Bron-56

Continued from Chapter 55: Bron-55 | ABCtales

Tommy looked up from his toy truck and bus collection that he’d arranged neatly on the lino of the kitchen in Acton. “”Mum’s really, really, really ill, isn’t she?”

“Is she going to be lortered?”

“No! Of course not!”

“But you said, Bron, when the animals are sick, they take them away to be lortered. You said it!”

“They don’t do that with people. However sick they are. Do they, Bron?”

“Er, no, they don’t. Not as a rule, anyway.”

“What’s going to happen with Mum?”

“Well, Tommy, it’ll be like she’ll be going away, for a very, very long time. That’s why she said goodbye to you.”

“Will she come back? To see me? Yes?”

“No Tommy,” you don’t come back.” Bron locked her fingers, twisted them back and forth. “Do you remember the time we found that pussycat in the road, outside your mum’s house.? The white one that didn’t move?”

“Y-e-es.”

“Well, your Mum will be like that. She won’t move any more. She won’t talk any more. She’ll just be … still. We call it being dead, Tommy.”

“The doctors! At the hospital! They’ll make her better. Like they did before!”

“Not this time Tommy. This time, your Mum…she’s too…too sick. Nothing they can do.”

“But they make people better there! They do! They do!”

“I wish I could tell you different, Tommy. But I can’t. I can’t. No one can.”

In the bedroom, Bron threw herself face down and pummelled the pillow with her fists. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!”

“Bron! Bron!” “Can’t believe I’ve just told a five-year-old kid his Mum’s going to die! I feel such a shit! A fuckin’ fuckin’ SHIT! A fuckin tool!”

Grace put her hand on her shoulder. “No Bron! No! What you said just then. I could never have done it.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it. I really do.”

“Sure?”

“Absolutely. A thousand percent sure.”

“No such thing as a thou…thousand per…per…”

“Bron! I’ve never seen you cry before.”

“First time for fuckin’ everything. Contrary to what some people might think, I’m not to…to..totally made of wood.”

“I knew that already. A long time ago.”

To be continued in Chapter 57