Knit One Pearl One by Gil McNeil Read Free Book Online

all.”
    They both hesitate but recognize the signs of a mother close to the edge.
    “You can choose one book each, and no, Jack, not a long book, one of your bedtime picture books. Or not. And I’ll just have a nice rest and you two can sulk.”
    “Honestly Mum, there’s no need to be so grumpy. Great big grumpypotamus.”
    “Thanks, Archie, I love you too.”
    Archie falls asleep while I’m reading to him, but Jack’s sitting up looking anxious by the time I’m trying to tuck him in.
    “Lie down, love.”
    “Mum, you know Dad is in heaven.”
    Oh God, not again.
    “Yes love.”
    “If there is a heaven. That’s what we say, isn’t it?”
    “Yes love.”
    “Well, is there?”
    “What sweetheart?”
    “A heaven.”
    “I don’t know, Jack, nobody does. Not really. Some people think there is, but if you love somebody, like you love Dad, well, that never ends. They live in your heart forever.”
    “And that’s a kind of heaven, isn’t it, Mum?”
    “Yes love.”
    And a kind of hell too, if you happen to have been on the point of leaving them and sodding off to live with a bloody French nymphet called Mimi. And now you’re stuck floating about somewhere and watching your little boys trying to make sense of it all.
    “Yes, but he can’t see us, can he? Not all the time?”
    “No love.”
    Please don’t let him ask me any more tricky questions tonight, I’m too tired and I never feel I’m getting this right. I don’t want to trot out the lines about heaven and angels, because I’m really not sure what I think about all of that, and it seems important to be honest about something so important. But I want them to have the comfort of it, like fairies and Father Christmas; that sense that magic things can happen and there will always be a happy ending. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. Something that makes the darker moments a bit more bearable.
    He’s still thinking.
    “Snuggle down, love.”
    “I can’t see him now, Mum, when I close my eyes. Sometimes I can’t remember what he looked like.”
    He’s on the brink of tears now, silent crying in the dark while he tries to make sense of it all.
    Bloody hell, I hate this. It’s so incredibly unfair.
    “I know love, neither can I, sometimes. But we’ve got lots of photographs, and our holiday films.”
    “It’s not the same.”
    “I know, but when you look at the photographs, you’ll see, you’ll feel it straightaway, love.”
    “Feel what?”
    “How much he loved you, more than anything in the whole world.”
    “Yes. More than anything in the whole wide world to infinity and back again.”
    There’s a small smile now.
    “Yes.”
    “Even more than Archie, because I was first, wasn’t I, Mum?”
    “He loved you both more than anything in the entire world; there just isn’t anything bigger than that. Now, what story do you want, love?”
    “ Owl Babies. Just because it’s one of our favorites. I’m too big for it really.”
    “Okay.”
    “And Mum.”
    “Yes, Jack.”
    “If I have one of my dreams, can I come into your bed?”
    “Yes love. But very quietly. If you bring Archie or wake up Pearl, then the deal’s off.”
    He nods and snuggles down.
    So that’ll be him in my bed by the time I come back upstairs. Great.
    “Oh darling, poor Jack, he’s always been such a trooper about it all, and they’ve coped so well, you know, you’ve done an amazing job.”
    “No I haven’t, Ellen, I’ve done what any mum would do, muddled through the best you can and tried to keep the kids safe.”
    “Well, I think you’re amazing.”
    “I should bloody hope so. You’d be in real trouble if your best friend thought you were crap.”
    “True.”
    “He hasn’t had his bad dreams so much lately; I was hoping he might be getting over it. Well, not over it, obviously, but past worrying it was somehow his fault.”
    “Archie’s never really gone in for that, has he?”
    “No, nothing is ever Archie’s fault. He gets that from Nick.