‘Oh my little sweetheart, what happened?’ She sighed as a single tear plopped onto Lena’s pillow. Cara turned to Ade, who seemed to be taken in by this display, as he looked close to tears himself. Cara didn’t quite know what to say to her mother, who had disappeared for weeks without even bothering to phone or send a postcode. She suddenly felt claustrophobic, and longed for the frenzied normality of A&R.
Ade finally went for the teas as the two women sat in silence, both staring at Lena, Kitty holding onto Lena’s hand.
‘I am so sorry I didn’t get here sooner.’
‘Nothing much else you could have done. We have it covered.’ Cara said curtly.
‘Even now, your mouth is spiteful. Why can’t you be nice, just this once? Your sister is lying here after all!’ Kitty cried out.
Cara wasn’t sure how to answer that, as she was all too aware that she couldn’t think of anything nice to say to Kitty. Some things were best left unsaid.
‘Maybe me being here will help her,’ Kitty added hopefully. ‘What do you think?’
Again, Cara tried to bite her tongue, for Lena’s sake. Because if she did open her mouth she feared she would tell her mother that her presence would probably not help rouse Lena out of the sleep. Why would it? Kitty had hardly ever been around the last few years. And, in fact, even when they were growing up, her presence and input had been minimal.
‘You know where I can find the toilet?’ asked Kitty.
‘Turn right, straight down, first left.’
‘You know your way around here.’
‘I’m here every day,’ she replied, her tone accusing. She wanted to throw missiles at Kitty and she wanted them to hurt.
‘I don’t want to argue with you, Cara.’
‘She’s been here for almost two weeks!’
‘I didn’t get the message! I told you that!’
‘What were you doing, anyway? Gallivanting around Brazil? I thought you’d just got back from Las Vegas a few months ago!’
‘I don’t have to check in with you, Cara.’
‘Of course not, because that would be changing a habit of a lifetime, Kitty!’
‘I got on a flight as soon as I could, with no sleep, and at my age it’s no joke,’ they locked eyes and Cara knew she’d won that round.
‘This is silly. I haven’t got the strength to fight with you, Cara. Please save it for another day.’
Kitty sounded defeated and this put Cara off guard. She was ready to have it out with her, more than ready. It was as if seeing her mother again had bought all the long-since-buried ‘stuff’ to the surface.
* * *
Millie on the other hand, arrived at the hospital dressed in her ‘interview gear’ (skirt and blouse). She was finding it increasingly hard to contain her excitement at the arrival of her mother Kitty. She hadn’t seen her in ages–well not for six months at least, when Lena had insisted that Millie and herself make the trip up to Southampton to see her. She’d gone and spent the day with her mother and Lena and had enjoyed it. The only missing piece of the puzzle, as usual, was Cara.
Millie was glad Kitty was back and they could sort of be a family for a while. The four of them together for the first time in well…ages. However, as Cara was not talking to Kitty and Lena was unable to talk to anyone it didn’t exactly feel like the perfect reunion.
Millie cleared her throat. ‘I wish Dad was around.’
‘What, so we could all be one big happy family?’ replied Cara.
‘He may be a useless excuse for a man, but he has a right to know,’ said Kitty. Even though she was probably right, and even though he’d never made any effort to get in touch over the years, Millie had felt that comment hard, wishing and still hoping after all these years that it wasn’t true. That he wasn’t ‘useless’ and most of all, he still loved them. Loved her.
‘Maybe Lena has his new number,’ offered Cara as she moved a stray curl away from Lena’s closed eyes.
‘In the notebook? But no one’s seen it,’ said Millie.
‘No, in her phone.’
‘Has anyone checked?’ added Kitty, fixing some dangly earrings into her ears.
‘If he gave a damn about anyone but himself, he’d have phoned at some point and we could have told him. Fact is, he just isn’t interested in us. Never has been. Face it,’ said Cara.
Millie felt as though she’d been punched in the face. So what if she wanted her whole family around Lena’s bedside, talking together and being together? Was that so bad? Millie had wanted to call her father as soon as they’d all found out about Lena, but he’d left the country and their lives ten years ago and had not made much contact since. She was only fourteen at the time and on the cusp of womanhood, trying to discover the nature of boys and desperate to leave the confusion of adolescence behind. It had been totally bad timing.
But walking in and seeing her mother had been a nice shock. She’d embraced her tentatively at first, not sure what to say really, but instantly familiarizing herself with Kitty’s usual smell of jasmine. Kitty’s face, as always, was defying the years, but she wore a little more make-up than she really needed.
She was still Kitty, though. Her mum, who for as long as she could remember never really wanted to be called Mum. On the acting circuit she was known as just Kitty and she insisted her kids called her the same. Not that Millie minded, because at school, before the breasts and shapely thighs, Millie’s popularity was through having an actress mum. She wasn’t on the telly, but she’d done a few plays, and once appeared in the background of an orange juice advert. Kitty often flounced into parents’ evening wearing a long dress and frilly hat and talking about auditions and name dropping famous actors who had helped her with her lines. It had all seemed cool at the time, but as Millie grew up, a lot of things including calling her Kitty just felt more and more alienating and maybe just a bit cold.
But none of that mattered now. Kitty was home.
She glanced at her watch, knowing she had missed the interview for the job at Dorothy Perkins and felt a mixture of guilt and relief wash over her. It’s not that she didn’t want a job–she just knew that retail wasn’t for her.
‘So how have you been, Mills?’ asked Kitty.
Her mother had always called her Mills as a little girl and Millie was touched that she was calling her that now.
‘Apart from…you know, everything that’s happened with Lena, I’ve been okay. It has been hard, though.’
In fact, Millie’s life had been more about getting to and from work and trying to keep up with the rent on her bedsit, getting kicked out of said bedsit, getting sacked (again) and moving in with Lena. But Kitty didn’t need to hear all that.
Cara took out a copy of Pride magazine and buried her head in it as Millie updated Kitty on what her life had become–minus the really crappy bits.
As soon as they got back to the house, Kitty went to sleep, jetlag, sadness, and age having taken hold. Millie threw herself onto her bed, strangely yearning for the atmosphere of togetherness that she’d felt in Lena’s hospital room. They were messed up, but they were still a family, she thought as she looked up to the cracked ceiling. Since Lena’s accident, and even before it, the nights had been the worst. With too much time to think, she often wondered whether anyone