Freia Lockhart's Summer of Awful by Aimee Said Page A

ready to accept my karmic punishment.
    â€œSorry I couldn’t call sooner.” Or perhaps my karmic reward. The sound of Dan’s voice instantly makes me feel ten times better. “How’s your mum?”
    I tell him about Mum looking grey and about the tubes going in and out of her and the drain from her side. It feels good to be able to talk to someone about it finally, and Dan seems happy to listen. The only thing I don’t mention is that Mum had a mastectomy, partly because it seems too intimate to talk about her actual breast, and partly because I’m worried that it’ll freak Dan out to know that my mum only has one boob now.
    â€œI’m really sorry I was stuck with Dad all day,” he says when I finish venting. “I wish I could give you a big hug right now.”
    I almost ask him to ride across the park and do just that but I figure if he really wanted to, he would. “Maybe tomorrow?” I say instead. “I’ve got this op-shopping trip with Sooz and the girls that I can’t get out of, but I’m going to the hospital first if you want to come. I know Mum’d like to see you.”
    â€œI don’t know, Fray, me and hospitals aren’t a great mix. You don’t mind, do you?” We both know there’s only one answer to that question. “I do want to see
you
though. How about we go for a long ride next time you’ve got a few hours free?”
    â€œThat’d be great,” I say, overly cheerful to hide my disappointment. “Mum should be home in a couple of days – maybe you could pop by and say hi to her and then we could go for a ride or something?”
    â€œYeah, something like that. Sorry, Fray, but I have to get off the phone. Dr Phil’s cracking down on the ten-minute phone call rule.”
    According to the timer on our phone we’ve only been talking for eight minutes, but even in my head it sounds pathetic to point that out.
    I feel so much better, so much lighter after talking to Dan that I decide to bake Jay’s brownies before I finish tidying up from dinner. If Gran could see me, she’d tsk and mutter her favourite saying about messy cooks making mucky cakes, but I figure by the time I finish the brownies the kitchen’ll be just as messy again and I may as well clean it all up at once.
    It’s after nine o’clock and I don’t have time to experiment with a new recipe, so I stick with my standard double-chocolate fudge recipe and add some dried cherries and slivered almonds. While they bake, I stack the dishwasher and wipe down the kitchen benches. It’s midnight when I finally set the brownies out to cool, but the kitchen smells delicious and is gleaming even more brightly than when Mum’s rostered on to clean it herself.
    Exhausted, I fall into bed next to Boris and drift off to sleep, imagining Dan giving me that hug.

    â€œThe Lockhart Express to the Women’s Hospital departs in half an hour,” calls Dad, jangling his car keys outside my door. “All aboard that’s coming aboard!”
    I realise with a start that it’s almost eight o’clock. I’ve been staring at the crack that runs across the ceiling, from the top of the window to the light that hangs above my bed, since 5.07, when I woke up from the dream I was having about Mum’s funeral. When I first noticed the crack, in the pale half-light of dawn, I thought it looked like a path or a road. I imagined it leading someone across the barren, empty desert of ceiling to the window and the trees outside. Now that the sun has risen, I can see it’s deeper and more jagged than I thought. More like a scar.
    I glance at the to-do list that I made at half-past six.
    Things I have to do today
    Visit Mum.
    Drop off brownies.
    Op-shopping.
    Boris’s furball treatment.
    Dinner – something nutritious!
    I lie in bed thinking that I should get up
immediately
. Mum’ll be waiting for us