Mum’s walked in years. Plus, she hadn’t been eating much in hospital because the doctor’s put her on a diet, so she’s feeling a bit wobbly. But it’s a good thing because it means she’s lost weight. I saw on the notes in her medical chart that she’d lost one stone. Now I need to make sure the weight keeps going down.
Mum coughs. And then she stares up at the wall.
‘And what happened to our router? And where’s my laptop?’
‘You shouldn’t have to worry about doing the shopping. Dad and I are going to do it from now on.’
She looks at me and blinks and then goes back to scanning the room for all the changes.
‘And why’s Dad’s bed in my room?’
I thought that if it was just a matter of not having space for both of them in Mum’s bed, then we could bring Dad’s bed down too. They could be together again, like old times.
Mum keeps scanning the room – frowning. She looks at the two beds pressed up against each other and her wheelchair and her armchair and her medical equipment.
‘There’s no room to swing a cat in here,’ Mum says.
Steph warned me that the beds might be taking it a bit far but I told her it would be fine, that Mum would get used to it.
As we pushed Mum’s wheelchair out of Newton Hospital, the young nurse (the one who said Mum was going to die) ran after us and gave Mum a pile of leaflets on how to get healthy. Mum dumped them in the car park bin muttering:
‘Waste of trees.’
I wish she hadn’t done that. But I agree with her to this extent: it’s going to take more than a bunch of leaflets to stop her eating so much. It’s going to take someone who loves her and won’t give up on her, even when things get really hard. In other words, it’s going to take me. And getting rid of the TV and putting Dad’s bed in the lounge is the first step.
‘Where’s my bed?’ Dad calls down from the landing.
I go out to the hallway and look up at him. He’s got bags under his eyes that make him look one of those droopy-faced dogs.
‘I thought it would be nice for you guys to be together. After everything.’
It took Steph, Jake and me ages to get the bed down, but it’ll be worth it. When I drew up a timeline of when things started getting really bad with Mum, I worked out that Mum coming to live in the lounge downstairs four years ago made both of them go sad. I mean, Dad still does everything for Mum and you can tell that he totally adores her, but that’s not the same as being happy or loving each other romantically. I thought that maybe if I could bring them closer again, then Mum would get better faster.
‘This isn’t your business, Feather,’ Dad shouts down the stairs.
‘It’s completely my business!’ I yell back.
It’s the second time in twenty-four hours that I’ve shouted at Dad. But then Dad never shouts at me either. I guess we’re both a bit stressed out.
I keep going:
‘You’re my parents. And Mum nearly died. I had to do something.’
It feels weird, standing there in the hall between Mum, sitting in her chair in the lounge, and Dad upstairs.
‘There’s no room in the lounge,’ Dad says.
‘There’s plenty of room,’ I lie.
Because Mum and Dad being squished up together in the lounge is the plan. It’s what will make them close again.
This is how I see it:
Mum + Dad happy together = Mum happy.
Mum happy = Mum motivated to get healthy.
Mum motivated to get healthy = Mum stays alive.
We hear the creaking sound Mum makes when she heaves her legs up onto the footrest that goes with the armchair. Dad got the chair and footrest for her at the same time as the TV. Officially, it’s a love seat, which means it’s meant to hold two people, but Mum hardly fits all by herself. It’s the ugliest chair you’ve ever seen. Think of a gigantic, padded purple cabbage – with a slightly smaller padded purple cabbage for your feet.
My phone goes and I slip into the kitchen. It’s Steph.
‘How’s it all going?’ she asks. ‘How’s Jo taking the changes?’
Like I said earlier, Mum and Steph had a barney at Christmas and since then Mum’s been ignoring her. They won’t tell me what it’s about. Mum + Steph being friends is another plan I need to put into action if I’m going to get Mum happy again and motivated to lose weight.
‘Not well,’ I say.
I hear Dad close the door to his room upstairs.
‘And I think we should have told Dad. About the bed.’ I sigh. ‘I wish you and Jake were here. I’m not sure I can cope with being in the house alone with Mum and Dad.’
There’s a pause. Which makes me feel guilty because I know that it’s probably Mum’s fault that she and Steph fell out and that Steph’s really cut up about it and that she’s still been doing all this stuff to help Mum. Plus, Steph is divorced so she doesn’t even have the option of sharing a room with her husband.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say to Steph. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘I’ll send Jake over when he gets back.’
‘He’s with Amy?’
‘Yeah.’
Jake’s basically had a girlfriend since we were in nursery. He’s one of those guys that girls fancy: floppy, sandy hair that he has to keep flicking out of his blue eyes; dimples; a big smile. And for some reason, he seems to go along with it, picking up a new girl as soon as an old girlfriend gets bored or angry because he doesn’t give her more attention.
None of those girls looked right with Jake. You know how, when you see a couple that are meant to be together, their edges go blurry and they kind of meld together and become more like one person than two? Well, Jake’s never had the blurry-edged thing: he and his girlfriends always looked like two people.
Steph once told me: Jake needs to have a girl around… And when I asked her, What about me, aren’t I a girl? Steph had laughed and given me a hug and said, You’re different, Feather. Which made me feel kind of hurt and happy at the same time.
Anyway, Steph and I are on the same page about Amy. I think she secretly hopes Jake and me will get together and get married and have loads of grandchildren she can coo over, which is kind of embarrassing but it’s nice to know that she’d want me as part of her family.
‘Hope everything works out,’ Steph says.
‘Thanks, Steph.’
I go back out into the hall. It’s really quiet. I imagine Dad sitting in
