Well that’s just too bad, isn’t it? We don’t have to do everything she says, eh Rupey, and she squeezes him until his stitching gapes.

 

Back then, it took a while for them to work it out. Esther made scrupulous lists of her daughter’s symptoms; hugged the limp child in her lap and pleaded for the doctors they saw so often to make her well. Their GP blushed when he showed Dad the definition in his medical book; it sounded like a fairytale, an old German aristocrat. One of life’s mysteries. No more symptoms after that. Regular appointments for Esther only. Her parents stayed together, Dad hired a woman to be home for the after school hours until Amy was fourteen. Whenever strangers commented what a loving mother she was, Esther’s vivid face lit up, her eyes sq...

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