To Be Someone by Louise Voss Read Free Book Online

spitting on her doll’s dress and wiping it on the wall. The doll was wearing the dress at the time, and the friction from Sam’s rubbing only caused the doll’s porcelain fingernails to add little scritchy marks next to the original scuff.
    But we kept refining the quilt scenarios, and over time they evolved into more of a sport than a charade, which we practiced zealously when Dylan wasn’t around to laugh at us. One of us would sit in the quilt, wrapping its back and sides around us for padding, and the other would pick up the front and drag it plus passenger down the hallway from the starting line of the sitting room. Because the hall was so narrow and sloped gently down, with the little sets of stairs and turns breaking up its length, it made quite a respectable bob-sleigh run. We managed to get quite a speed up. The idea was to get to the finish line (the kitchen doorway) without the passenger falling off or the “puller” falling over.
    The only problem was that our weights were not well balanced enough to get the maximum momentum. When I was the puller, I’d gallop full tilt for the first flight of steps, charge down them, hurtle round the first bend—and more often than not be left holding an empty quilt, Sam having been catapulted screaming into a cupboard door, or picking splinters from her palms further back up the course. And when she pulled me, she would puff and pant, heaving with all her strength to drag me to the top of the three little stairs, where gravity would kick in and I would invariably cascade down faster than her, catching her in the back of the knees on the way. We once heard her mother commenting in puzzled tones to her father about how quickly their new hall carpet had developed a nasty shiny streak down its center.

DAISIES AND THE GUINEA PIG
    IT WAS A SLIGHTLY BETTER WEEK. I HAD MY TEETH CAPPED, WHICH was a huge relief, and I received two new cards. The first was from Toby and Ruby, a simple Get Well Soon card with their names inside. The card had a big white daisy on the front and was followed, within minutes, by a delivery of an enormous bunch of Michaelmas daisies. My favorite flower. I was finding it increasingly tough to feel hard-done-by and cheated by that sunny couple with their curly hair and serious eyes. But I kept trying to dismiss the memory of their visit. Toby obviously had a guilty conscience, I told myself; otherwise, why hadn’t he brought the flowers to me in person?
    The second card was from Cynthia Grant, Sam’s mother. She’d sent it to my home address, and Mum, who was staying at my house, had brought it into the hospital with her.
    I recognized Cynthia’s writing on the envelope and immediately got a tense, choked-up feeling in my throat. It was so nice of her to think of me, but I almost resented hearing from her simply because she wasn’t Sam. We’d kept in touch since Sam died, but had only seen each other once. I’d called on her and we’d sat in her homely front room, knowing that underneath our feet was Sam’s abandoned basement flat, both of us wishing we could be down there having tea with Sam instead. And the worst thing of all was that Sam’s name never once came into the conversation. We both knew she was the reason we were sitting there together over the syrupy flapjacks and the Earl Grey, and I’m sure we were both aching to talk about her, to get into one of those “Do you remember when Sam …?” conversations, but we didn’t. I assumed we were both afraid of upsetting the other, and we avoided the subject of our loss studiously, as if the mention of her name would have incurred some embarrassing forfeit.
    “Who’s it from?” asked Mum.
    “Cynthia,” I replied dully. “She says she might come and visit.”
    “Oh well, if she’s not too busy, I guess that would be nice for you,” Mum ventured, looking disapprovingly at a postcard David and Joe from the band had sent me. It was a cartoon depicting two doctors examining a man