‘Keep is a dreadful word,’ Karin says, her voice mingling with the images inside my head. My hands on Mark Sutthoff’s collar, his back pressed up against a wall, his face as red as a lobster.
Where is she, you bastard?
‘I know,’ I say.
Karin snuffles. ‘Do you think she’ll recover? I don’t mean from the injuries in the accident.’
‘She’s a strong girl, she always was,’ I say with a smile of encouragement, and stroke Karin’s knee.
We spend the rest of the journey in silence, apart from the occasional clearing of a dry throat, either Karin’s or mine. I know what’s going through Karin’s mind. She’s wondering whether the person we’ll be getting back today can still in some way be our daughter, after all these years and everything she may have been through. In the past, Karin often said things like ‘I hope it was quick, at least’, or ‘I’m praying she managed it’. What she meant by managed it was her wish that Lena’s death had been quick, without any physical or mental torture, no suffering. Sometimes I found it difficult not to go for the jugular when she spoke like that, even though I secretly thought the same. I sense that we’re miles apart, even though we’re sitting in the same car with just the central armrest separating us. Karin is frightened, Karin has her doubts. Me, on the other hand, all I’m thinking is that there are doctors for everything, for both body and soul, that it’s all going to be fine now. Why else would Lena have survived if she wasn’t capable of living? If she didn’t want to cling on to life? Maybe I’m too naïve and Karin is too pessimistic; maybe the truth is somewhere in-between, like the central armrest. Maybe it’s handy and quite simple.
‘She’s strong,’ I assert again and Karin clears her throat.
Lena
Someone screams, ‘No!’ and ‘Oh God!’
My stiff body is wrenched away. Shaken. Warmth, a firm embrace.
‘Lena! Oh God, Lena!’
I blink. Give a weak smile. He came back after all, at the last moment. The children, they’re alive, their arms clasped around his neck. He has an arm around me. His face is pale with horror. I put out my cold hand, feel a tear.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says, and I say, ‘You saved us.’
‘Patient stable.’
Hannah
I think I’ve done something wrong. I’m sure I have, because I’ve already counted to 2,676 and Sister Ruth still isn’t back yet. I mimicked the noise of the watermelon for her. Bam! Then she said she had to ask whether we could go and see Mama, and while she was away I should keep drawing the picture of my family. I’ve given Papa a red patch on the side of his head but now I don’t know what else to do.
I’m tired. The night outside the windows has already turned a bit grey. I haven’t been up this late very often, only when Sara was still with us and kept us awake with her howling. You always have to have enough sleep so the body can regenerate. I lay my head on the table and close my eyes. Mama always says you can choose what you dream if you think hard enough about something before going to sleep. I want to dream something really nice. About Mama and me finally going on another trip, just the two of us because I’m her favourite child.
So I think as hard as I can about the first time we went away together. I was a bit anxious to begin with, but Mama said, ‘It’s a wonderful place, Hannah. You’ll love it there.’ And she said we weren’t to tell anyone we were going away.
‘Shh,’ she said, putting her finger to her lips. ‘Our trips are a secret.’
‘But you mustn’t lie, Mama!’
‘We’re not lying, Hannah. We’re just not telling anyone.’
‘What about Jonathan? He’ll get scared when he wakes up and finds nobody at home.’
‘Don’t you worry about him. He’ll sleep for a long time. And we’ll be back by the time he wakes up, I promise.’
We made ourselves look beautiful. Mama even let me put on my favourite dress, the white one with the flowers. Then we tiptoed out of the house to the car. I sat in the front, next to Mama. The road we drove on was as smooth as paper and reflected the sun. In places it shimmered in the heat like little, colourless fires. I pressed my nose against the cool glass of the window. The sky was a canvas, with snowy-white clouds against a blue background. I traced the outline of a cow cloud on the window. Mama laughed. A song was playing on the radio that we knew, and Mama’s laughter ruined the melody until she started singing along. We left the main road and turned into a residential area. Mama parked the car in the shade of a large tree. It was a maple. You can tell by its five-fingered leaves that look like a big green hand.
We’d been invited to a party, and it was taking place in a garden. Mama was right, it was a wonderful place. We were expected; people were laughing, waving and calling out, ‘There you are!’ Mama tried to introduce me, but I couldn’t stand still with excitement. I slipped off my sandals and ran barefoot through the garden, sniffing the hydrangea flowers that were as large as cabbages, then I threw myself on the lawn on my tummy. The grass smelled of the washing powder we always use. I picked blades of grass and daisies and let a ladybird run over the back of my hand. A man with really light blue eyes and grey hair sat on the lawn beside me and said, ‘It’s so lovely you came, Hannah.’
I showed him the ladybird on my hand and he told me that ladybirds were really useful because they ate greenfly and spider mites. I was amazed, such a tiny creature.
‘They’re also said to bring good luck,’ the man said. I liked that.
Someone called us to eat. At the back of the garden a long table had been set up. I put the heel of my right foot to the toes of my left, then kept going like this until I measured the length of the table: thirty steps. There was chocolate cake and strawberry tart and custard with raspberries the size of my thumbnail and biscuits and pretzel sticks and barbecued sausages. I wanted to try everything, but Mama said we had to get back. Jonathan would wake up soon. The sleeping pills never work quite as long as we’d like.
‘Can I at least have a piece of chocolate cake, Mama? Just a little bit, please? I eat really fast.’
Mama shook her head. She took a cereal bar from her handbag, tore off the wrapper and gave it to me. ‘Too much sugar’s unhealthy, Hannah. When we’re back home we’ll read what too much sugar can do to your body. Now get your sandals, we’ve really got to go.’
She hurried towards the garden gate without saying goodbye to the other guests. When I caught her up just before she got to the car, I turned around again. Standing by the garden fence and waving at me was the man who’d told me about ladybirds. I raised my hand, but only briefly so Mama didn’t see. Then we were back home.