Page 353 of The Long Way Home

Wait to feel a little puff of air.

Just a small one.

Anything at all.

There’s nothing.

I scream, I think? I must because BJ and Henry run in.

And then it all drops into a strange kind of slow motion, like we’re all living out the moment underwater.

BJ runs over to the bed, falls to his knees.

“She’s not breathing,” he tells Henry.

Hen’s already on the phone.

“Grosvenor Square— Apartment 12— Unconscious— No, she’s not breathing— We don’t know— No—”

Beej is good in a crisis. He lays her flat, checks her airways.

His chest is heaving as he leans over my sister. He looks up at me with fragile eyes before he plugs her nose, lowers his mouth onto hers and starts pumping her chest.

I can’t breathe — my mouth’s gone dry and my vision… I can’t see properly. I can’t think straight. All I can think about is being nine in Paris with Bridget and it was close to the twilight hours.

“Magnolia, slow down!” Bridget whined as she ran after me. “You’re going to get us lost.”

“I know Paris like the back of hand.” I spun on my heel, frowning at her even though I was lying. “I know we’re I’m going.”

“We’re in a foreign country!” She blinked, exasperated with me even then at the ripe old age of seven.

“We can speak French.” I shrugged, turning back, all starry eyed to the footpath of Avenue Montaigne.

“Where are we going?” Bridget whined, traipsing after me.

Our parents were at a late lunch a street or so back. They hadn’t looked at us in well over an hour and, believe it or not, they hadn’t brought Marsaili on this trip. I think it was during their singular ‘we can be a real family’ phase, but it lasted about a day and a half, because now that I’m older when I think back to that day I’m 70% sure my father was feeling up a French pop star underneath the table and 100% sure my mother was drunk because of it.

“Céline!” I squealed, drunk on the excitement of it all.

“Why do you like clothes?” she asked, trying hard to keep up. “They’re just clothes.”

She’s always been genuinely confused about why I love clothes how I do. She had never wanted dolls growing up, she was always interested in science sets and blocks, and I thought she was so weird and embarrassing and so much better than me.

I peered down at her, horrified by the question. “Because they’re beautiful and when you wear them you turn beautiful too.”

She frowned up at me and shook her head. “You don’t need them to be beautiful.”

She pushed her glasses back up her nose.

“I’ll buy you something?” I batted my eyes at her.

“You don’t have money.” She frowned.

“I took Harley’s credit card,” I whispered as though he could hear me.

She gave me a look. “He doesn’t like it when you call him that…”

I shrugged.