‘Take our girl wherever she wants to go.’
*
We left the hospital in two cars. There had been more pairs of hands than we needed to help transfer Amelia from the hospital wheelchair into the back seat of Nick’s car. Quite a few members of staff from the ward had accompanied us down to the foyer to wave goodbye to the woman who’d once been called their miracle patient.
Mum drove my car back to the cottage, freeing me to travel with Nick and Amelia. Five minutes into the journey, it became clear that Mum and Tom were going to get there long before we did. Nick – who was never reckless behind the wheel – was driving as though transporting nitroglycerin. At our current speed, we’d be lucky to get back before dusk fell.
‘We’re under a bit of a time crunch here, Nick,’ Amelia said, her voice breathless but amused. ‘There’s a good chance I could die of old age before we ever reach the cottage.’
I saw Nick’s bittersweet smile in the rear-view mirror and the look he shot me in its glass. My arm was looped around Amelia’s shoulders, and I drew her a little closer against me.Thiswas how I wanted to remember her, finding something funny in even the worst of days.
I watched her during the drive as her eyes darted left and right, taking in everything that flashed past the car windows. I thought I knew why. She was storing everything: the bleak, the boring and the mundane, logging it all because she knew she was seeing them for the last time.
We’re not meant to know when the sand is running out of the hourglass, but Amelia did. She had for a long time now. The thought jarred something within me, and I spoke without thinking, not giving myself a chance to change my mind.
‘I have something important to tell you, Mimi.’
Amelia tore her eyes away from the shops, buildings and passing scenery.
I took a deep breath. ‘The results of my genetic test came back earlier than we were expecting.’ I felt her stiffen in my arms and forced a smile on to my face. ‘It’s good news, honey. I don’t have it. I haven’t inherited the faulty gene.’
Her eyes went to mine, presumably searching them for a lie, but she didn’t find one there. Her face, as pale as a ghost’s, broke into an enormous smile. People talk about ‘feeling relief’ as though it’s simply an emotion, but I could feel it in the most physical and literal sense as her body relaxed against me.
‘Thank God,’ she breathed. ‘Although I knew it already, I really did. I’m so happy for both of you,’ she added, including Nick in her words.
My eyes went to his in the rear-view mirror. ‘It really is wonderful news,’ he said with sincerity.
*
As predicted, Mum and Tom got to the cottage first. By the time Nick scooped Amelia into his arms and carried her inside, Mum had already set up a makeshift bed on the couch beside the window, where Amelia could look out at the beach beyond.
My steps faltered for a moment as I watched my husband carry my sister over the threshold. I suddenly remembered Amelia telling me how Sam had carried her through that same doorway after their wedding. Did that faulty memory still linger somewhere in the dusty corners of Amelia’s mind?
The journey back from the hospital had exhausted her and while Mum fussed around, adjusting pillows and cocooning Amelia in blankets, I slipped from the room, murmuring something about making tea. I was staring at the kettle, watching it boil, when Nick’s reflection appeared beside mine in the shiny aluminium. I wasn’t surprised.
‘You lied to her,’ he said.
‘I did. And I’m not sorry. I know we promised only to speak the truth today, but I don’t regret breaking my word.’
I turned away from our blurred images to face him, needing to see if he was disappointed in me for lying. We both knew my results weren’t going to be back for at least another week.
It felt like a very big moment in my sister’s small kitchen and the relief I knew when he slowly smiled and opened his arms to me made my knees suddenly unsteady. The water boiled and then cooled, and still Nick held me against him.
‘I’m glad you did it,’ he whispered softly into my hair. ‘It was what she needed to hear.’
*
Amelia drifted through the next few hours. Sometimes awake and alert enough to join in our conversations, at other times lying back with closed eyes and a small peaceful smile on her lips.
‘Keep talking,’ she said softly when Mum tried to hush us with a concerned whisper, worried we were disturbing her. ‘I like hearing you all speak.’
We talked of the past, of Christmases and holidays we remembered, and of dogs we had loved and lost over the years.
‘Maybe they’ll all be there waiting for me,’ Amelia said with a wistful sigh. ‘It would be lovely to see them again.’
I nodded fiercely and – not for the first time – had to bite down hard on my lip to stop it from trembling. By the end of today it would probably be in shreds, but I was determined to stay strong for her.
The sun was beginning its slow descent towards the horizon, filling the lounge with its last burst of warmth, when Amelia’s eyes flew open. There was an urgency in them that hadn’t been there before.
