‘Look!’ Elise cried. ‘An ant.’
My mother gave a slow smile and extended an arm to pat the top of Elise’s head.
‘Mum,’ I said. ‘Are you all right?’
She took my hand in hers, her eyes still closed, and nodded slowly, as if the mere effort of doing that had exhausted her.
‘Look, Siobhan,’ exclaimed Elise, holding up a dead ant she’d squashed with her book.
I nodded at Elise. It was my mother’s attention I wanted. I thought back to what Bernadette Brennan had said. She said the best way to get my mother talking was when there were just the two of us. I wanted to talk about something that she liked, something that made her happy. I sat thinking of topics. An image of a campervan rolled in my head.
‘Do you remember when you said that one day we’d go round the whole country? Even Tasmania.
