Three-And-A-Half Heartbeats by Amanda Prowse

won’t understand why I’m not there. I’m her mummy!’
    Grace heard a whimpering behind her and was aware for the first time of other people. Quite a large group of people, actually – how had she missed them? Some of them she recognised: her best friend Ruthie, Jayney, Tom’s parents, the lady that owned the flower shop in the village, and some people she couldn’t quite place, though they were vaguely familiar, women from pre-school maybe? How did they all know where she lived? She wished they would all go away.
    Her eyes returned to the little white box that was not much more than three feet long and a foot wide. Grace could imagine the whispers. ‘Apparently it can happen to anyone. What was it they said – sepsis? Never heard of it…’
    Tom guided his wife into the arms of her mother and father, one on either side, her supports. She was too distracted to acknowledge them; they were merely another two blurred faces in this surreal pantomime. She travelled to the church behind the hearse, sandwiched between Alice and Olive. Mac and Tom sat in front of them. Mac kept his steady hand on his son-in-law’s shoulder. Olive made small whimpering sounds, as if she had run out of tears and this dry heave of distress was her new norm. Alice squeezed her sister’s arm and whispered repeatedly, ‘It’s okay, Gracie. You’re doing great. It will all be over soon.’ But Grace knew that no matter how sincerely offered this was a lie. It would never, ever be over.
    Sitting at the front of the church, Grace stared ahead. Focusing on a stained glass window of an angel with her arms outstretched, she would hold the angel’s eye and leave when it was over, trying not to think about what was actually happening, because if she did, she feared she might actually lose her mind. With her parents on either side, Grace realised for the first time in her life that they could not fix everything. She felt grown up and abandoned all at once. Glancing at her mum and dad, she noticed how they had shrunk, looking every one of their combined one hundred and fifty-eight years, bowed and broken. Mac reached across and took her hand into his own. He too stared ahead, holding her hand like he used to when she was little, when it used to make everything feel better. A long, long time ago.
    She was aware of the vicar standing upright and business-like, the only person who appeared unmoved, almost indifferent to the event. She tried to think of why that might be – was he so used to the disposal of bodies and the passing over of souls that the whole ghastly business had become almost matter-of-fact, routine? Or maybe he was so certain about where her little girl had gone, that ‘better place’ that everyone kept telling her about, that he saw no reason to feel sadness, confident that everything in the universe was as it should be. Grace allowed herself to hope so.
    Throughout the service, she was aware of a light pressure against her thigh. Eventually looking down, she saw Chloe standing beside her with her hand on her leg, watching proceedings with an almost bored detachment, scuffing her pink wellington boot against the side of the pew and wearing her little raincoat.
    Grace bent down at one point and whispered to her daughter, ‘Not too much longer now, darling,’ and her daughter smiled in response. Grace realised that every time she saw Chloe now, she was strangely silent, as though the little girl had lost her voice.
    Music started playing; it was the slow segment from Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet . It was beautiful. Grace let the sound fill her. The lilting horn and delicate, heartfelt strings cut into her like tiny daggers; she succumbed to the sorrow and desolation of the notes as they climbed.
    All faces apart from Grace’s turned towards the back of the church as the heavy oak door opened and Tom entered. Jack walked behind him, for no other reason than to offer moral support, stepping in the wake of his brother in a slow