The Gingerbread Girl

by Sheila Newberry

attracted the flies. The young nurse accompanying her placed a steadying hand on her back. ‘Take your time,’ she said kindly. ‘But me mum will be waiting.’ Cora’s lip trembled. She felt the sudden onrush of hot tears to her eyes. She recalled her mother’s face, white and anxious, the evening eight months ago, when the ambulance men rolled up

but it was much harder for Mum. Bertie Kelly’s visit last March had been totally unexpected. For four days they’d seemed like a family, but it didn’t last. He’d left them in the lurch again, after pocketing the rent money, with no forwarding address. Biddy had been inconsolable but there was worse to come just a week later . . . ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Biddy Kelly had promised Cora, hoarsely. It was a pledge she couldn’t keep. Visitors were barred from the fever hospital but on