Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (ready to read books .txt) 📕

on the hospital bed and growing smaller still as I ran away from her.

I want to shout, I want to shake him. I don’t have time to think of myself, of being clean, of feeling nourished – I have to get back to her. Every moment that passes is another moment away from her.

But this is my only hope. I don’t know why I’m here, but I know that there is no other place I should be. I meekly follow him, although on the inside, I’m churning. On the inside, I’m screaming.

Inside, the house is slightly dilapidated. Rooms that are clearly not used are full of dust and feel abandoned. Jonah leads me to the back of the house, to a large space that once must have been something grand and now has all the shabby trappings of daily life. He gestures to the sofa and hands me a bottle of water.

‘No – thank you.’

But he just says, ‘Drink’ and continues to hold it out to me. It’s a command.

I start to drink in large, noisy gulps. Water runs down my chin. I hadn’t realised how thirsty I am.

‘Please – sit,’ he says. He points out the sofa again and then as though to encourage me, he settles in an armchair before me.

I finish the bottle of water without meaning to.

‘My daughter—’ I begin to say.

Jonah holds up a hand. The gesture silences me.

‘First – wash. I’ll get you some clean clothes. Have something to eat. I insist.’

‘I’ve got to—’ My mouth fills with all that I could lose.

‘You’ve been rushing from one place to another all day, haven’t you?’ Jonah coaxes. ‘You’re tired, aren’t you?’

‘I’m… I’m—’

‘If Mimi’s not well, as you say, then she’s in the best place she can be. There’s nothing you can do but to let the doctors do their job.’

‘Mimi’s in hospital,’ I repeat. As I say it aloud, I wonder what I am still doing here if Jonah is not able to save her. ‘I should go back to her… If you can’t help us, I must go.’

I am struck again by the last glimpse I had of her, surrounded by medical staff, her thin limbs decorated in tubes and drips and machines. She was almost lost amongst it all.

‘I never said that.’ Jonah speaks gently. ‘I never said that I wouldn’t help you.’

THEN

I didn’t want to put Mimi down in her crib on that first day. There would be days to come when I would have given almost anything to be able to put her down, but that day I didn’t want her out of my arms. She rested her head on the very crook of my arm, nestling her cheek just to the side. Her snub nose grazed against my skin. I marvelled at it.

I marvelled at every part of her.

I wondered, briefly, if I would ever be able to move again.

Thomas sat, his arm over my shoulders, balancing on the hospital bed with us. It felt as though his arms were big enough to reach the whole way around us. We stayed there, wrapped around one another, like Russian dolls, transfixed and still.

Then the door opened, and I saw Evie standing there at the entrance. She hesitated, unsure whether to step forwards or backwards. The nurse who had arrived to do some checks on Mimi tutted a little that she was in her way.

‘Evie! You came!’ I cried.

She was more angular than when we’d last seen each other, over a year ago. Older in a way, too. She carried herself stiffly as she walked towards us.

‘Could you come back in five minutes?’ I asked the nurse.

‘This has to be done now,’ she replied, a little sharply, but then she softened and said, ‘It’ll only take a jiffy.’

Evie raised her eyebrows at me but said she would come back. I wondered whether she would, but a little while later, she returned. She twisted her hands and worried the rings on her fingers; she couldn’t stay still.

‘There’s someone here who wants to meet you,’ I spoke into the blanket bundle with Mimi’s delicate face at its centre. ‘This is your Auntie Evie.’

Evie took a step towards us but she didn’t lean in as I imagined that she might. She could not see Mimi properly from where she stood.

‘Hey, why don’t I go and get some drinks for us all,’ Thomas said. He made a movement with his eyes in Evie’s direction. He looked hopeful.

When we were alone, neither of us spoke at first.

‘Why didn’t you bring Jakey?’ I asked in the end.

‘Young children aren’t allowed on labour wards,’ Evie spoke mechanically.

I murmured a sound, like I should have realised that.

We fell into silence.

‘How are you?’ she asked instead.

‘Well – I’m well,’ I answered. I cringed inside. We were exchanging words like we were polite strangers. Why couldn’t I tell her how I was really feeling? Excited, terrified, sore, exalted, anxious and spent. ‘How are you?’

‘We’re both fine. Jakob’s doing really well.’

‘He must have grown so much,’ I murmured. ‘I probably wouldn’t recognise him.’ It was meant to be a joke but it struck the wrong chord, it sounded like a dig. We lapsed into silence again.

‘Do you want to hold her?’ I said, offering her up, desperate for it to be different than this taut distance between us. Mimi scrunched her face up and reached upwards without warning with one of her mittened hands.

‘I’d better not. I haven’t washed my hands – and Jakob’s into everything at the moment.’

‘There’s some antibacterial…’ But my voice tailed off when I saw Evie shaking her head at me. ‘We’ve named her Mimi.’

‘Mimi,’ Evie repeated. ‘Like Mum,’ she murmured.

‘Yes,’ I said. She’d been known by that name as a child although no one ever called her that once she’d grown up.

Evie didn’t hide the expression of disapproval on her face.

‘What? What’s wrong?’ Tears rose up. ‘Why can’t you just be happy for me?’

‘When we last spoke, you didn’t think that you were ready to