On a train or a bus, or footpath.
On the way back home to here.
* * *
—
By November she was miraculous.
Eight months and she’d managed to live.
There was another two-week hospital stint, and the doctors were noncommittal, but sometimes they’d stop and tell us:
“I don’t know how she’s done it. I’ve never seen anything so—”
“If you say aggressive,” said our dad, and he’d pointed, calmly, at Rory, “I’m going to— See that kid?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m going to tell him to beat you up.”
“Sorry—what?”
The doctor was quite alarmed, and Rory suddenly awoke—that sentence was better than smelling salts.
“Really?” He was almost rubbing his hands together. “Can I?”
“Of course not, I’m joking.”
But Rory tried to sell it. “Come on, Doc, after a while you won’t even feel it.”
“You people,” said that particular specialist, “are totally out of your minds.”
To his left there was Penny’s laughter.
She laughed, then quelled the pain.
“Maybe that,” she said to the doctor, “is how I’ve been able to do it.”
She was a happy-sad creature in blankets.
* * *
—
On that occasion, when she came home, we’d decked out the entire house:
Streamers, balloons, Tommy made a sign.
“You spelt welcome wrong,” said Henry.
“What?”
“It’s only one L.”
Penelope didn’t mind.