Grace

Chapter 45

I woke up stiff and a little too warm. Ben's arms were heavy around me, but the weight was good. It reminded me that we were alive. Alive. It was a dizzying thought. I hadn't woken at all during the night, I was too exhausted for nightmares.

"Yeah," Ben sighed. "Bye, Dad."

Christian sighed. "Bye, Benji."

Ben squeezed me a little. I moved my hand from under my chin and slid it over to his chest.

"He ok?"

"He's staying in the Falklands," he said on a slow breath and dropped his phone to the floor. "Everyone wants him to."

"I bet he'd come back if you asked."

"That's just it, Grace. I told him to stay. He wanted to come back but..."

I turned my head and kissed his t-shirt clad chest. He squeezed me a little more and then sat up. I did too, rubbed my face and realised that Dad was in the room watching the news. The reader said something about "KensingtonGarden and Hyde Park bombings". I stiffened and turned my ears off.

Ben pulled me into the corridor and then put my back to a wall.

"Grace?" he asked.

I wrapped my arms around myself to try and stop the shaking. He put a hand on each cheek and tilted my head so that I looked at him.

"All those people, Ben," I said as tears fell from my eyes.

They fell from his too. "I know," he whispered. "But we have to go on. For them if no one else." He stroked my cheekbones with his thumbs and it quickly started to relax me.

I nodded and sucked in a steadying breath. Somewhere down the corridor a door opened and closed. It was Mum coming out of Ben's room. She pulled some latex gloves off. I walked over.

"How's Clara?" I asked.

"Physically, she'll be fine. But that's about all I can say," she sighed and for the first time ever looked haggard. She rubbed the side of her face and then one of her tired, heavy eyes.

"What does she need?" I asked and put a hand on her arm.

"Time. Counselling. There isn't much any of us can do except be there for her." She leaned on the wall and looked at the ceiling.

"I'll make sure she gets everything she needs," Maria said having just come out of the room.

"Granny?" Ben asked.

"We'll pay for the best for her," she said.

Ben wanted to say thank you, but was too choked. She hugged him. I leaned against the wall so that I didn't sink to the floor in relief. Clara clearly wasn't ok, but she was going to have all the help she needed.

Ben's door opened again. Clara walked out. My clothes were too big for her, the sleeves fell passed her hands, the jeans dragged on the floor. Normally she would have worked the look and dazzled everyone anyway. Today she looked tiny. Her hair lay flat, her skin was pale and her eyes may as well have been dead. They didn't see anything.

"We're taking her home," her grandmother said. She looked like she could barely stand for the grief she was carrying, but was pushing on for her granddaughter. Her husband didn't look any better.

"That's Brighton, right?" I had no idea how I remembered, it all seemed so trivial now. "She talks about it a lot. She loves it down there."

"We know. Thank you for looking after her yesterday."