THE FAMILY PLOT

After the doctor left, and the sedative finally wrestled my wife into a shallow, restless sleep, I sat down on the edge of my daughter’s hospital bed to tell her about the family plot. I took Daisy’s hand and shook her gently awake. Her eyes opened and closed in time with each step of the lazy line stumbling across her heart rate monitor.

“Dais?” The bed creaked. My wife stirred but didn’t wake. “Can you hear me?”

Daisy forced open her heavy eyelids, smiling despite the pain. My mother appeared in the corner, flickering like a bad lightbulb. Our eyes met and I motioned toward the door. This was something I needed to do alone. Mum blew me a kiss and passed through the wall, into the hall. I pictured her gliding down the stark, white corridor like a girl on ice-skates, finding my Dad in the lobby behind a National Geographic, nestling in next to him, soundless and unseen.

“How’s your pain?”

Daisy looked at the carafe of water on her bedside table. I poured her a glass and she took slow sips. “Need to talk to you about something but—” I glanced back at Erin. She was whimpering, fighting something in her dream that could never be worse than the reality she would wake to. “Just the two of us, okay? It’s important.”

Daisy nodded. The right words were out there. I had rehearsed, but every angle I took, every metaphor, every example just clouded the water. She was only ten, too young to see it with her own eyes. My mother was forced to give me this talk after my