Wishbones

We hear the creaking sound Mum makes when she heaves her legs up onto the footrest that goes with the armchair. Dad got the chair and footrest for her at the same time as the TV. Officially, it’s a love seat, which means it’s meant to hold two people, but Mum hardly fits all by herself. It’s the ugliest chair you’ve ever seen. Think of a gigantic, padded purple cabbage – with a slightly smaller padded purple cabbage for your feet.

My phone goes and I slip into the kitchen. It’s Steph.

‘How’s it all going?’ she asks. ‘How’s Jo taking the changes?’

Like I said earlier, Mum and Steph had a barney at Christmas and since then Mum’s been ignoring her. They won’t tell me what it’s about. Mum + Steph being friends is another plan I need to put into action if I’m going to get Mum happy again and motivated to lose weight.

‘Not well,’ I say.

I hear Dad close the door to his room upstairs.

‘And I think we should have told Dad. About the bed.’ I sigh. ‘I wish you and Jake were here. I’m not sure I can cope with being in the house alone with Mum and Dad.’

There’s a pause. Which makes me feel guilty because I know that it’s probably Mum’s fault that she and Steph fell out and that Steph’s really cut up about it and that she’s still been doing all this stuff to help Mum. Plus, Steph is divorced so she doesn’t even have the option of sharing a room with her husband.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I say to Steph. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘I’ll send Jake over when he gets back.’

‘He’s with Amy?’

‘Yeah.’

Jake’s basically had a girlfriend since we were in nursery. He’s one of those guys that girls fancy: floppy, sandy hair that he has to keep flicking out of his blue eyes; dimples; a big smile. And for some reason, he seems to go along with it, picking up a new girl as soon as an old girlfriend gets bored or angry because he doesn’t give her more attention.

None of those girls looked right with Jake. You know how, when you see a couple that are meant to be together, their edges go blurry and they kind of meld together and become more like one person than two? Well, Jake’s never had the blurry-edged thing: he and his girlfriends always looked like two people.

Steph once told me: Jake needs to have a girl around… And when I asked her, What about me, aren’t I a girl? Steph had laughed and given me a hug and said, You’re different, Feather. Which made me feel kind of hurt and happy at the same time.

Anyway, Steph and I are on the same page about Amy. I think she secretly hopes Jake and me will get together and get married and have loads of grandchildren she can coo over, which is kind of embarrassing but it’s nice to know that she’d want me as part of her family.

‘Hope everything works out,’ Steph says.

‘Thanks, Steph.’

I go back out into the hall. It’s really quiet. I imagine Dad sitting in the middle of his bedroom floor in the place where the bed used to be.

‘Dinner’s in half an hour,’ I call out to them both.

I borrowed Cook. Eat. Live. from the mobile library and Steph took me shopping for ingredients. I’m going to make Mum the best salad in the world.

As I go back into the kitchen and pull out the chopping board and get the vegetables out of the fridge, I tell myself: It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay. And I say it over and over until it begins to sound a bit true.

6 (#ulink_440b3165-eb1c-521e-ab56-ef950564098e)

‘Mum?’ I knock on the lounge door.

She’s lying in bed, staring at a damp patch on the ceiling that Dad’s been going on about fixing for years. Dad must have helped her out of her armchair.

When she sees me, she smiles, which makes me think that maybe she’s forgiven me for taking out the TV.

‘It’s good to have you home, Mum.’

‘Why don’t you put that down and come and have a chat.’ Mum smiles and pats her armrest.

Our chats are the best things in my day. You two could natter for England, Dad says. And it’s true. There’s nothing we don’t talk about. But right now, getting Mum healthy is more important.

I carry over the tray with the massive salad I’ve made: a big pile of lettuce and peppers and cucumber.

‘That plate’s so green it’s giving me a headache,’ Mum says.

‘You’ll love it, Mum. It’s called The Green Goddess Salad.’

‘Quite a grand name for a few salad leaves, don’t you think?’ Mum stares at the plate and then she shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, lovely, I’m not hungry.’

Mum’s always hungry.

I put the tray on her bedside table and then notice a scrunched-up packet of prawn cocktail crisps on the floor. I dig my nails into my palms. I did a sweep of the whole house. Dad must have given it to her.

‘I read on the internet that it takes twenty-eight days to break a habit,’ I say as I pick up the crisp packets and put them in the bin. ‘Twenty-eight days is not even a month. You can do it, Mum.’

I’ve put targets on the six-month timeline in my room. Those nurses said that if Mum doesn’t get to a healthier weight, she’ll die in six months – well, I’m going to make sure that, by the end of every month, she’s lost a whole load of weight.

‘Twenty-eight days to do what, my love?’ Mum asks.

Mum’s slouched right down in her bed so I grab her elbow, help her to sit up and wedge a pillow in her back.

I perch beside her on the edge of the bed.

‘To get you well again,’ I say.

Mum leans forward and brushes my fringe out of my eyes.

‘I am well, my love. I’ve got you, and Dad; that’s all the good health I need.’

I shake off Mum’s hand and tuck a napkin into her sweatshirt.

‘You need to get your body healthy, Mum.’

Mum grabs at her napkin and throws it onto the bed sheets.

‘What I need, is the TV back.’

I stand up. Mum never talks to me like that.

‘We could do fun things instead,’ I say. ‘We could go on walks. Little ones at first…’

‘You know I don’t like walking.’