Read Online The Brilliant Light of Amber Sunrise by Matthew Crow - Free Book Online

prowess.
    â€œWell, you’ve got to go, Mum says. Dinner’s nearly ready. Thanks for coming around, though.”
    â€œFine,” he said, and got up to leave. “I hope you’re okay. Do you want me to come and visit?”
    The responsibility of deciding was something I could have done without, so I just shrugged.
    â€œIf you like,” I said.
    I let Chris see him out.

    I had three visitors in quick succession while I was packing my things that night, like Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol. The hospital had provided a list of suggested items (pajamas, slippers, toothbrush) but I had second-guessed them and begun thinking outside the box. I was looking for my best shirt to pack so that I was prepared in case I received any special visitors—like a passing princess with a TV crew in tow, eager to touch the sick—when Chris came in and said he was proud of me, even though I hadn’t done anything to warrant that. He gave me a mix CD, which he said would help when I was feeling down. I thought it might have been an inspirational message album. I’d bought something similar from a garden center once when my final exams were giving me sleepless nights. It hadn’t worked. But Chris said it was a fail-safe power drive of the most energizing rock songs he could think of. He told me I’d be fine, andalso gave me a fifty-pound top-up card and said if I ever needed him I should ring, no matter what time of the day or night it was.
    Then Grandma came in and hobbled over to my bed, sitting down right on top of the three T-shirts I had folded as perfectly as any shop assistant might. She asked me if I had enjoyed dinner. I said I had, but was beginning to worry about Mum’s heavy hand with the salt shaker. Sodium can lead to high blood pressure, heart failure, and death. We had recently watched a documentary about it in Home Economics. Grandma shook her head and said it’d do me no harm, that life was for living. She said ­Granddad lived eighty-three years on a diet of salt and pastry, and that a piece of fruit had never passed his lips. I told her this was more than likely down to luck. Then she went all quiet and said she was proud of me too. By this point the whole process was becoming wearing. She took my hand and made me sit down close to her so I could feel her bony frame beneath her clothes. With a shaky hand she snuck something out of her side pocket and handed it to me.
    â€œIt was your Granddad’s,” she said.
    It was a small silver pendant on which there was the outline of a man holding a stick.
    â€œSt. Christopher,” she said, proudly. “It’s not real silver, but no one’ll know if you don’t tell them. Supposed tokeep you safe when you’re traveling. Your granddad never took it off.”
    I did not have the heart to remind her that the heart attack that would eventually kill Granddad got into full swing in the ambulance, as it zoomed past Bargain Booze.
    â€œOh, love,” she said, hoisting herself up from the bed, using my shoulder for support. “You just look after yourself, flower. You’re forever in my prayers.”
    She gave me a big kiss and then left.
    By this time I was massively behind with my packing. Added to which my T-shirts all had to be refolded, thanks to Grandma’s utter disregard for her surroundings.
    Mum came in last and was quiet again.
    â€œDo you want any help with your packing?” she asked.
    I told her no, because I had drafted a plan of my suitcase accounting for every inch of space.
    â€œWell, in that case, can I just sit here?”
    I said yes. Mum was not given to asking permission of anyone. I thought that denying her my company might lead to further hysterics so carried on with my task as she sat toying with an action figure that had escaped the clutter cull of the preceding spring.
    â€œYou’ll be fine, you know,” she said. “If there’s anything you