Flowers for the Dead by Barbara Copperthwaite Read Free Book Online Page B

attention to Adam, but now is not the time to discuss it. Sara’s tired and upset.”
    “And a little tipsy, I’d wager.”
    The room disintegrated then into a wall of shouting. Adam couldn’t make out a word until his mum’s shriek rose above everything else.
    “I want her out of my house now, Graeme. Right now!”
    Adam closed his door, clambered into bed, and cried beneath his duvet.
    When he woke the next morning there was no sign of Gran, but his mum was in a wonderful mood. She made him his favourite breakfast of pancakes with maple syrup, humming merrily the whole time.
    But that night he heard the floorboard squeak, even though Daddy was home. He kept his eyes shut so hard that his whole body was clenched, but still it did not fool his mother.
    She climbed under the Winnie the Pooh duvet with him and reached quickly into his pyjamas in that way that always made him feel squirmy and wrong.
    He did not know the words for what was being done to him, but he could not remember a time when it did not happen. It was a part of his life: a horrible part, but there was nothing he could do anything about.
    Sometimes she did things to him, and that was bad enough. Worst, somehow, was when she made him do things to her. It was harder to escape in his head then because he had to listen to all her instructions. She told him exactly what to do, but he was always a bad boy who didn’t do it right, who should want to make his mummy happy, but he hated it.
    “No, Mummy, please,” he begged.
    She stopped, but did not take her hand away. Instead she cosied up even closer to him so that her whole body encased his, spooning him, and her mouth was against his ear.
    “Do as you’re told. Or do you want to be punished for being a bad boy?”
    “I’m a good boy, Mummy. I am, I am,” he replied quickly.
    “Prove it. You know what good boys do.”
    So he did what he had to, just as she had instructed, because he wanted to be a good boy. Her breath started coming fast and heavy, like Dad when he was doing one of the steam trains in the Thomas the Tank Engine stories he sometimes read aloud to Adam.
    But Adam was no longer there to hear. His mind had managed to flutter away after all, far away to the special place filled with magic. He thought of fairy tales, of princes rescuing damsels in distress, just like his daddy did; of bad people being punished for doing wrong; of dragons, and phoenix rising from the ashes; of true love which survives anything. It was what he clung to, because the real world was too awful for him.
     
    ***
     
    PRESENT DAY
     
    Soon she is going have to write down the memories of That Night. But not yet.  Please not yet. Laura feels utterly exhausted as she pushes the pen and notepad away, and tries to free herself from the emotions that have controlled her for four long years. Her aunt had told her she had to try, and she had meant it when she said she would. But one step at a time.
    Writing about her accident has been hard enough; she cannot face putting down into black and white the details of the night her family was wiped out. But there is a restless urge to do something else. Something she promises herself will be the last time – or that she will at least try to make the last time.
    She is going to have one last wallow, in order to face down her demons. And it’s going to hurt like hell.
    Laura hurries into her bedroom and opens her wardrobe. Reaches up onto her tiptoes, and pulls down a big cardboard box stuffed with photographs. Then, despite the fatigue weighing her down, despite it being past midnight, she sits cross-legged on the rug and starts leafing through. Her mum, her dad, her brother, holidays and days out, school plays…. So many memories come flooding back.
    This is what she does most nights. Embraces the hurt and pain in order to keep their memories alive. But she realises now that her aunt is right: she has been using the pain as a memorial to her family, when she should have been