She pulled up at the house and ran inside, as Plato padded happily to greet her.
‘Hello?’ she asked, desperately. ‘Ash? Molly?’
She needed to see them. She knew she didn’t have long. She could feel the Midnight Library waiting for her.
‘Outside!’ said Ash, chirpily, from the back garden.
And so Nora went through to find Molly on her tricycle again, unfazed by her previous accident, while Ash was tending to a flower-bed.
‘How was your trip?’
Molly climbed off her tricycle and ran over. ‘Mummy! I missed you! I’m really good at biking now!’
‘Are you, darling?’
She hugged her daughter close and closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of her hair and the dog and fabric conditioner and childhood, and she hoped the wonder of it would help keep her there. ‘I love you, Molly, I want you to know that. For ever and ever, do you understand?’
‘Yes, Mummy. Of course.’
‘And I love your daddy too. And everything will be okay because whatever happens you will always have Daddy and you will have Mummy too, it’s just I might not be here in the exact same way. I’ll be here, but . . .’ She realised Molly needed to know nothing else except one truth. ‘I love you.’
Molly looked concerned. ‘You forgot Plato!’
‘Well, obviously I love Plato . . . How could I forget Plato? Plato knows I love him, don’t you, Plato? Plato, I love you.’
Nora tried to compose herself.
Whatever happens, they will be looked aer. ey will be loved. And they have each other and they will be happy.
en Ash came over, with his gardening gloves on. ‘You okay, Nor? You seem a bit pale. Did anything happen?’
‘Oh, I’ll tell you about it later. When Molly’s in bed.’
‘Okay. Oh, there’s a shop coming any time . . . So keep an ear out for the lorry.’
‘Sure. Yeah. Yeah.’
And then Molly asked if she could get the watering can out and Ash explained that as it had been raining a lot recently it wasn’t necessary, because the sky had been looking aer the flowers. ‘ey’ll be okay. ey’re looked aer. e flowers have water.’ And the words echoed in Nora’s mind.
ey’ll be okay. ey’re looked aer . . . And then Ash said something about going to the cinema tonight and how the babysitter was all arranged and Nora had forgotten completely but just smiled and tried really hard to hold on, to stay there, but it was happening, it was happening, she knew it from within every hidden chamber of her being, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it.
