I kept my hands on her neck for a while after she was dead. The skin was soft. It was soft like a flower petal. It was so soft I wasn’t sure where I ended and she began. The lollipop had fallen out of her mouth and left a sticky trail across her cheek. Her eyes were still open, but she had stopped blinking, and the bulging brown circles were like marbles in her head.
When I had finished killing Steven I had sat back on my heels and shaken out my seized hands, and I had felt warm and tired and not hungry, for once not hungry, and I had thought, “This is as good as a person can feel.” I looked at Ruthie and tried to get that feeling back. I tried so hard I thought my insides would be pushed out, because that was what the trying felt like. Straining. Squeezing. I put my hand on her shoulder and gave her a little shake. I tapped her face.
“Come back now,” I whispered. “Don’t be dead. I didn’t mean to. Come back.”
She stayed quiet. She stayed still. I shook her again, slapped her cheek, put my face above hers and blew warm breath. I said it right into her ear—“Come back. Please come back.” She stayed quiet. She stayed still.
The sky in the hole above us was hot blue, and the sun was hot on my neck, but my guts were cold. I was tired. My hands were sore. Ruthie was still. I had made her dead. She was never going to come alive again. I tipped my head back and looked up at the hole in the sky. I howled, howled, howled.
Julia
In Linda’s house, the morning mayhem began promptly, with full intensity, at six a.m. I was woken by one of the twins putting her face an inch from mine and shouting, “GET OFF THE COUCH. WE NEED TO WATCH TELLY.” Linda stuffed small bodies into school uniforms and poured Frosties into bowls and didn’t seem to care that no one could hear her over the yammer of cartoons. Molly and I were ready to leave by eight. We had to stand on the doorstep for a while, Linda calling from the kitchen, “Wait, wait a second, I’m just trying to work out if Mikey’s swallowed this or not.”
She came down the hallway with Mikey on her hip. He was grinning proudly.
“What’s he swallowed?” I asked.
“It’s just a little bit of a toy. But it’s only tiny. And I don’t think he has. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t. And if he has—well—I suppose I’ll find out soon.”
I was surprised that any of Linda’s kids were still alive.
“We’ll get off,” I said.
“Yeah. Things to get back to,” she said.
Mikey coughed and she put him down to pat his back. He leaned forward, spluttered, and spat something into her hand. It was a tiny doll head. She wiped it on her T-shirt.
“Well done, poppet,” she said. “Does that feel a bit better?”
He nodded and barreled back into the kitchen.
“Phew,” she said. “One less thing to worry about.”
“You know, earlier, you asked if I came because you called?” I said.
“Oh, I was just being silly. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I did come to see you,” I said. “I didn’t know it was you calling. But you were the person I really wanted to see.”
It wasn’t a lie. It had been Linda I had wanted: not in my brain, in my body. For years I had been hung up on Mam, because your mam was the one who was supposed to fill you up when you felt empty, but she had never done that for me. She had given me dregs and scrapings of warmth, and now that I had seen her again, I believed it was all she had been able to give, but it hadn’t been enough. She was never going to give me enough. I knew, because when she had told me what she wanted, she had talked about going back and making things different for her. She hadn’t talked about doing things better for me.
Only one person in Chrissie’s life had loved her in an ordinary, everyday way, the way you love salt or sunlight. Linda hadn’t been able to tie shoelaces or tell the time, but she had been the cleverest at loving, at loyalty, at giving everything and expecting nothing in return. She was the person I had needed to see one more time, before I lost Molly and everything stopped. I knew, because I didn’t feel hungry anymore. It wasn’t just shepherd’s pie and chocolate ice cream and Frosties. It was Linda.
“Thanks,” she said. She rolled the doll head between her fingers. “I didn’t know whether to say this or not. I didn’t know if it would make you uncomfortable. But I want you to know, we’ve always prayed for you. Me and Kit, we always have. He does know about you, just doesn’t know that’s who he met, if that makes sense. After we’ve prayed for the family and anyone else we know who needs to be lifted up to God, we’ve always finished with you.”
“Are we going home now?” Molly asked loudly.
“Yeah, we are,” I said to her, and to Linda, “Thank you. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable. It’s really nice of you.”
“I haven’t got anything new for show-and-tell,” Molly said.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“I need something,” she said.
“Show-and-tell, is it, Molly?” said Linda. “I think I’ve actually got something you might be able to use. I wanted to give it to your mammy anyway. Well done for reminding me.”
“She doesn’t need anything,” I said.
“What is it?” asked Molly. Linda went into
