Another Night, Another Day by Sarah Rayner Read Free Book Online Page B

likely to remain so. She’d learned to think carefully
before she spoke; she wouldn’t tell Callum her ‘sides were splitting with laughter’ or that he was ‘making her heart burst with pride’, nor would she be vague about
what she wanted him to do. Instead of asking him to ‘hang it up over there’ she’d say, ‘Callum: coat on hook,’ and she encouraged his carers to follow her lead.
    ‘We’ll never fix him,’ she’d said over a year later, when Glenn still seemed stuck in anger and grief. ‘We need to get our heads around that.’ But her husband
never appeared to, and the two of them had polarized.
    It’s as if our way of waging war was at odds, thinks Abby. Glenn retrenched, hunkered down; I went out on the attack, guns blazing. And
that’s
what happened to us; that we
reacted so differently is the reason we’ve stopped working as a couple. That’s the
true
tragedy – not that Callum has autism.
    Footsteps overhead interrupt her thoughts; once again Glenn has removed himself from interaction. Abby wipes her hands and goes into the lounge.
    ‘I guess if Daddy won’t play with you, I will.’
    Being with her son is like piloting an unpredictable plane, but this morning he proves responsive to her steer, and soon she is sitting opposite him cross-legged on the carpet.
    ‘You’re such a tease, aren’t you?’ she smiles at him. ‘OK then, let’s try this:
Pah
.’ She leans forward and blows into his face as she makes
the sound.
    ‘Pah,’ says Callum, blowing back.
    Abby claps with delight. ‘Good boy!’
    She repeats the noise and her son’s fringe lifts from his forehead in the small breeze. Once more he mirrors her. They do it again.
    ‘I don’t believe it.’ She laughs in delight. ‘You’re saying the letter “p”!’ She’s poised to run and fetch Glenn to share the moment when
Callum stops blowing and shifts onto his knees.
    He’s had enough, thinks Abby, disappointed. It’s as if he knew I was enjoying it. She prepares to run after him. But instead he edges over and, like a pup wanting to suckle, burrows
right into her. He wraps his arms around her back, rests his head on her belly and remains there, curled up in a crescent.
    She looks down at him and feels a surge of love.
    ‘What an incredible boy you are, coping with so many changing people and places when you can’t say what you wish for. Your world seems so frustrating and frightening, you’re
amazing for getting through each day with all the mischief, giggles and smiles that you do.’
    Then she stops and listens.
    Even the sounds Callum is making are beautiful. Primal snuffles of content, more evocative than speech itself.

7
    The next day is Sunday, and Karen and her mother are due to visit her father in Worthing.
    ‘I’m afraid George isn’t out of bed yet,’ says the nurse who greets them at the care home. ‘He refused point-blank.’
    ‘Don’t worry, we’ll do that,’ says Shirley, slipping off her tweed coat in preparation.
    ‘They should have tried to get him up, Mum,’ whispers Karen as they head down the corridor to her father’s room.
    ‘Maybe they haven’t enough staff on a Sunday.’
    No, it’s because he’s difficult, thinks Karen.
    They tap on the door and when there’s no sound from inside, they go in. George is fast asleep.
    ‘The staff should raise the blinds if they want him to wake up,’ mutters Karen, and walks directly to the window to do just that.
    Shirley sits down on the edge of the single bed. The mattress creaks under her weight. ‘George, darling. It’s time to get up.’
    ‘Go away!’ George turns his head to see where the light is coming from. ‘And shut those blinds!’
    Karen joins her mother at his bedside. He could do with a shave, she notices; his white stubble is almost a beard. ‘Dad, it’s nearly midday.’ Surely letting Dad stay in bed so
long isn’t good for him, she thinks, even if he does say that’s where he wants to be? He has no