‘I think you should wear the lavender dress. The one you were going to wear for Daisy’s wedding. I mean, it’ll just lie to waste otherwise and it’s too pretty to put in a charity shop. Like you bought it, you should wear it.’
Jemma turns towards the bed. Hannah is still, her body curved away from her, facing the open bedroom window. The top of her dark head is poking out from under the duvet. Jemma wants to stroke her hair, twist the ends of it and make curls of it with her fingers.
She carefully places the clothes hanger on the wardrobe door, smoothing out a crease.
‘I’ll have to iron it for you. Or maybe they’ll do that? I’ll ask.’
Outside, children are laughing. There had been a gang of them on the green playing football or chase or some wild game when Jemma came to the house. She had marvelled at them for a moment, thought of skipping over and joining them. Delaying the inevitable.
Instead, she fished out the spare key from under the dying hydrangea plant pot and let herself in.
‘It’s a nice day out. Scorching. Will I take the blankets off you again? You must be boiling.’
There is no sound of consent, but she grips the duvet and moves it down to Hannah’s feet. Her toenails are painted violet, the varnish chipped. The sight of it makes Jemma want to cry.
‘There you go. Feel better now?’
A child screeches in delight sending a shudder through Jemma. She wants to shout out the window and tell them to shut up but it’s not them she is angry at.
‘They’ll be here in a minute or two, I think. I rang them 15 minutes ago, right? I said I’ll have the front door open. Will you be OK if I leave you to…’
Hannah looks straight through her.
When Jemma makes it back outside, she plonks herself on the edge of the footpath. She lights a cigarette from an emergency pack that she only indulges in in dire circumstances.
A ball bounces off a kerb and rolls towards her, plonking itself at her feet. It’s a dark plum, littered in stickers of glittery stars and planets and comets. Part of Saturn is sticking up, and she attempts to soothe it back down to no avail. A little girl dashes towards her and then stops with a sudden shyness.
‘Is this your ball? I love the stickers.’
Jemma attempts a smile, and it must have been successful because the girl beams in delight and nods. She rolls the ball towards her, and she scoops it up in her arms and is gone in a flash, already encased in the scramble of children.
She wonders if Hannah could hear them. She imagines her coming down the stairs and wrapping an arm around her. Imagine the warm weight of her body against her.
The ambulance turns the corner as Jemma puts her cigarette out.
Treasa Nealon is a writer, playwright and theatre maker from Ireland. She has had work published in Saving Daylight Magazine, Thimble Literary Journal and Free the Verse. She has had several plays produced in Ireland and the UK.
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