Wishbones

‘Let me see that.’ I snatch his phone and scroll down. And then I see a paragraph that makes me freeze:

An individual is considered morbidly obese if he or she is 7 stone over his/her ideal body weight, has a BMI of 40 or more, or 35 or more, and experiencing obesity-related health conditions, such as high blood pressure or diabetes.

‘Morbidly…’ I say under my breath. ‘That means dead, right?’

Jake doesn’t answer.

‘Maybe it’s not a good idea to read too much of this stuff,’ Jake says, holding out his hand for his phone.

I grip the phone harder. ‘It means dead – dead-like?’

‘Yeah, but your mum’s going to be fine. We’ll make sure of it.’

I keep looking down the article…

Symptoms of morbid obesity:

• osteoarthritis

• heart disease

• stroke

• diabetes

• sleep apnea (when you periodically stop breathing during sleep)

The list goes on and on.

Jake grabs his phone back and switches it off.

‘We’ll work it out, Feather.’

There’s a creaking on the stairs. We look towards the door.

‘Your dad?’ Jake asks.

I nod. Dad’s been hiding away in his bedroom all evening. The fact that he’s going downstairs can mean only one thing: he’s given in and decided to spend the night in his bed in the lounge next to Mum. My heart does a little jump. Maybe he’s beginning to realise that he has to help her. Maybe he does still love her.

The lounge is just under my bedroom, so I can hear everything that goes on in there. Including Mum’s snoring and, until we put the TV in the garage, her re-runs of Strictly.

I close my eyes and imagine Dad getting into his stripy PJs and slipping into his bed pressed up against Mum’s double bed. I even imagine him curling up to Mum, putting his arm across her – even if he can’t quite reach all the way round.

The backs of my eyes go hot and prickly: he does still love her, I know he does.

A few moments later, I hear banging.

‘What was that?’

We stand up and go to the landing.

More banging comes from the lounge.

I shake my head. ‘I’m an idiot. Dad hasn’t gone to join Mum, he’s gone downstairs to get his bed.’

‘You can’t be sure…’ Jake says.

‘I’m sure.’

The banging goes on for a while and then, when Jake and I go back to my bedroom and squeeze onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling, we hear Dad stomping up and down the stairs as he carries the bed back upstairs, a plank at a time.

And you know the worst of it? He and Mum don’t say a word to each other. Our cottage is so small you can hear everything. And I know it’s not because Mum’s asleep because she doesn’t sleep at night: she has naps in the day in front of the telly. Or she did when she had the telly. And anyway, she’d have been woken up by all his banging.

No, they don’t exchange a single word.

‘Your parents are made for each other,’ Jake says. ‘They’ll work it out.’

I shake my head. ‘Dad’s not going to help me. After everything that’s happened in the last few days, he’s not even going to make an effort to get closer to Mum.’

I don’t know how I’m going to help Mum get better on my own. Even Steph, who usually always makes things better, can’t help because Mum’s blanking her. And Mum won’t help herself because she doesn’t get it, how sick she is.

‘I’m here, Feather,’ Jake says.

I turn to face him. His eyes look glassy in the blue shadows of my bedroom.

‘I’m not going to sit back and risk losing Mum,’ I say.

‘I know. We’re going to work on this together. We’ll do whatever it takes.’

‘You really mean that?’

He nods. ‘I really mean that. It’s going to be okay, Feather. It’s all going to be okay.’

I lean my head on his shoulder and close my eyes and my heartbeat slows and I try really hard to believe him.

8 (#ulink_a541997c-ce0e-53cf-9e9f-4119976edd71)

On Saturday morning my alarm goes off at 5.30am. It’s dark outside and the cars along The Green look like white ice-lollies. There’s ice on the inside of my window too. I asked Dad, once, why we couldn’t have the windows replaced, and he said the same old thing that he says to any of my suggestions about fixing things or replacing things or buying new things to make the cottage nicer: We’re a mend-and-make-do kind of family, Feather. Well, sometimes, mending and making do doesn’t cut it. I’m freezing.

I get into my tracksuit and grab my swim bag. If we don’t go early, the pool gets too full to practise properly.

There’s no sound coming from the lounge, which feels weird. I’m used to hearing the buzz of Mum’s cookery programmes or the music from her re-runs of Strictly.

I think about popping my head round the door to say Hi, like I usually do before my swim practice, but I’ve had this hollow feeling in my stomach since the salad incident last night. Mum should be the one to say sorry, otherwise she’ll think I’m not serious about getting her to lose weight.

I walk past Dad’s open door and my heart sinks. I really thought he might give it a go, sleeping downstairs with Mum.

Dad and I take it in turns to do mornings. When he’s got an early plumbing job, he helps Mum get ready and when he needs a lie-in because he’s been out on a late job, I do it.