Chapter 60

“ No, no, please, no, ” says Sue under her breath.

She watches the video on her phone in the grocery store, surrounded by the bright colors of fresh fruit and vegetables. Ladyfinger bananas on special, death on her phone.

She remembers Kayla dropping her phone in the check-in line, her polite gratitude when Max picked it up for her; telling Sue about her flying phobia.

You’re more likely to die in a car crash, darling.

Sue is pretty sure she didn’t actually say that to her, she probably just thought it, although what does it matter if she did. Sue wasn’t the one making awful predictions that day.

She thinks about Max teaching the boys to drive: “You still look, mate, even if you get a green light. You can’t trust other drivers to do the right thing.”

She and Max tossed out last-minute warnings like hopeful lifebuoys every time their sons left the house, from when they were bike-riding kids to newly licensed young drivers to young dads with new babies. “Wear your helmet!” “Don’t drink too much!” “Drive slowly in the rain!”

But you could never say it all and you could never say it enough. Check, double-check, triple-check, please protect your vulnerable beautiful heads that we once cupped so tenderly in our hands.

Sue knows her children often ignored their boring parental advice, yeah, yeah, sure thing, Mum, got it, Dad, she knows they took risks Max and Sue never knew about, and it’s only pure luck they got away with it.

She thinks of Kayla’s parents but only momentarily because she could never have worked in the ER for all these years if she took on everyone’s pain. It won’t help them. Nothing will help them. There is no pain relief she can offer.

Instead, she returns to grocery shopping while scenes from the video continue to flicker behind her eyes.

This doesn’t mean her own prediction will also come true, of course it doesn’t, but as soon as she gets home she will make the appointments. She will do the tests.