His aunt had cooked supper by the time Daniel got home, but he wasn’t hungry, despite not eating since his breakfast of chips.
When he picked up his plate, still heavy with most of the food, she rolled her eyes. ‘You should eat more than that. You’re a growing boy.’
Daniel ignored her and put the plate on the worktop beside the sink. He heard a little sigh as if she might be deflating. But when he turned round she was still there.
‘What have you been doing with yourself today?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. Went to see Dad with Bennett.’
‘I saw you walking around town with your friend earlier; it looked like you’d been drinking,’ she said, scraping her fork round her plate, and the sound caught in Daniel’s chest.
‘No we weren’t.’
She took a deep breath as if she was sniffing the air for clues. ‘You were chasing some poor man down the street.’
‘You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be. If it’s all too much.’
‘Daniel, you’re fifteen.’
‘Like I said.’
She smiled as if he had told her a joke. ‘And how do you know I don’t want to be looking after you?’
‘It’s not like you’ve been interested in me before.’
‘Maybe you should ask your father about that.’
‘Well, that’s a bit hard right now,’ Daniel said and she bowed her head. ‘Anyway, kids aren’t your thing.’
‘How would you know that?’
‘It’s obvious.’ His aunt stared right back and something welled inside him and made him say it. ‘Because you don’t have any.’
She looked at her plate and then put down her knife and fork.
‘Actually, I did have a son. He was called Michael. He died very young, before you were born. He would have been just a year older than you.’ She wiped her mouth with her napkin. ‘I never had the chance to have another child. Sometimes you realize that life gives you a blessing only after it’s happened. That’s what real heartbreak is. But I think you know that now more than most people.’
Daniel gripped the edge of the worktop because his legs seemed not to be there.
‘I know what it’s like to lose someone I loved very much, the same way it was with your mother, and that makes me the perfect person to be here helping you, don’t you think?’
‘Dad hasn’t gone.’
‘But he might, Daniel, because of how ill he is. And I’m sure you think about that from time to time. It’s something you need to talk about and I’m here whenever you want to. I worry you’re only telling your friend what you’re feeling.’
She picked up her fork and started eating again.
Daniel walked back to the table with his plate and set it down in front of him and sat down. He began to eat too.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said after finishing a mouthful and swallowing. ‘I’m sorry about Michael too.’
‘Thank you. It was a long time ago.’ His aunt smiled. Nodded. ‘What do you tell him that you can’t tell me?’
‘Who?’
‘Your friend.’
‘Nothing.’ But she gave him a look that told him she didn’t believe him. ‘We don’t talk about anything important. That’s the point.’
They finished the rest of the meal in silence, her eyes flicking up at him as if expecting him to tell her something private and balancing the world between them. But he couldn’t tell her anything about Mason or Lawson. So instead he ate every grain of rice on his plate and tried to come up with something else.
‘You’re right,’ he said finally. ‘I have been drinking today. Just the odd sip with Bennett. Sorry.’
When his aunt smiled as he put down his knife and fork on his empty plate, he knew that was enough for her for now. She laid her hands flat on the table and took a breath.
‘The consultant in charge of your father wants to speak to us tomorrow.’
‘About what?’
‘About what’s happening next. They’re going to start reducing his sedation in the morning because the swelling in his brain has gone down. They want to see if your father will wake up. If he starts to breathe on his own.’
‘Do they think he will?’
‘They don’t know.’
‘They don’t know much at all, do they?’
His aunt’s mouth fell open. But the words didn’t come and all she did was close it and shake her head.