PLUM BLOSSOM

At first we did not think it was anything—she bruises easily, that’s all, is what we said. I bruise easily myself. I only have to stumble against a table leg and there will be a dark blue mark the size of an egg. Then she stopped sleeping at night. She’d lie awake wide-eyed till morning and if we tried to go to bed she’d cling to us with all her strength, not crying, only deeply insistent. We became exhausted as a way of life. One day I realised she had shrivelled, resembling a little bruised plum. They say that the plum tree is the first to bloom at the end of winter, that its blossoms open even while the last snow still lies. The tiny, delicate petals are pale pink or white, and at the centre of each flower the red-tipped stamens raise their arms as if in joyful anticipation. But Mia died before the spring could come. In the end she was matter-of-fact about her own death in a way we had not foreseen. She drew pictures of herself flying on the back of a bright blue bird, upwards towards an orange sun. God’s waiting for me, she said. Maybe He is, I thought, but still I don’t want you to go. In the end we got rid of all the tubes and all the machines, they couldn’t help her anymore, in the end we took her home and sat quietly in her room waiting for her to go. In the end she had no strength to hold us anymore but we held her, gently, trying desperately not to bruise that plum blossom skin. She died in the middle of the afternoon on a Monday. She was only seven. The room was exactly the same as it had been a few minutes before, when she was still breathing.

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