Maame(48)

It’s just hit noon and I should be at home for Dad’s birthday right now.

I sit up with an unintelligible groan and think I might be sick. I stumble across my room in last night’s dress to take two paracetamol tablets dry and then gag. My throat hurts and my stomach burns. I’d google “hangover symptoms” because I feel like I only have five minutes left to live, but I can’t see straight—my head is so heavy.

I’m not that late, and Dad’s not going anywhere.

I won’t even tempt myself by getting back into bed completely. No, I’ll just rest my head on my pillow … only for a minute … ten minutes maybe.

Half an hour at the most.



* * *



I wake up to a persistent buzzing.

My phone is ringing. “Mum LONDON” and, underneath, the time: 14:47.

Fuck. I jump out of bed and answer the phone. It’s fine; I’ll just take the cake home and decorate it there.

“Hi, Mum. Sorry I’m later than I said I was going to be. I’m leaving the flat in ten minutes.” I sniff my armpits. “Twenty minutes.” I grab a towel and reach for my shower cap. “I went to bed late,” I explain when Mum doesn’t say anything back. “So that’s why I’m—”

“Maddie?”

I stop because Mum’s voice is thick and heavy and she’s crying enough to force two more syllables into my name.

“Mum, what’s wrong?”

“Maddie, your father, he … he is dead. He’s dead.”

I freeze on the spot, half out of last night’s dress.

What did she say?

“Your father’s dead,” she repeats, then begins to choke and cry.

I frown because I can clearly picture my dad sitting in front of the TV, smiling. I shake my head. “But it’s his birthday,” I tell her.

“I know!” she says. “Oh, God. Oh, God. To take him on his birthday. And just now too, not thirty minutes long. I’ve been trying to call you. But he is dead. Maddie, he is dead.”

My body finally hears her and it happens all at once, the punching of my heart, the loosening of my stomach, the burning in my chest. My belly heaves in and out.

“Maddie, your father is—”

“Stop saying that!” I snap. “I heard you the first time.” I pull my phone away and stare at the red end call button.

“I’m sorry, Maddie.” She continues to cry down the line.

I want to tell her not to be so dramatic. It’s not what it seems. It can’t be today that he’s died. No one dies on their birthday. My dad is not dead. There’s been some mistake.

“You need to check again,” I tell her.

“The paramedics have announced it, Maddie,” she says. “I am so sorry.”

I hang up the phone and hold it to my chest. The only thing I can think about is Mum saying he died thirty minutes before, meaning I’d have been there if I’d woken up when I was meant to. I would have seen him one last time, said happy birthday, and kissed his forehead.

I stand, gently swaying on the spot until I trust my hands to pull my dress back on. I’m on autopilot when I walk out of my room and down the stairs.

I can hear suitcase wheels and pockets of conversation. They’re talking about Florence. Missing the last step, I trip and end up on the floor on my hands and knees. They both rush in and Jo laughs. “Still hungover, huh?”

I get up slowly.

“It was a bad idea to go out last night,” Cam says. “We need to leave in fifteen minutes. You’re so lucky you don’t have to catch this flight with—Maddie?”

“My dad’s just died.”

For a few seconds, no one says anything.

“Shit,” Jo breathes.

Cam gently takes my arm and walks me into the kitchen. She sits me at the table. My eyes are blurry, but I hear the kettle being switched on. She makes me a cup of tea.

“Fuck, Maddie,” Jo says, shaking her head. “What happened?”

When I repeat some of my mother’s words, they stand above me and they are sorry and coo until Jo says, “Shit, I can’t believe we have to leave soon.”

“We can’t go now.”

“What?” Jo turns to Cam so fast her hair whips across her face. “Tickets are nonrefundable,” she whispers.

I look at Jo, who is rearranging the features of her face until she’s unrecognizable, and my chest fills with air. I’m trying to expel it as quickly as possible because it’s not that she’s callous and it’s not that I’d rather they stay, it’s— I stand up. “You asked me … you made me stay out.”

Jo stiffens. “What?”

“After the first bar, I said I should go home.” I don’t know why I’m saying this, but I can’t bear the weight of this guilt I’m feeling, it’s as if I might drown under it. I tried to do the right thing, to come home. And for a brief moment, it’s not my fault anymore. “I didn’t even want to go out last night. If I’d stayed home, I’d have spent the night baking, gone to bed on time and woken up early with a clear head. Jo, if it wasn’t for you, I’d have seen my dad today, before he died.”

“Maddie.” She breathes slowly, eyes locked on mine—and they’re suddenly no longer the blue of cornflowers, but the blue of a storm at sea. “I’m really sorry you lost your dad, but I didn’t make you do anything. You decide what you do, and you decided to stay out with us.”