Donor, The Read Online Free Page A

a week like pasta with sauces from those tubs in the supermarkets – five cheeses, tomato and mascarpone, carbonara – and the other two days are treat days (i.e. carry out).
He’s untidy. His tiny office, especially, smells of   teenage boy, with several sets of slippers, scrunched-up bits of paper, dirty coffee cups, piles of unfiled filing on the sofa bed, cameras on the floor, film posters on the wall (Psycho, Strictly Ballroom, The Mist).
     
He’s devoted to his children. Since Mum left, he has thought about nothing but our welfare, sacrificing the film career he so wanted for a boring home-based admin job, ferrying us to swimming lessons and netball and friends’ houses, going shopping for clothes and sitting next to the fitting room while we try things on.
     
He’s broken. Lonely. Oh what I’d do to make him happy, to help him find something other than us to fill his life because we’ll leave one day, one way or another. We’ll be gone, and all he’ll have is his untidy office, his boring job, and an empty house he no longer knows how to leave because he’s never had any reason other than us to leave it.
     
I admire him because despite all his difficulties he’s kind and generous. He does nothing but give. And I am lucky to receive from him every single day.
     
     
    Will must’ve read this about three thousand times. It always sent him to sleep with a smile.
    * * *
     
    He would often read the essay after lying in bed worrying about Georgie, who did not come out of her mother’s body with a smile on her face. She screamed herself blue. Will tried to hold her after the nurse had weighed and measured and checked her, but she frightened him with her anger and he handed her back almost immediately , taking Kay instead, who’d fallen asleep after two minutes of smiling.
    When they were toddlers, Georgie would follow Kay down the stairs on Christmas morning, rubbing her eyes with exhaustion. She’d relish Kay’s excitement, insisting that her sister open all her presents first. ‘It does feel like a teddy bear!’ she’d say as Kay poked at the badly wrapped gift. ‘Why don’t you open it? Oh look what Daddy bought you! Yes, it is beautiful.’ Eventually, she’d open hers, ripping paper quickly, discarding , moving on to the next. Will couldn’t recall her showing anything other than disdain for anything he’d ever bought her. (‘Why is this pink? Did you forget my favourite colour?’)
    While Kay had waved at Will (smiling) as she walked into school for the first time, Georgie had howled and grasped his legs and yelled. ‘I don’t want to go, Daddy! I want to stay home with you.’ He hadn’t known what to do, except to say, ‘Look at your sister. She’s excited. She knows it’s gonna be fun. Why don’t you follow her in?’
    ‘Why don’t you follow her in?’ Georgie said as a teacher took her hand and led her towards the door.
    After that, each afternoon as he stood in the playground with the mums, a tiny worry would niggle the back of his mind. (What would Georgie’s problem be today? She had the wrong gym kit? Her teacher yelled too much?) No matter what it was, he always tried to be positive, and sometimes he managed – like the time every other girl in the class – including Kay – was invited to Mhairi Magee’s soft-play birthday party. Will sat Georgie down and said it was a mistake, that Mhairi’s mum said she had put an invitation in the schoolbag. ‘Thank goodness she couldn’t find it,’ he told her. ‘You can’t go, because I’ve already booked tickets for us to go tobogganing!’ But mostly, Will felt he failed to react to Georgie’s worries appropriately. They seemed to seep into him and shudder.
    In fourth year, Georgie also had to submit an essay about the person she admired most. She chose Gandhi. Will wasn’t surprised. If she ever wrote an essay about him, he would not want to read it.

5
     
     
    At least I left him a note.
    Dad,
     
Don’t be angry