NO! THERE’S BEEN A mistake. Molly knows where she is, she knows what it is that’s happening. Worse than the dark, the blue light glowing here beside the bed, the insect fizz of it and the big dark window and the bad breath and gums and her voice creaky as a stranger’s and the weight of herself. No, there’s been a mistake; there’s been a misunderstanding, she should not be here she should not be like this, this isn’t how it goes; it’s impossible. It’s not her who is to die. It’s not her who is to get old, break down, vanish from herself. It was never supposed to be her. She is not the one who dies.
She is the only one who knew his face.
Hers is the only body that bore him.
Without her there is no one in this world who ever heard him speak.
Have mercy. Have mercy, but she knows the things she has done but mercy have mercy. There is mercy, surely, at the end?
She knows what she has done. She knows it all the time; every moment since it happened it’s been pulsing through her. It is in her blood, in her skin. It’s in her every breath.
She said she only turned her back, but that wasn’t it. She never told it to Dinny, she never told it even to herself – that she was hiding from him, from his lovely dry fingers, his chubby, spittle lips; that in the afternoon he had climbed all over her, Wake up, Mammy, wake up. He had pulled her eyelids open, put his thumb between her lips and – why? Why had she done it – why? It felt like she couldn’t move, like she needed a moment inside herself. She had played dead – why? Only when he cried, she opened her eyes, smiled at him, kissed him, Sorry, my little man, only joking. Not sleeping not dead, only a little tired… she wasn’t right that day. Hiding in the bedroom then, while he played with his spinning top there on the kitchen floor. Hiding like that just to sketch with a scrap of charcoal; a spider in its web. She had discovered it when she opened the window, and the big ugly egg sac it was wrapping. A quick, messy drawing – why? – while he climbed up onto a chair and reached for those new round beans she had soaking.
She will forget. Oh, mercy, let her forget. That bit at least. Let her forget.