Finally they’re at Greenhills. How quiet Maddie’s parents are. They’ve not said a word the entire journey. The air in the car is so thick she can almost taste it.
They drive through the gates at Greenhills, and when they park and get out, they’re met by the smell of hot tar. Above that, the scent of grass is sweet in the air; the lawns at Greenhills have just been cut.
Up the wide shallow steps at the entrance, pushing open the doors, breathing in. ‘A home from home’, that’s what the NoH brochure says, but Maddie and Noah’s home doesn’t smell like this.
‘Come-on-come-on-come-on-come-on.’ Maddie’s galloping down the corridor, heading for the door with the number 8 and under that, on a small card tucked into a neat brass frame, ‘Noah Groome’.
She’s racing ahead of her parents, checking her watch, making sure she’s not late. ‘Two-thirty on the dot, Noe,’ that’s what she promised. Almost there, ready to knock five times – rat-tat, rat-tat-tat. She can’t have Noah opening the door at two-thirty and seeing no one there. She skids to a stop outside his room and looks at her watch. 2:29:46. She counts down the last few seconds and then raises her hand. Not a second too soon, not a second late. Just as she’s finished her Noah knock, he opens the door.
He smiles down at her, that open, wide smile that Maddie loves, and says, ‘On the dot, Mads. Thanks.’
She smiles and moves closer and he allows her to brush his arm.
Kate and Dominic watch their daughter dash ahead. ‘The sunshine of my life’, Dominic used to sing to her when she was small. When did he stop singing, Kate asks herself now. Noah’s condition has blanked out the sunshine, the house has become cheerless, smothered in gloom. At least, that’s how it feels to her, the failed mother.
And to Dominic too, probably. A man who can’t even greet his son, let alone meet his eyes.
When she catches up with Maddie, Noah is still at the door, holding onto the handle like a life raft. He steps back to allow her in. Dominic is still a few metres away. Jesus, Dominic, get in here now. Kate wants to snap out the words, lasso them around his legs and drag him into the room. Snap, like the way he spoke to her two weeks ago. ‘For God’s sake, Kate. They’re just mugs.’ Well, Dominic, this is just a room. And this is just your son, holding the door open and waiting for you to look at him.
Noah’s father slips past him with a mumbled hello and Noah closes the door. Then he leans against it and takes a deep breath.
‘I have something important – it’s important,’ he says.
‘Yes, darling?’
His mom and his sister look at him, but his father’s already on his way over to the window.
He clears his throat and says clearly, ‘There will be no tea today, and no biscuits either.’
There. He had to say that. He had no other choice. In the Visitors’ Lounge, they could have had tea. And 1 biscuit. 2 biscuits even. But not here. Not in his room.
Tell that woman. Tell her to think these things through before she gets in her car and drives home on a Friday afternoon.