Page 99 of So Now You're Back
Lizzie scribbled their names on the sheet with the time and date. ‘Thank you.’
She rushed through the doors, tugging Aldo with her, in case the receptionist changed her mind.
Light shone into the airy corridor from a glass wall on one side, illuminating an open ward on the other. People lay in curtained-off cubicles, the beds wide and comfortable, like normal beds instead of hospital ones. A few patients glanced their way, most didn’t. Lizzie searched the faces, then moved on.
The heavy scent of air freshener and chemicals hung in the air. The few sounds of conversation were muffled, as if the silence were held at bay by the most tenuous of threads. Her Converse and Aldo’s high-tops slapped against the stripped wood flooring as they rounded a corner.
Lizzie stopped, and Aldo bumped into her from behind.
Trey sat on a bench in a courtyard garden visible through the glass. The sunlight made his short hair gleam, his head bent over the sheet of paper he held loosely.
He looked so alone. And so exhausted. She pushed open the door to step into the paved garden.
No drama. Only support.
‘Trey!’ Aldo gave a choked cry as he let go of Lizzie’s hand and rushed forward.
Trey’s head lifted and he blinked slowly. ‘Lizzie? Aldo?’ He stood, and the paper drifted to the paving. ‘What are you …’
Trey harrumphed as Aldo barrelled into him and wrapped his arms round Trey’s midriff, burying his face against his friend’s chest.
‘Your mum died,’ Aldo cried, all the tension and anxiety spilling out in a cascade of messy tears. ‘That’s so crap.’
Trey’s hands came to rest gingerly on her brother’s shoulders. ‘Hey, buddy, don’t cry. It’s OK.’
‘We came to tell you we miss you,’ Aldo blurted out, then sniffled and burrowed into the hug, clinging on as if he was scared Trey would vanish. ‘We want you to come home. You have to come home.’
Lizzie walked towards them.
So much for no drama.
Emotion closed her own throat, though, when Trey bent to touch his cheek to Aldo’s hair. His arms lowering to hug her brother back.
‘I’m sorry. He wanted to come and see you,’ she said. ‘We both did. If you want us to leave, we will. But we wanted to be sure you’re OK.’
Trey’s eyes met hers and, to her astonishment, he smiled.
‘I am now’ was all he said.
After Trey had handled some more paperwork and spoken to the hospice staff, they went to a McDonald’s near the tube station for dinner. Aldo managed to put away a Big Mac and a monster helping of French fries while keeping up a running commentary on every single thing he’d been doing while Trey had been absent, in intricate and unflagging detail. Lizzie noticed Trey hardly touched his quarter-pounder. She didn’t have much of an appetite for her filet-o-fish, either. But she welcomed Aldo’s inane chatter.
The commentary continued all the way back to Holland Park tube station and the short walk to the house. You’d have thought Trey had been gone for six months, not a day and a half. But still he listened attentively, asking a string of pertinent questions, making Lizzie sure he welcomed the distraction, too.
Aldo was so excited at having his idol back in situ that it took them forever to calm him down enough to finally get him into his pyjamas and off to bed.
Lizzie waited in the kitchen while Trey went upstairs with Aldo to tuck him in and read him another chapter from The Goblet of Fire. A ritual she knew the two of them had begun when Trey had moved in twelve days ago.
How could it have been less than two weeks since the morning she’d had that massive row with her mum about Trey coming to stay?
Her phone buzzed on the countertop and she picked it up to see a text from Carly.
Crashing epic party 2nite in Muswell Hill. Wanna cum?
She texted back. No thx, busy.
She’d rather gouge her eyes out than leave Trey this evening, especially to spend time with Carly.
WTF? It’s going to be epic!! How lame r u!!!