How To Be Brave Read Online Free PDF

on Rose.
    I put her two books under the stiff hospital pillow and sat back in the chair. A nurse I’d not yet seen came in with one of the blood-reading devices.
    ‘Oh, you’re back.’ She pricked Rose’s finger end. This time my daughter jerked away. ‘She’ll be awake soon and she might not be herself – she’ll be dead crabby. She’ll want to eat everything in sight for days until her blood sugars stabilise.’
    ‘When can we go home?’ I asked.
    ‘Usually it’s after a few days,’ she said. ‘This morning Shelley, our diabetes nurse, will come and sit with you and explain everything fully. There’s plenty of support, but she’ll give you that information.’
    ‘Thank you.’ I suddenly realised that I too was hungry. When had I last eaten? I’d picked at Rose’s chips yesterday lunchtime, finished her yoghurt.
    As though she’d read my mind the nurse asked, ‘Can I get you a cup of tea and some toast?’
    ‘Oh, that would be wonderful.’
    When she left I stood by the window and watched the traffic build below. Nothing changed, not really. What happened in our small hospital room made no difference to the morning congestion; our frontline wasn’t newsworthy, Rose’s diabetes no headline.
    I could see the river from here, the odd boat, the bridge. My breath clouded the glass and through its fog I thought I spotted the brown-suited familiar stranger strolling merrily past the ambulances. I wiped the condensation with my sleeve and looked more closely, banging my forehead on the window. I heard a whistle on his lips, that rich accent. Perhaps he was heading for the docks, for the sea. But it wasn’t him – this man was blond and had a briefcase and umbrella.
    I turned to go to the chair and as had happened yesterday when Gill tried to persuade me to sit down, a curious line came into my head: You’re going to be picked up, I tell you . The room swayed like I was at sea. This must be exhaustion, I thought. I held on to the metal bed and shut my eyes a moment.
    ‘They’ll be picked up.’
    I opened my eyes again. Rose was watching me, eyebrows frowny.
    ‘Hey you,’ I said softly. ‘What was that you said?’
    ‘What was what I said?’ She sounded just like she did when I woke her too early on a weekend.
    ‘Something about being picked up?’
    She shrugged and I realised I was interrogating her. ‘How do you feel?’
    ‘Hungry,’ she snapped.
    I touched her damp forehead. ‘You will be. The nurse is coming back in a minute and I saw a food trolley go past earlier.’
    ‘What am I doing here?’ she demanded. ‘This bed is too hard.’ She noticed the drip in her arm. ‘What’s this for?’
    ‘Don’t pull on it, you’ll hurt yourself.’ I tried to hold her free hand but she shook me off. ‘It’s putting some important medicine into you.’
    ‘Why? What’s wrong with me?’
    I could only think of one word and she wouldn’t understand it. I was rescued by the return of the nurse, holding a cup of tea and some toast and jam.
    ‘Ah, you’re awake,’ she said to Rose. ‘I bet you’re hungry, eh? What do you think you’d like?’
    ‘Don’t care,’ she said.
    ‘Tell you what.’ The nurse put my drink and food on the cabinet. ‘I’ll ask them to bring the trolley back so you can pick whatever you like. Okay?’
    She disappeared again. I sat closer to Rose – her smell was off, alien, a mixture of sleepy child and sterile sheets.
    ‘Look under your pillow,’ I said.
    She shrugged, ignored me.
    ‘Go on, look. I put your books there, just how you like. I couldn’t see a bookmark in any of them – sorry. Maybe it fell out? But I bet you’ll remember where you were up to once you start reading.’
    She shrugged again. ‘Where’s Dad?’
    ‘He’s away, remember. He’ll be back just as soon as he can be.’
    ‘But I want him now.’
    ‘I know. I rang him and told him you’re here. Even if he set off for home right now it’d take hours, even days, to get here.