Quiet

 

 

Outside, the world is quiet. Inside, we’re curled up together in my bed, cold toes pressed against cold legs, arms around each other, buried in a pile of every quilt and blanket we can find.

“Did you see her?” says Hannah, again.

“Yes,” I say.

“Was it real?” says Hannah. “Was it Mum?”

“Yes,” I say. “I think so.”

We’re quiet, thinking. Hannah moves beside me, under the quilt.

“Molly?” she says.

“Mmm?”

I’m watching the shadows of the curtains on the wall. Is a shadow something real? Is a ghost?

“Don’t you mind?” says Hannah.

Does it matter?

“Mind what?” I say.

What about cold? I’m thinking. Is cold something real? Or night? You can’t touch them. But they’re there.

“Living here. With Grandma.”

“Of course.”

“You never say,” says Hannah. I think about it.

“We can’t go back and live with Dad,” I say at last. “Even if he wanted us, we couldn’t.”

Hannah pulls the quilt up over herself.

“Other dads do,” she says. “And mums. Mum would’ve, wouldn’t she? He could’ve. If he’d really tried, he could. He just didn’t want to.”

I’m tired, suddenly. I’m tired of Mum being gone, and Dad living away and everything being so complicated. I’m tired of trying to understand it all. I rest my head against her shoulder.

“Is that really true?” I say.

Hannah doesn’t answer for the longest, longest time.

“Hannah?”

She twists around and rubs her head against my cheek.

“No,” she says. “Not really.”

We’re quiet.

It’s the longest night of the year.

We lie together there in the bed, waiting for the day to come.