Abby
Hit-and-run.
Paramedics did everything they could.
Pronounced dead at the scene.
The words reverberate in ’s ears.
They do not make any sense. Nothing these two young police officers are saying makes any sense.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Richardson. We know what a terrible shock this must be. There’s a family liaison officer on the way, but in the meantime, is there someone we can contact for you, someone who could come and be with you?’
hears the officer’s words but cannot connect them to any comprehensible meaning.
‘Mrs Richardson? Can I get you anything? A glass of water?’
Sound crackles on the radio attached to the female officer’s shoulder, and her hand darts towards it, turns down the volume until silence engulfs the room.
The floor seems to sway beneath ’s feet.
None of it makes any sense.
‘Can I call someone for you – a friend or family member?’
Time seems to have paused, the breath in ’s chest stilled. Sounds are muffled in her ears, belonging to some distant, parallel world. A world in which her seventeen-year-old daughter cannot possibly be dead.
‘Where is she? Where’s Isla?’ The words burn in ’s throat, but she needs to know, she has to find out.
A flicker of unease passes between the two officers, and wishes they would wipe their faces clean of that abominable concern, that they would stop staring at her with such appalling sympathy.
‘Isla’s at the mortuary, Mrs Richardson. At the hospital.’
The mortuary . The words hit as though she has been physically assaulted.
From behind the sofa, she hears the quiet click of the sitting room door, and for a split second, feels a rush of incomparable relief; it is all a terrible mistake. The police officers have got it wrong. It is not Isla who has been hit, not Isla who has been killed. Isla is on the other side of the door, preparing to apologise for being late, to tell that she lost track of time, that her phone battery died, that she wasn’t able to call on the way home. Isla is going to tell her she is sorry, that she hopes has not been concerned, that she will relay all the gossip from the party in the morning but, for now, she just wants to get to bed, get some sleep before the four-thirty alarm goes off for tomorrow’s swim training. will hug her, tell her not to worry; the only thing that matters is that she is home, safe and sound.
For the briefest fissure of time – a split second that lasts a lifetime – is sure that behind the closed door, Isla is home.
And then the door opens, and there is Clio, slouching in pyjama bottoms and an oversized t-shirt, eyes grazing the room. She clocks the two police officers, turns to , face awash with questions does not have the capacity to answer.
At the sight of Clio and the absence of Isla, the full horror of what is happening overwhelms as if she has been flung from a great height, the ground rushing to meet her, air whistling past her ears, no idea how far she will fall or what will happen when she lands. Grief pummels her from every angle, collecting in her throat, threatening to choke her.
She reaches out, takes hold of Clio’s hand, pulls her into her arms. Wrapping herself around her daughter’s body, she clasps her fiercely as though to let go would risk them both being suffocated by the horror of what has happened. The shock breaches over her, like storm-battered waves, and does not know how they will survive this, how anyone could survive this; how they will both not be drowned beneath the weight of such a loss.