I am sitting in my mother's living room. There is a fire in the hearth. It crackles. I get up, and put another log on it.

I can hear the wheeze of my mother's oxygen machine. She sits in the chair she inherited from her mother. She sat in that chair, my Grandma, for fourteen years, after she had had her stroke. Every time I saw her she was in that chair, watching TV programmes she would never have watched had she been able to speak.

I sit opposite my Mum. She starts, looking for the words to tell me the thought she just had. She looks around the room, pursing her lips to begin a sentence. She gives up. She falls back to sleep.

I force myself to look at her face.

Time passes.

"You okay?" she suddenly asks.

"I'm fine," I say. The machine wheezes. "I love you."

She smiles, a sudden shock of teeth too large for her face, now. "I love you too." She closes her eyes again. "Don't worry about it."


The next day, I bring my daughter with me to the house. Mum has not managed to get downstairs this day. We go up to see her, and she is sitting on the edge of her bed, dressed, but wrapped in a towel to keep warm. The district nurse is coming round. Mum is scared.

"Are they going to put me in hospital?" she asks. She looks like my daughter does after a bad dream. My daughter looks in the full length mirror, making faces, dancing.

I say no. I say I promise. I say I won't let this happen.

She puts her arms out and I hold her. I kiss her head.



"Do you love your Mummy?" my daughter suddenly asks, moving away from the mirror.

"Yes," I say. "I love her the way you love me."

"Does she love you?" she asks.

"She loves me the way I love you." I say.

"And I love you." says Mum to my daughter.

"We all love each other!" says my daughter.

It feels nice for a moment.



My daughter moves towards the bedroom door.

"It's time to go, Grandma." she says.

"I know." says my Mum.



My daughter skips as we walk to the bus stop. "Can I have pizza for tea?" she asks. Yes, I say, because I can't thnk of the reasons why I should say no. "Do you want to dance with me?", she asks. We stand at the bus stop, where I used to wait for my school bus, and sing nursery rhymes and dance. A woman my mum's age smiles.


I will not let myself cry.