Lifesaving for Beginners

where Thomas used to sit. As if he were still sitting there. As if I thought he were still sitting there.
    I get nervous when that happens, so I find something to do. Like scrub the burned milk off the inside of the microwave. Ed likes hot chocolate but he hates cleaning. And I’m not betraying confidences by saying that. It’s there for everyone to read on his Facebook page.
    It’s four o’clock in the afternoon. I hate afternoons. Cigarettes don’t taste as good in the afternoons. It’s too early for a drink but you’ve had too many teas and coffees and water would make you cry with the boredom of it. Consider its properties: tasteless, odourless, colourless.
    I told Brona about the writer’s block. I was a bit excited about it, really. I’d heard of it, of course. There was a programme on the telly. But I’d never had it before.
    Brona said, ‘Oh that. That happens to all writers. It won’t last long. You’ll be fine.’
    I say, ‘No, it’s serious. I mean, I’ve had a life-changing experience.’
    ‘A life-affirming experience.’
    ‘I could have died.’
    ‘But you didn’t,’ she reminds me.
    I produce Thomas, the ace up my sleeve.
    ‘He left me, remember? Right after the accident. My ribs were shattered, remember?’
    ‘Fractured,’ she says, but in her gentle voice so I can’t take umbrage. ‘One rib, wasn’t it? One rib had a hairline fracture.’
    I say, ‘It was agony.’
    Brona makes soothing noises down the line.
    ‘He left me.’ I say it again. No matter how many times I say it I still can’t quite believe it. I am in charge of leaving. Her tone strains a little here. She says, ‘Only because you didn’t want to marry him and bear his child.’ I can’t blame her, I suppose. She’s been on a quest for ‘The One’ since the early nineties. In her eyes, I’ve committed the ultimate betrayal. I said no to a genuine offer of marriage and the chance of having my womb filled with the offspring of a man with no obvious physical defects (unless you count his feet, which differ in length by a monumental two shoe sizes), a grand head of hair, his own teeth and a job that doesn’t involve anything illegal (like drug-trafficking) or poncy (like interior design).
    I phone Ed.
    He says, ‘I can’t talk. I’m working.’ He’s not fond of talking on the telephone. Especially when he’s working.
    ‘I thought you wouldn’t be busy at this hour. It’s in between lunch and dinner.’
    ‘Yes, Kat, but we have to clean up after lunch and get ready for the dinner crowd. Chef is showing me how to make croque-monsieurs.’
    ‘They’re just ham and cheese toasties. I showed you how to make them years ago.’
    ‘No, they’re not. They’re fancier.’
    I say, ‘Do you want to go to the movies?’
    ‘I can’t. Chef is showing me how to make croque-monsieurs.’
    I say, ‘I don’t mean right now.’ Although I would have gone right now if he had said yes. ‘I mean later on. When you finish your shift. Later.’
    ‘Are you coming too, Kat?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘OK.’ And even though this is a telephone conversation, I can feel him nodding and smiling and, in spite of everything – being nearly forty, Thomas, the bloody miracle, the pain of shattered ribs – OK, OK, one hairline-fractured rib – I smile back.
    I say, ‘I haven’t seen you in ages.’ This is not true. It just feels true.
    He says, ‘I’m sorry, Kat,’ and the way he says it causes a swelling sensation inside my nose and eyes and throat. I tighten my grip on the phone and swallow.
    ‘You have nothing to be sorry for, you big eejit,’ I tell him and I am relieved that my voice sounds like it always does: bored, disinterested, unemotional.
    ‘Will you pick me up?’ he asks.
    ‘I’ll pick you up at seven, OK? We could go to the Leaning Tower of Pizza first.’
    He sighs and says, ‘OK, Kat,’ and that’s when I feel a bit bad because there’s a chance I’ve been monopolising his time since the near-death-and-Thomas-desertion situations. He hangs up before I can say, ‘Thank you, Ed.’
    People say he is Down’s Syndrome. That’s not true. He is Edward Kavanagh. Ed. He is gentle and loving and funny and spontaneous. He is moody and clumsy. He is a great swimmer, an avid watcher of soaps, a teller of terrible jokes. He loves going to the cinema and eating pizza. He has Down’s Syndrome. Down’s Syndrome is not what he is; it’s what he has. There’s a difference.
    Ed was born in the spring