘You needed me, Scarlett. Simple as that.’
I dream of Kian and Midnight and hazy afternoons by the loughside, holding hands beneath the wishing tree, riding along the ridges at sunset. I wake early but not to a hail of gravel.
Kian is gone, just when I needed him most.
I dress quickly. grabbing my fluffy rucksack, stuffing in a few bits and pieces. I creep downstairs, past the squashy old sofa where Mum is sleeping, wrapped in one of Clare’s patchwork throws. I dip a hand into Clare’s scrap-bag, fishing out the dressmaking shears. I drop them