4

“It’s really cute!” said Sarah, grinning at the Mini Lop on her jacket. “Thanks, Luna!”

“No prob, kiddo,” she said, laying her seam ripper in the sewing basket. She swept neat threads into her hand and brushed them into the bin. “Do you like the buck teeth?”

“They’re so long,” she said.

“Kinda like yours.”

Laughter, silence. Luna was happy. Sarah was happy. Life was perfect. She couldn’t ask for more. She remembered the sweet times they had together. She remembered how quickly Sarah was growing up. She turns nine in December, day before Christmas. Too bad she can’t get any presents.

Then, out of nowhere – although part of Luna believed it had always come from somewhere – Sarah said, “Did you know bunnies’ teeth never stop growing?”

“Really?”

“Yeah! Mr Deckard taught us about it in animal biology! We were learning about the difference between bunnies and rabbits and hares, and hares aren’t even the same species, I’m not sure why though, they all look the same.”

Luna let out a chuckle, and then the chuckle turned into full-throated laughter. She was well used to her unpredictability, so much that she could predict her unpredictability, but each time she would realise that she hadn’t predicted it at all. “Zoology. The word you’re looking for is zoology.”

“Oh, zoo-ul-a-gee,” she said, probably pretending, probably not.

“Close enough.” For an eight-year-old, at least.

Luna thought it would be nice to surprise Sarah with a frill of her favourite animal on her favourite jacket in her favourite place in the whole wide world: here, this little backwater apartment they liked to call home. It was the same as it would be years later; a chequered suite with wooden floorboards and kerosene bulbs, divided into four areas: two bedrooms, one kitchen, and one bathroom.

Mom was in bed, getting a good night’s rest. All throughout the day she had been groggy. “I’m not feeling well,” she had said. “Can you close the curtains?”

And Luna had. She’d closed them just the way she liked them closed, leaving a slit of about three inches so the breeze could billow through and keep her not too cool but not too hot, because God knew she couldn’t afford a reliable ventilation system with all the drugs and treatments she had to pay for.

Three weeks ago Mom had fainted, two weeks ago she had struggled to open the door, and last night she couldn’t get up out of bed. She was slowing down, little by little, day by day, minute by minute. And it was painful, extremely so. If God’s real, thought Luna, then he better have a damn good explanation for this.

But God wasn’t real. He was the biggest lie, the biggest hoax, and the biggest bogeyman to ever plague the world.

Watching her sister, Luna realised she hadn’t been happy at all.

“Luna,” said Sarah, playing with her hair.

“Yeah?”

“Where’s Mom?”

“In bed.”

“At four?”

“She’s having a little trouble staying awake,” she said.

“Why?”

“She’s sick, Sarah.”

“Still?”

“Yes, still.”

“I thought she was supposed to get better,” Sarah said. “The medicine – ”

“The medicine takes time.”

“But she wasn’t like that a couple days ago.”

“Some days are harder than others,” Luna said.

“But medicine is supposed to help! Why isn’t it helping?”

“It doesn’t work right away,” she said.

“But Mr Deckard says – ”

“Mr Deckard doesn’t know shit about Mom!” Luna shouted, her voice beginning to shatter. “Okay? Just drop it.”

Heavy, gut-wrenching silence. The lights thrummed in it.

Luna sighed, dipping her head. “Listen, I’m sorry – ”

“Mom’s dying, isn’t she?” said Sarah.

She snapped her head back up at her. More silence. “Sarah….”

“Tell me the truth,” she said, and for the first time in a long time – perhaps since Sarah was a newborn baby – Luna saw tears begin to well in her eyes.

“Mom has cancer,” she said.

“IS MOM DYING?” she screamed; a loud, earsplitting screech.

“Yes!” she said. “Mom’s leaving, but she’s – ”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Now she actually was crying. And it broke Luna’s heart.

“Mom said not to – ”

“You lied,” she said tightly, her face turning red. “You said she would be better soon!”

“Can we not do this? Please for the love of God can we not?”

She shoved past Luna and whimpered towards Mom’s bedroom.

“Stop! She’s sleeping!” Another lie – good job Luna. She obviously would have been awake from all the shouting. Luna pulled her back by the shoulders. “You needa relax!”

“You lied to me!” she screeched, trying to break free.

“I didn’t!”

“Yes you did! Liar liar! Pants on fire!”

“Sarah stop!” Luna pulled her away and started dragging her towards their bedroom at the end of the hallway. She was halfway towards grabbing the doorknob when Sarah shrieked, sank her teeth into Luna’s hand, and bit with all the force an eight-year-old could dish out.

Red pain shot through Luna's forearm. She wailed and let go. “Fuck!” she shouted, sucking the pain through her teeth.

Sarah took off running down the hallway again. She grabbed Ma’s doorhandle, opened it, and scampered inside.

Luna gritted her teeth and started towards Ma’s bedroom, this time with rage instead of guilt. She massaged the bite mark with her palm. “I told you she’s fucking sleepin – ”

She didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. She stood in the doorway, her mouth wide-open.

“Muh… Mom…?”

Across the carpet Mom’s body lay lifeless, still dressed in her diaphanous blue cardigan, and Sarah sat hopelessly sobbing in her arms, wrapping her as tight as possible. Her skin was even paler, her lips were even dryer, and her eyes... Jesus, those icy-white eyes!

Dead. Her mother was dead.

Something like murky horror plunged from Luna’s mind to her stomach, sloshed, and made her throw up on the corridor carpet.

“You lied,” said Sarah. “You lied to me….”