Page 25 of Her Last Breath

Jane carried the re-heated lasagne and a glass of water to the lounge. About to ease the door open with her foot, she stopped. She could hear her mother’s voice, wondering who she was talking to. Jane leant her head closer to the door.

‘Ed,’ her mother gasped, between sobs.

Thirty-two years after he died, her beloved son was still everything to Maeve Hacker. Jane thought then of Alice and her children. Someone had taken their mother from them. Would they in decades to come cry like this, remembering the woman who had loved them more than anyone?

Jane made a lot of noise as she went into the lounge, purposefully not looking at her mother, giving her time to wipe away her tears.

‘How was your day, Mum?’

‘Oh, you know me – I went for a trek round the lakes, then for lunch in Manchester.’

‘Sorry the carers were late again. Lorraine’s car broke down.’

‘I don’t need them to feed me dinner. You should do that now you’re here. Anyway, she probably had a date. She’s always on her phone messaging and using those app things.’

‘Give over, Mum. I really don’t think she’s on Tinder while looking after you.’

‘What’s that? Anyway, she’s old enough to know better than to meet some random man online who might be dangerous.’

Putting the glass of water down on the adjustable feeding table, Jane spooned up a forkful of lasagne, raising it to her mother’s lips. She locked eyes with her, the tears still sitting there.

‘Why did you come back, Jane?’

‘You know why, Mum.’

‘For twenty years all you’ve done is the odd Christmas Day visit, the Mother’s Day cards … Why give up your life for me now?’

‘I didn’t give anything up.’

There was more truth to this than Jane would care to admit. After a while, London had started to feel soulless to her, simply a place you could run away to and hide in. The absence of messages and calls since her move back to Burnley stung more than she expected. They were people she knew to go out on weekend pub crawls with, or to dinners and the theatre. Drinking to oblivion and waking up Monday morning barely able to remember what she had done the previous two days. Relationships that felt very transient, brittle even.

‘I was just in the kitchen, looking out into the yard,’ Jane said softly, as she put down the fork. ‘You know what I remembered? Every day after school I would come home and play hopscotch, and in all that time you never once let that hopscotch look old. As soon as it started fading, you used to redraw it for me.’

‘Yes, and it’s probably why my knees are so knackered.’

‘You used to tell us off for using that word,’ Jane tried to sound affronted. ‘Remember when Dad used it and I told on him?’

‘He could barely keep a straight face while I scolded him.’

Both women shared a moment of remembered laughter.

‘Me and Ed used to hear him cursing all the time. For that matter so did you.’

‘I did not!’ Maeve protested, still laughing.

‘Come on, Mum, by the time I was six, I knew more swear words than a sailor!’

‘Yes, well it’s a different time now.’

‘Yes, it is. And let’s remember the better times, Mum, from before …’

Jane paused, knowing the air had just been sucked from whatever joy she had brought into the space between them.

‘Before what?’ Maeve asked coldly.

In an instant, she felt her mother’s demeanour change, Maeve visibly drawing back. The shadowy ghosts of the past hung around them, painful memories of how their lives had disintegrated after Ed, how Jane had been blamed and sidelined.

‘Why are you here?’ Maeve asked, the words feeling like an accusation.