A Pocketful of Stars. Aisha Bushby

tears well up in my eyes.

      ‘D-does anyone want some sweets?’ I ask to avoid the embarrassment of crying. ‘Ms Belgrave gave them to me,’ I add, accidentally spilling the contents all over the table.

      ‘Oh, Saff !’ Elle says, grabbing my hand. Izzy goes to get a tissue, while Abir strokes my shoulder. ‘We’re here for you. Anything you need . . .’

      I nod. ‘Thank you.’ I smile back at them, even though I want to keep crying.

      I try to focus on doing something, instead of sitting here and moping. That’s when I get an idea.

      ‘Actually . . .’ I say. ‘There is something you could do for me . . .’

      A little while later I leave school just before the bell rings for the end of lunch. I asked Elle and the others to let our form tutor know I’ve gone home.

      Except that’s not really where I’m going.

      With shaking hands I put the key in the lock and let myself inside. My first thought is that it’s really quiet. Usually the TV is on, or some music. I switch on the lights, take off my coat, and turn on the TV for background noise. My second thought is that it smells like her – Mum’s flat.

      It’s a full minute, maybe more, before I can bear to step inside any further. It’s as if I’m glued to the door, paralysed, like a wizard has trapped me in a snare. My blood is pumping around my body too quickly and I feel my limbs tingling, too heavy to lift. I crouch down at the threshold for a moment until the feeling passes.

      The living room’s a bit of a mess. The house phone is on the floor. Dad said Mum called the ambulance herself. She could tell something was happening to her. The coffee table has been shoved aside – that must have been the paramedics. Then there’s papers scattered all over, and a big beige stain has ruined the white carpet. Coffee. Mum never drank anything else. Her mug – the posh floral one I got her for her birthday – stands upright on the table.

      The papers look like a report from one of Mum’s cases. I gather them up, careful to make sure they’re stacked in order. If Mum gets home she’ll . . .

      When . . . I think instead. Because Mum’s going to be OK. I know she is.

      There’s a bunch of post by the door that must’ve been delivered after Mum went into hospital: some letters and a delivery card. I put them on the table too.

      Next, I make my way to the kitchen.

      I almost can’t go inside when I see the table set for two, and the remnants of the meal Mum was cooking laid out on the counter. My heart lurches. I should’ve been there. She thought I was still going to come over. Or maybe she hoped.

      Some of it has been put away, like someone’s tried to tidy after her, but they didn’t do it properly, and the smell of herbs still lingers.

      Mum’s always been a messy cook; it drove Dad up the wall. He usually did all the cooking, and he could never quite handle it whenever she insisted that it was her turn. He would hover, cleaning up behind her. Dad is all about order. Mum was . . . is . . . free.

      I decide to finish the tidying. When I’m done and everything looks normal again I stand and look around, feeling a little strange, like I’m trespassing.

      Like in the dream.

      What have I come here to do?

      I think back to the man at the hospital with his tartan blanket and his books, and then stare around Mum’s flat. What shall I take in for her?

      I think of the mug on the table, but she can’t exactly use it, can she?

      In the end I settle for a throw she always keeps on the sofa, covered in yellow flowers, and a worn-out cushion that’s shaped like a fox. That’ll make her hospital room prettier, won’t it?

      I decide to try her bedroom next. As soon as I walk in her signature perfume envelops me. It’s musky: some sort of wood, rose and maybe orange? It smells like comfort and childhood and home. But I daren’t touch it. It’s too special.

      Instead I reach for her hand cream. Mum was always moisturizing her hands. She would offer me some every time, but I always refused.

      ‘They make my fingers greasy,’ I once moaned.

      ‘Oh, don’t be so silly!’ she said, chasing me around the room. Eventually Mum caught me and slathered my palms in lotion. ‘You’ll thank me when you’re my age and have the hands of a toddler.’

      ‘That sounds so weird,’ I said, grinning. At the time I imagined grown-up Mum walking around with tiny hands.

      I still remember the way Mum laughed at that. Each note of it floated up, up, up, filling the room with joy, like birds singing on the first day of spring.

      I put a pea-sized amount of hand cream on my palms, and rub it in carefully, the way Mum always does.

      As I leave Mum’s room I notice a photo by her bed. It’s of my grandmother standing in front of a great big house. I’ve never met her, only seen photos. She died before I was born, but Mum used to say her soul went into my body, so it’s like she’s still here. Toddler Mum stands next to my grandmother, clinging to her skirt.

      I’m so focused on my mother and grandmother that I barely notice the house. But when I do I almost gasp. Apart from the silver branches it looks exactly like the one in . . .

      ‘My dream,’ I say aloud.

      

      When Dad and I get to the hospital in the evening Edward waves me through right away. ‘Your mum’s doing well today,’ he says with a smile, though I’m not exactly sure what that means. She’s still in a coma after all.

      When I walk into Mum’s room I see it as if for the first time. Yesterday I was too focused on Mum to notice anything else. There are two other beds in the room, alongside Mum’s, and the patients in them are asleep. I wonder what their stories are, what happened to them. I can hear their machines humming in unison, pumping air through their bodies like an orchestra. Then there’s Mum’s, just out of time with the others.

      I walk over to her curtain and seeing her again sends a wave of something through me. Shock? Fear?

      It’s something else, something I can’t quite pinpoint.

      ‘Hello, lovely.’ It’s Amanda, the nurse who helped me yesterday. She’s peering round the curtain now. I feel embarrassed to see her. ‘How are you doing today?’

      ‘Good, thanks.’ I smile awkwardly. I can’t stop thinking about how I cried in front of her. ‘I . . . uh . . . brought some stuff in for Mum.’ Suddenly I feel all shy again. ‘Is it OK if . . .’ My sentence fizzles out into nothing.

      Amanda beams, peering into my bag. ‘Let me help you with that.’

      Instead of saying thanks like a normal person, I make an indiscernible noise that sounds a bit like a cow trying to sing.

      Stop being weird, Saff.

      The thing is, sometimes my brain just goes blank. It’s like standing in a dark room where I try to reach for words, any words, but there’s nothing there.

      Amanda picks up the throw and places it over Mum’s blanket, while I position the fox cushion at the top of her bed.

      ‘Well then, you look much better today,’ Amanda says when we’re done, glancing in my direction. ‘School went well?’ She eyes up my snot-green uniform.

      ‘Yeah!’ I answer a little too enthusiastically.

      She nods. ‘Anyway, these are lovely!’ she says, pointing at the blanket and cushion.