Slights by Kaaron Warren Page B

put his arm around her, and she began to cry.
      "It was very quick," he said. "He is a hero. His action saved the lives of four other police officers."
      "What?" said my mum. We all looked at her. "What are you talking about?"
      "Alex is dead, Heather. I'm sorry. I thought you must have guessed. It was a surprise attack. No one could have seen it coming. These officers were with him at the time."
      One stepped forward.
      "I just wanted to say, ma'am, that your husband saved my life. I intend to make him proud. I'm Doug. Doug Page."
      "Did he say anything? What did he say?" Mum demanded. She was on her feet. She looked angry.
      He flipped open his notebook. "He did say some things before he died, ma'am. I thought you'd like to hear." He read his own bad handwriting. I could see his pad over his shoulder as he knelt at Mum's feet. It was worse than my writing. He read, "Tell her to promise [pause] never to move away from the house. Tell her to make the kids promise. I love her. Tell Pete to look after his Mum and sister. Tell Stevie she'll make a great detective."
      "I'm Stevie!" I said. "That's me!"
      Doug Page looked at Mum to see if she was listening. She was pale and her mouth was open; she scared me. I began to cough. I couldn't breathe properly.
      Peter hid in the pot cupboard. I could see him staring out like a mouse.
      "Do some little poo poos," I said. "Do some raisin poo poos." He ignored me.
      Doug Page coughed. "I'm sorry, ma'am. But he really was insistent I tell you these things. He didn't want it in the report. It's personal."
      "Oh, God," Mum said.
      "It's OK," said the senior officer. "We'll just lose the pages. If he didn't want the world to hear it, that's what it will be."
      "Can I keep that?" Mum said.
      "Well, ma'am, I might just have to write it out again." Doug Page held his pad out to show her his writing.
      "No, look, I can read that. That's perfectly clear. You are a messy writer, though, aren't you?" He blushed. Mum smiled, and he tore the pages off to pass over. She folded them and tucked them into her sleeve.
      Peter came out of the cupboard and held her hand. Her face had colour again. I stopped coughing.
      "You have a lovely family, Mrs Searle. I'm more sorry than I know how to say that this has happened," Dad's boss said.
      He kissed her cheek then there was silence. No one had explained to me yet what had happened.
      "Where's Daddy?" I said. The officers quickly picked up their hats and made their farewells. No one wanted the job of explanation.
      "Peter, call Auntie Ruth," said Mum. "Get her to come over." And I didn't see Mum for a lot of school days after that. She was in her room; Auntie Ruth fed us, mothered us, all three. She had a family of her own but didn't like them. She liked us better. She called me a little monkey, because I clung to her like a baby ape.
      Dad's funeral, I'm told, was very nice. I wasn't allowed to go. Mum said I'd fidget and get bored. I'm glad it happened when I was young. I think funerals must become more terrible as you get older. People become more terrified of death when they've known each other longer. "It was twenty years," they can say.
      My father was twenty-nine when he died. I was nine. Peter was eleven. Mum was twenty-eight.

    Mum began baking for people so we had money from that. And there was some cop's fund which kept us going, and the grandparents, and Dad's granddad had given us the house. Mum made our lunch every day and we always had clean school uniforms.
      And all of the men who thought they'd be our father paid for things, brought presents. "No obligation," they often said. I have never felt a sense of obligation to anyone.
      All those dads disappeared when she died.
      Years after Dad died, one night during a commercial break, I asked Mum if she'd known that Dad was dead as soon as those cops walked in the door. Because it struck me later, when I thought about one