Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (the gingerbread man read aloud TXT) 📗

kitchen. She was cooking something on the hob – I could see it steaming in the background. That could have been the sound on her end that was muffling the audio. And then, just at the point when I could tell from the rise in her tone that she wanted to tell Jonah something, a small blue light appeared in the background above one of her angular-looking taps and the slow rumble of water coming to a boil. I quickly removed the kitchen sounds and swiped to replay the call.

‘Dad? There’s something I want to tell you,’ Genevieve was saying. She peered up towards the camera. ‘We haven’t told anyone yet…’

Jonah was studying his goSphere as he listened to Genevieve. He was flicking through item after item at such a speed that I couldn’t keep up with what it was he was reading. They were articles upon articles but I couldn’t see their content. The only discernible feature was that a few of them were marked with the same OSIP logo – perhaps not all, although I couldn’t properly tell – but there were certainly a number that were. He stopped swiping as Genevieve said that, leaving a document bearing an OSIP logo open on his goSphere.

‘Are you all right?’ he said, turning towards the workSphere.

‘Yes, I’m fine. It’s good…’ she mumbled. ‘It’s good news.’

‘What is it, Gen?’

‘Josh and I – we want to start a family,’ she said quietly. She smiled. It spread across her whole face and so I could see the wide gap between her front teeth.

Jonah sat up straight suddenly from his hunched over position. The OSIP document on his goSphere continued to blink. I was able to read a couple of words that were written in stark capitals; it said something about ‘the XC children’, although I couldn’t be certain. ‘Hold on,’ Jonah said, standing now. ‘Don’t go anywhere – I’ll be right with you.’

‘Dad? You don’t have to—’

‘Bye, love.’

And he’d closed down the call.

I pondered it. It was valuable for his life document but what really struck me were the documents I’d seen flash through his goSphere.

Jonah had no association with OSIP that I knew of. I’d never seen him reading anything about them before in any other context, nor had I heard him talk about them.

I could understand why he would rush over to Genevieve on hearing her news; they were close and she didn’t live terribly far away. I’d known him to take off to see her at a moment’s notice before. But since this call they hadn’t spoken about it again, unless I’d missed it. As far as I was aware, Genevieve hadn’t started induction or begun the process of creating an XC baby.

I turned this over in my mind, trying to piece it together, when there was a knock on the door.

It was Thomas, brandishing a bag of foil containers.

‘Dinner!’ he exclaimed.

I pulled him and the steaming bag of food towards me and forgot everything else.

NOW

Mimi’s a heap in the back of the car.

I can’t stop looking in the mirror to try to glimpse her face. I’m looking backwards more than I look forwards. But then I catch the red haze of the recharge light.

I remember as a child being in Dad’s old car with Evie, him telling us to lean forwards to help the car up the hill. We’d fold ourselves over so our heads hung downwards; it really felt as though it did make a difference.

My body tenses into something like that position now. I hunch over the wheel, willing the car onwards with my thoughts and my body. We only need to get close enough so we are able to walk the rest of the way.

When I’d looked up the postcode that the bald man had given us for where Mimi would be taken, it seemed almost cruel that it was close to the area where Evie now lives. We have never been to their house. I haven’t even seen pictures of it, but I had her address and couldn’t stop myself from working out the distance between the two places. Before Mimi even left us, I half hoped that if something went wrong perhaps we could collect her and go to Evie’s before we made our next move. Despite everything, I wondered if my sister might help us. It wasn’t a real plan, though, and as I press down on the accelerator, I realise I never believed that I would actually have to do it.

We haven’t masked the distance that’s grown between us with birthday cards or Christmas presents. It feels more honest to call our fracture what it is: a splintering, the breaking of us.

I can’t bear to speak to my sister.

I can’t bear her but, right now, she is the only one I can turn to. It’s simple geography that leads me to her – that where she moved to is not far from where Mimi was hidden – and a matter of chemistry: I only have so much charge that will only get me only so far.

I have no desire to see her and part of me is terrified that going to her will be a mistake. I’m not certain that I will find the refuge that Mimi and I so desperately need. I hope that she will help me without ever knowing of it, that they won’t be there so I can take from her the things we need and leave.

The likelihood is low; it’s early afternoon on a Saturday and I imagine she’ll have gone out in the morning but will have returned to relax for the rest of the day as used to be her rhythm. I feel my shoulders grind thinking that we might see her, that we will have to talk.

But I’ve run out of options.

And I won’t give up.

THEN

It didn’t feel so much a choice as a necessity when we moved in together after a few weeks.

It was so quick that