My Second Life Read Online Free PDF Page A

are you here to see then, my love?” the nurse said. She was new. She didn’t know who I was, and as I went to answer my mouth was dry as a pit. The words felt like they were stuck to my lips.
    â€œFrances Wells … I’m her niece,” I lied.
    The nurse said how nice it would be for Frances to have a visitor, how Frances hadn’t had any visitors since she’d been in, and the nurse kept on talking as we made our way through the ward to the room. No one had taken Grillie’s bed yet, and I was only half listening to the nurse because I could see Frances now. She sat strong and upright in bed, reading. She looked better, better than she had before. She glanced up at me and then back at her book, smoothing a cloth bookmark between her fingers as she read.
    She didn’t look up again.
    She clearly hadn’t seen me, or recognized me, but then she had been asleep when I’d visited before.
    I wished she would recognize me. If she recognized me — if she saw something in me that reminded her of Emma — then she would be more likely to believe me. I was sure of that. I wasn’t as beautiful as Emma. I knew that. People had told me I was beautiful when I was Emma. They didn’t do that now. But maybe, just maybe, something — my eyes, my voice — would remind her of Emma.
    â€œI’m not sure that she’ll recognize me,” I said to the nurse as we neared the bed. “It’s been quite a long time.”
    â€œI’ll leave you to it then, my love,” she said, and she left.
    â€œHello,” I said.
    Frances looked up at me. She didn’t speak.
    â€œI’m Millie’s granddaughter. Millie who was here, in that bed next to you,” and I pointed.
    â€œYes,” she said. “I know Millie.” She was very clear, very definite with her words. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
    I felt so nervous. I’d never felt this nervous about anything before.
    There was a pause.
    â€œYou know Millie’s gone home now, don’t you?” she said.
    â€œYes, yes I do. I … I came to see you.”
    I was stumbling over my words now. I swallowed, to try to calm myself down, to get some saliva in my mouth.
    â€œTo see me?” Frances said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhy?”
    My legs started to shake uncontrollably. “Can I sit down?”
    Frances nodded to the chair next to her bed. There was a white plastic bag full of wool and needles on the chair. “Move that bag — here…” She motioned for me to pass it over to her, then set it down on the bed and put her book on the bedside table. Everything she did was very slow, ordered. She didn’t take her eyes off me once, and her fingers, resting on the edge of the sheet, were constantly rubbing the material between her forefinger and her thumb, as if for comfort.
    â€œDo I know you?” she said.
    And my heart beat so loudly when she said it that my chest shuddered in response.
    â€œYes. I think so,” I said. “That’s why I came back — to see you. Because — because I think I know you. I mean … when I saw you here, lying in that bed … I knew who you were.”
    â€œRight,” she said. And I felt cold now. So cold I was shivering. But I had to keep talking. I had to.
    â€œYou lived on The Avenue, didn’t you?” I said.
    â€œYes,” she said. “I still do.”
    My heart bashed my chest again. I could feel the blood rushing around my body, or was it adrenaline? Whatever it was, I didn’t like it. I pressed my hands together in my lap to stop them lifting up toward my heart. I wanted to protect my heart, cup it, soften the bashing, make it slow. If Frances still lived there now in the house I remembered, and she was in hospital here, then The Avenue couldn’t be that far away.
    If I was this close to Frances, to where she had lived, where she still lived now, could I