State of Grace (Resurrection) Read Free Page B

mother’s) and on e unusually bad tempered goose (even for a goose) who had been purchased one year in preparation for Christmas lunch, but due to Ianto’s desperate pleas, had a stay of execution.  We’d had it so long now that surely it must die of old age soon.
     
    I watched my father stomp out to the boot room: a tall man, with a mop of curling, dark hair, like mine. In his late fifties, he was still strong with wide shoulders and a wiry body. I had inherited his grey eyes but not his ruddy complexion: that was a result of working outdoors every day of his life.
     
    ‘Don’t dawdle,’ he called to Ianto. My brother groaned and muttered ‘bloody barns’ under his breath. Ianto could have been my twin even though he was four years younger than my twenty-seven. He was a male version of me, in looks anyway. Ianto had the Llewellyn dark hair and our father’s grey eyes, framed with dark lashes. Actually, I conceded, his lashes were much thicker and longer than mine. How unfair: but not a patch on the lashes the man in my hallucination had, I thought, sourly.
     
    We both have creamy, ivory skin, with Ianto’s being more tanned than mine. Black eyebrows, straight nose, high cheekbones and full lips completed the ensemble. Even though we looked remarkably alike, our looks seem to sit better on Ianto than they did on me. He was never short of offers from the opposite sex. I wish I could have said the same.
     
    He was taller than me and heavier built, although still slim. I guessed this was partly to do to his being male, and partly because he did lots of heavy lifting and outdoor work. Also the chemotherapy had left me weak and skinny, a bag of bones. Thanks to our mother’s home cooked meals, I was starting to put some weight back on, and I was nearly back to my pre-diagnosis days. I had enjoyed my sojourn into a size eight, but not the reasons behind it.
     
    I deliberately pushed all th ought of bones out of my head: I was far too close to becoming only bones and nothing else, myself.
     
    ‘David,’ mum shouted. ‘I’m going in to Brecon this morning. Did you want anything?’ she followed him out to the boot room, a sort of added-on porch that ran from the back door down the length of the rear of the house. We used it to store coats, saddles, spring bulbs and, of course, boots. The dogs slept there, too.
     
    ‘Grace? You ok ?’ Ianto asked.
     
    I nodded.
     
    ‘Something happen last night?’
     
    I nodded again, not trusting my voice. It was unusual for my brother to be so perceptive.
     
    ‘Want to talk about it?’ he suggested.
     
    At that moment mum walked back into the kitchen, and I was grateful for the interruption. I smiled at him and mouthed ‘later’. He understood. We had always been a team, backing each other up in our made-up stories that we believed would get us out of trouble. Like when we had carried a chicken up to the top of the hay barn and pushed it out of the big old door near the roof in the mistaken belief it would fly away to chicken freedom. It hadn’t flown, although it had managed a sort of feathery fall that was halfway between a plummet and a glide. Remarkably the hen had been unharmed, unlike my behind which had been soundly paddled. Ianto had gotten away with a scolding because he was so much younger than me and I was supposed to look out for him, and not lead him into temptation. We had stuck to our story of seeing the chicken fly up into the barn and going in after it to rescue it, though. And if I remembered rightly, it had been Ianto’s idea from the beginning. Come to think of it, I often got into trouble for supporting my mischievous brother in his dangerous antics…
     
    ‘Better get a move on,’ he said standing up. He patted me on the shoulder as he passed my chair, following our father out of the kitchen.
     
    ‘Fancy coming shopping?’ Mum’ s tone was unnaturally cheerful when she wandered back in and busied herself with clearing the