The To Do List

Seven

"Get up! Get up!" Cal shouts. I pull the duvet over my head, but he

yanks it straight off again. "Dad says if you don't get up right now, he's

coming upstairs with a wet flannel!"

I roll over, away from him, but he skips round the bed and stands over

me, grinning. "Dad says you should get up every morning and do something

with yourself."

I kick him hard and pull the duvet back over my head. "I don't give a

shit, Cal! Now piss off out of my room."

I'm surprised at how little I care when he goes.

Noise invades – the thunder of his feet on the stair, the clatter of

dishes from the kitchen as he opens the door and doesn't shut it behind

him. Even the smallest sounds reach me – the slosh of milk onto cereal, a

spoon spinning in air. Dad tutting as he wipes Cal's school shirt with a cloth.

The cat lapping the floor.

The hall closet opens and Dad gets Cal's coat for him. I hear the zip,

the button at the top to keep his neck warm. I hear the kiss, then the sigh

– a great wave of despair washing over the house.

"Go and say goodbye," Dad says.

Cal bounds up the stairs, pauses a moment outside my door, then

comes in, right over to the bed.

"I hope you die while I'm at school!" he hisses. "And I hope it bloody

hurts! And I hope they bury you somewhere horrible like the fish shop or

the dentist's!"

Goodbye, little brother, I think. Goodbye, goodbye.

Dad'll be left in the messy kitchen in his dressing gown and slippers,

needing a shave and rubbing his eyes as if surprised to find himself alone.

In the last few weeks he's established a little morning routine. After Cal

leaves, he makes himself a coffee, then he tidies the kitchen table, rinses

the dishes and puts the washing machine on. This takes approximately

twenty minutes. After that he comes and asks me if I slept well, if I'm

hungry and what time I'm going to get up. In that order.

When I tell him, "No, no and never," he gets dressed, then goes back

downstairs to his computer, where he taps away for hours, surfing the web

for information to keep me alive. I've been told there are five stages of

grief, and if that's true, then he's stuck in stage one: denial.

Strangely, his knock at my door is early today. He hasn't had his

coffee or tidied up. What's going on? I lie very still as he comes in, shuts

the door quietly behind him and kicks his slippers off.

"Shove up," he says. He lifts a corner of the duvet.

"Dad! What're you doing?"

"Getting into bed with you."