Sugar and Spice

Chapter 13: A Taste of Paris in Boston

"Ma." Lisa groaned as she stretched out on her sofa. "Stop. Please. You're wearing me out just watching you."

"So turn on the TV. You can watch a chat show instead."

"Ugh, Ma!"

"Lisa, you have a hole in your shoulder."

Lisa looked down at her right shoulder, now padded with bandages and supported with a sling. Her mother was right. Somewhere, underneath all the gauze and the antiseptic film, was a neat bullet-sized hole.

But that didn't explain why her mother was getting the hoover out.

"Ma, I've been home, what...half an hour? You've already done my washing up and tidied away my laundry. Which didn't need doing. And now you're going to hoover?"

But Chitthip was not to be put off.

"This place is a tip, Lisa, and you won't recover properly with all this clutter everywhere."

Lisa's eyebrows shot up, and she looked at her mother in frank amazement.

"I like my clutter exactly the way it is. I won't be able to find stuff if you tidy it away."

"You never know who might call in, especially with you being sick and all, and it would be real embarrassing if visitors were to find this place looking like...well. This."

"There's nothing wrong with it. And anyway, I'm not sick. Just...walking wounded."

Chitthip rolled her eyes as she switched on the hoover, and Lisa just caught her next words before they were drowned out by the whine of the machine. "Think it would be easier on everyone if you weren't walking."

Slumping back into the cushions, Lisa sighed deeply and closed her eyes. She was a terrible patient, and would be the first to say so. But she was also sore - although she would never have admitted that to anyone, least of all her mother - and she ached all over, a throbbing, dull ache that seemed to radiate out from her shoulder and reach all the way down to her toes. She knew Chitthip meant well, but all she really wanted was a hot bath and her own bed.