We Own the Sky(24)
I looked up from the shopping list and suddenly couldn’t see Jack. I stood up, slopping my coffee on the table, but he wasn’t in the ball pit, or inside the Toytown car. Then I spotted him, in the corner on the edge of the mat, lying motionless on the floor.
I ran over to him and he was still in the same position, lying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling.
“Jack, Jack, are you okay?”
He looked at me, his eyes glazed. It was as if he had just woken up and didn’t know where he was.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“No,” Jack said, “I just fell over.”
“Do you have any injuries?”
Jack narrowed his eyes. “I feel... I feel funny...”
“Funny how, beautiful? Like dizzy?”
“What’s dizzy?” he asked.
“You know when you’re on the roundabout in the playground?”
“The big playground or little playground?”
“The big playground.”
Jack nodded.
“So you know when you go really fast on the roundabout and then you jump
off and you feel funny. That’s dizzy. Is that how you feel?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“And have you had it other times, when you’re at school?”
Jack considered what I had said.
“I was on the jumping pillow with Nathan, and it felt like spaceships flying through my head.”
“And can you feel the spaceships now?”
“No, Daddy, don’t be silly,” he said, sitting up, the color returning to his cheeks.
Ever since he had fallen off his bike in the park, Anna was sure that Jack’s balance was off. I wasn’t convinced. It was just clumsiness or overexuberance, I told her. It was normal for kids to bang into things. But she was insistent. It wasn’t just when he was running around, she said. She noticed it when he was walking to the bathroom before bed.
“Can I go and play with my friend again?”
“Are you feeling okay now?”
Jack tapped his head and patted down his stomach and legs. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Go on then, but be careful,” I said, looking him up and down.
He ran off and found his friend. I watched him, as he navigated the tunnels and climbed inside the police car and then, with his new partner in crime, started to pelt the playhouse with rubber balls.
*
“How was your day?” Anna asked when she got home. She’d had a meeting
with a client and ditched her laptop bag and sensible shoes for heels and makeup.
“Was good. Pretty quiet,” I said, folding the risotto over itself.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine, just a bit tired.”
“Where’s Jack?”
“Upstairs in his room.”
“Ah, okay. I’ll go up.”
She filled her glass with some tap water, leaned back against the kitchen counter and kicked off her shoes. I knew she didn’t find it easy, to be working at the bank while I did the school runs and looked after Jack. Even though she had gone to a progressive school, where girls were taught to be independent and empowered, she still found it hard to come home and find me cooking Jack his dinner, joking with him about the things we had done that day—things that, deep down, she felt that she should be doing.
Anna, though, was never one to allow a feeling to get the better of her. She found a way. When she came home, instead of putting her feet up, she spent all her time with Jack, doing his bath and his story, the little bits of homework he now had. After working all day, it was Anna who made sure that Jack’s water glass was filled, that his bedroom door was at the right angle, that Big Teddy and Little Teddy were standing guard.
She put her arms around my waist and nuzzled my neck. “Are we having kids’
food or adults’ food tonight?”
“Adults’ food.”
“Really?”
“You want fish fingers and beans again, don’t you? No, I’ve made a risotto.”
“Ooooo, fancy.”
“Are you disappointed?”
“No, risotto sounds great,” she said. “How was playtime by the way?”
“It was good. Jack loved it, made some friend. Oh, and I think I saw one of Lola’s friends there.”
“Who?”
“The snooty one.”
“Well, that’s a big help.”
“I don’t know. With a scarf. Big Mommy trousers.”
Anna shook her head. “You’ve just described all of her friends.”
I started to chop up some chives, wondering how to broach it. “Nothing to worry about, but he did fall over again.”
“Really,” Anna said, turning to face me. “Was he okay?”
“Yeah, absolutely fine. He fell over and then said he was feeling dizzy.”
Anna turned pale and started scrunching her fingers into her palm. “I knew it,
I knew something was wrong.”
“Sweetheart, you always do this,” I said, putting my arm around her.
“Will you take him to the doctor tomorrow?” Anna said, pulling away from
me.
“Of course I will, but do you really think it’s nec—”