Kathleen ran her finger lightly around the edge of her eye socket as if it would absorb some of the ache inside her head. The pounding was a dependable travelling companion, her journey’s soundtrack. A symptom of her past that had become as real a part of her as flesh and bone. Her heart fed the pain with a pump action. Adrenaline was always in plentiful supply before she got on a flight. Now the whole experience had been extended indefinitely.

She needed a painkiller, but when she rummaged in her handbag for the third time no stray pills dutifully materialised from the crevices of leather within. From her uncomfortable seat she looked across the airport concourse to the shops at the other side. Not even the promise of a pharmacy could get Kathleen to budge. She also desperately needed to go to the bathroom to fix her face and pee, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Pangaean Airlines had cancelled all outgoing flights and while their stock plummeted, the value of their foam and metal benches rocketed briefly.

She tried to distract herself from the familiar spasm by playing the Frankenstein game with the steadily thickening soup of human vexation surrounding her.

What gruesome parts were these people made up of?

She scanned the row of people seated opposite her. The faces were united in spleen for the airline but they all looked like respectable, every-day people.

But what traumas had they experienced in their lives? What made them the people they were even if outwardly there was no indication?

When they looked at her sitting quietly—thirty-four years old, red, naturally crimped hair hanging over her face—did they suspect the ugly experiences she was composed of? If they looked closer would they see the real evidence?

She supposed not many people played the game. Yet she felt reassured somebody among the teeming crowd in the airport lounge had probably lived through what she had.

Her gaze returned to the young mother, at the end of the row, as she knew it would. She was curled up on the bench with her two-year-old, both asleep, daughter tucked into the crevice of her neck. They shared the same flushed cheeks and seemed oblivious to the pandemonium around them. Sleep ironed away life’s blemishes. For most people anyway.

There was a lot to be said for exhaustion.

Fatigue should be devouring her slowly. Her pounding circulation and the need to take Don’s call kept her awake. Spine straight. Overly alert. The phone hot and sweaty in her palm.

How long had it been since he’d returned her call?

There was a flight to DC with Balder Airlines. He said he’d get her on it—sit tight. He said, leave everything to me. She was relieved to have him. Thankful for Don making time for her, going out of his way to get her home.

She looked away from the mother and her child, further along the row. A man in a white linen suit hid behind a newspaper. Next to him an elderly couple sat beatifically among the glum faces. What had they both been through together to make this episode merely an amusing inconvenience? Their years meant haste had become a luxury they couldn’t afford. But it also meant their experiences had probably encompassed things all the people bitching around them couldn’t begin to conceive of.

People accepted ugliness as an inevitability at different stages of their lives. Who knew how old they’d been when they’d recognised that? Kathleen already implicitly knew it. She had lived less than four decades and already the parts bolted to her weighed her down. Had she shouldered any kind of burden before Sophie?

She fought to keep her thoughts from turning to those endless days spent in the poky waiting room, with the broken television, where hope excised and fear attached. Praying each dialysis would prolong the time she had with Sophie—hoping it could extend their togetherness beyond Sophie’s fourth birthday.

Like now, she’d sat in that crowded waiting room and watched the activity of other people. Mothers visiting children, children’s impatience at having to visit their parents or brothers and sisters—young minds not understanding their presence in that room or not wanting to think about it.

She’d sat with them but apart. Nobody had room in themselves for more than they were facing. Doctor details and coffee runs were occasionally shared but nobody wanted to be in that hushed society they hadn’t chosen to join.