𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐈𝐬 𝐀 𝐋𝐨𝐰. ⁽⁽⁽ᵐᵃᵗᵗʸ ʰᵉᵃˡʸ⁾⁾⁾

There It Is Again.

Track List:

Kiss Me, Sixpence None the Richer
The First Taste, Fiona Apple
Here With Me, Dido
That Funny Feeling, Phoebe Bridgers

Gerard is putting a brave face on things. Ray actually believed him for the first ten minutes she was in the flat, while he clattered around the kitchen to make tea. She graciously ignored the way he spilled sugar on the floor, the tea-stained rings covering the normally glossy counters. But then she peers into the fridge to top up the milk in her tea and finds it empty. There's a sad jar of sandwich paste, a nearly-empty bottle of salad cream, half a pack of Dairylea cheese triangles and some left-over Chinese takeaway in plastic containers. She's never seen the fridge look so tragic. She shuts the door as quietly as she can, tiptoeing across the lino towards the cupboards. The usual stock of tinned soups are depleted, the bread in the breadbin halfway to stale. It's a pitiful sight, one that makes her heart clench in her chest. Her mum's only been home a few days, but she's not going to recover on a diet of stale sandwiches, soup, and takeaway. She needs food, real food, home cooked and nutritious. The kind of thing Lydia would happily make in batches, if asked. But Ray shelves that thought, following the sound of her parents' voices into the living room. Her mother is perched awkwardly on the sofa, her useless left arm tucked against her body. Her left leg is angled inwards, her body curling in on itself like a fragile leaf. Ray blinks away the tears that threaten to blur her vision.

"I'm popping to the shops to get milk, will you sit with your mam for a bit?" Gerard's blue eyes bore into Ray, the set of his jaw betraying the forced casualness of his tone.

"Course, no problem. Get some salad cream and some bread as well, you're running low."

"Aye," he nods, shrugging on a battered navy rain mac over his woollen jumper. Ray waits until he leaves to sit next to Etain, almost afraid to look directly at her. As if she might crumble under the heaviness of Ray's emotions.

"Mum," she begins gently, reaching out to tuck Etain's clawed, nonfunctional hand into her own. "How are you doing? Really."

"I'm alright, sweetheart," Etain slurs, falteringly. The doctors had said it was a mini stroke, it only affected her speech and her arm. But that feels inaccurate; there's nothing minor about the way Etain sits, stands, talks, her whole body weakened after the hospital stay. Ray wanted to pay to move her to a private ward, but she was only in the hospital for a few days before they released her home. Her parents wouldn't let her, as they said, waste her money.

"Have you seen the physio?"

"The GP says there's a waiting list. Seven weeks, she thinks."

"You can't wait that long!" Ray is appalled. The longer it takes to get her mum into the physio, the worse her recovery will be. She might never be able to use her arm again, her speech permanently altered. Ray purposely avoids looking at the mobility aids propped against the arm of the sofa, the crutches a supposedly temporary measure that are beginning to look more like a permanent fixture. It's not that she has a problem with her mum needing them. She has a problem with her mum needing help and not getting it. "I can pay for you to go private. Why won't you let me? You'd be seen so much sooner, you'd be feeling better. Are you still getting headaches?"

Etain nods, reaching over with her better hand to pat Ray on the wrist. "You're too good to us, Regan. Always looking after us."

Of course she's always looking after them. They're her parents, and she's their only child. She's known since she was fifteen and her dad got laid off from his job as a security guard: there's no money. It's part of the reason she was determined to set up Theseus - she's been putting money away since her first pay cheque to create a kind of pension for her parents. She can't think of anything worse than leaving her parents to make the decision between heating and electricity, food or water.