Tuesday & Max

18

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS

LET YOUR HEART BE LIGHT

FROM NOW ON YOUR TROUBLES

WILL BE OUT OF SIGHT

It's hard to breathe.

She swims through a never-ending dark sea, depths sparkling with a light that comes from nowhere and everywhere. Where's the surface? She can't breathe. The weight on her chest is painful, impossible-

Tuesday wakes with a start, face mashed into her pillow. Turning her head to the side, she takes in a huge gasp of air, scrambling to get off the bed and out of the tangle of blankets and pillows. She can't see much in the gloom, but she's still in clothes, so she must have fallen asleep after Julia left.

Is she not back yet? It's dark.

Opening her door, Tuesday slips into the hallway. She can hear voices from the living room. Relief warms her belly and she opens the door, slips inside.

The Christmas tree is gone. The TV, some blurred gameshow with faceless people, illuminates the two figures sat on the sofa. Tuesday creeps around to the front of them, heart in her mouth.

Julia, trademark fringe, is chatting soundlessly on the right. Tuesday's mother, wild, long hair windblown even though it's still in the sitting room, listens on the left.

"Mom?"

Neither figure acknowledges her.

She edges forward and reaches out a couple of shaking fingertips to brush her mother's face, expecting them to slide right through.

One of them is a ghost, right?

But it doesn't. It connects with shocking tangibility, the skin on her mother's cheekbone rippling upwards into little folds beneath her fingers. She still doesn't react, her silent conversation with Julia continuing, as if Tuesday simply isn't there.

"Mommy?"

Her hand drops into her mother's shoulder and she shakes it this time, panic rising. They're back together again, all of them, but it's wrong. It feels wrong.

Julia is just as blank, talking and talking and talking, mouth open with nothing coming out. Tuesday wants to move closer to her and press her lips shut just to make it stop, but before she can, her mother moves suddenly and places a hand over hers.

"Tuesday."

Tuesday jumps, letting out an involuntary squeak of shock. Her mother looks at her, now, but her eyes are flat and empty.

"Double check the chrysanthemums, Tuesday."

"What?" Tuesday gasps. Her cheeks feel cold, and she realises that she's crying.

"Double check we've got them all. I don't want to forget anything."

"Mom."

Unable to bear gazing into her dead eyes any longer, Tuesday falls to her knees in front of the sofa, wrapping her arms around her mother's middle. She presses her left ear into her torso, desperate to block out the words she'd been desperate for moments ago.

"Don't be silly, Tuesday." Her mother says, straining slightly against the embrace. "I never wear a seatbelt."

"Tuesday," Julia says, finding her voice.