Каарон Уоррен - The Lowest Heaven

She’d celebrated her sixteenth birthday in the bed she now lay in, weakly puffing out a single candle we’d stuck into a bar of cinnamon scented soap, cake being out of the question. The last week before we stole the light, she’d barely opened her eyes.

Jan dodged around the IV stand and sat down on the bed. Daisy moaned quietly and turned her head away from the light. Jan got one arm under her head and propped her up◦– she wasn’t hard to lift. The blankets slipped down her corrugated chest, resting on her tender, slightly swollen stomach, and releasing a drift of her sweet ammonia scent.

I opened the first tub and handed it to Jan. The light scoured the poor remnants of Daisy’s face, the red chapped skin around her lips and nostrils, the flint-edged shadows under cheekbones and eyebrows. Within the pitiless caverns of her skull, her eyes winced open.

“Daisy,” I said.

I got round to the other side of the bed, and picked up my daughter’s hand. It felt like a little pile of kindling in mine. Her skin was papery-dry and cold, always so cold.

“Daisy,” whispered Jan, “open your mouth, there’s a good girl.”

Daisy blinked up at us emptily. Her forehead creased a little in pain, and her eyes sank closed again. I knew her bones hurt constantly, the bed was never soft enough to cushion them from their own small weight. But she didn’t protest.

Obediently, she parted her lips and Jan slipped the first sliver of sunlight inside.

I suppose, if I could, I’d have to change what I’ve done. It’s useless to say that now, and doubly so because I can’t really imagine doing it differently. I know we did wrong, and I should feel worse about it, but I can’t do anything about that.

But I do feel guilty when I think of her swallowing the light. We should have told her what we were doing. We should have asked. She wouldn’t, before, have been so docile, so vacantly trusting. She would have wanted to know what on earth we were putting in her mouth.

The first word she ever said was “no.”

The sunlight shone scarlet through her lips and cheeks, illuminating the lacework of veins like bare trees against a sunset. Her throat glowed a softer rose as the sunlight slid down, fading to a faint ember gleaming through the wall of her chest, then vanishing.

Jan stroked her hair and crooned to her and reached for the next morsel of light.

The police came at dawn three days later. They leaned on the doorbell rather than knocking the door in, which I suppose we should have been grateful for, and piled into our kitchen in what seemed to us unreasonably large numbers. They looked faintly awkward, full of energy for pushing people around and turning over furniture, but not quite sure if that was allowed.

“Jan didn’t have anything to do with it,” I said, stupidly.

“It was some other five-foot-two female in possession of a firearm, was it?” asked the Inspector sourly. “Listen, you can both make it easier on yourselves by telling us what you’ve done with that light.”

There wasn’t any left. We’d fed Daisy all of it. We didn’t say anything.

“I know you’ve got a sick daughter,” said the Inspector, “so I’d like to do this nicely. It’d be nice if you’d get dressed and come down to the station without making a lot of fuss.”

“I can’t,” said Jan. “Someone’s got to look after our daughter.”

“You can ring a neighbour from the station.”

“No, no, they won’t know what to do, what if she gets worse while I’m gone…”

One of the police women looked past me at something and caught a breath; the others followed her gaze and everyone went quiet. Daisy, soundless on bare, emaciated feet, had come down the stairs into the kitchen doorway. I felt a spasm of ridiculous rage. They had the nerve to wince at the sight of her, they dared to think she looked bad now? She was walking, she wasn’t in pain.

Daisy beamed at everyone. “It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t need looking after.”

Her skin was warm to the touch when I hugged her goodbye. Her eyes shone.

I left her blithely making the police officers a cup of tea.

“She couldn’t absorb anything from food,” I told them. I found it wasn’t at all hard to explain, it was as if I’d been rehearsing for ages. Distantly, I imagined Jan in some other interview room, saying the same words, in perfect unison. “It’s a very extreme and very intractable form of Coeliac; at least, that’s the closest anyone’s been able to get to a name for it. Whatever it is, she’s the youngest case, the worst case. At first it was just… she couldn’t have bread. If she did she’d be sick for ages. Fine. We cut everything out. We were so careful. But it didn’t work. The villi◦– the little things like hairs in your gut◦– hers are all wrecked. There was nothing we could feed her that didn’t make it worse. She was losing her sight. She was starving to death, in front of us. The most basic thing you’re supposed to do for your child, feed them, and we couldn’t.”

“You’re in a horrible situation,” said the inspector. “But you’re going to have to explain how that led to armed robbery. You’re not disputing it did, at this point, I take it?”

“I’m very sorry about the security guard. Please tell him we’re sorry we frightened him. But what would you do if it was your daughter?”

They boggled at me and sucked their teeth. “But your idea was to feed her this stuff?”

“Yes.”

“But for God’s sake, Mr. Whitton, you had no way of knowing it wasn’t toxic.”

“She was dying. She was in pain. There was nothing else, surely you can understand that◦– nothing else we could even try. We couldn’t bear not even trying .”

They both pulled faces. The sergeant said: “Your daughter can’t… photosynthesise .”

“She’s better.” Tears spilled suddenly down my cheeks; I didn’t try to stop them. “You saw her. She’s so much better, you didn’t see how bad she was before. The difference◦– you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Do you know how we got the idea?” I said, “Jan came downstairs and said ‘Oh God, I can see through her.’ She’d been getting Daisy out of bed and the light was pouring in through the window across her foot, and her foot was glowing , like a lamp. The light was in her blood. And we thought, all the energy in food comes from sunlight, so, maybe if it would stay …”

I could hear the anguish in my own voice. It was all completely real of course◦– but we were also very good at working sympathy by now, from all that fundraising. When desperation is the only resource you make the most of it.

It didn’t get us out of being charged or having to spend a night in the cells. It did get me a cup of tea and a phone-call.

It rang for a long time and I began to panic the way I hadn’t when they’d told me how serious replica firearms offences were.

Then at last she answered. “Daisy– Daisy, how are you feeling?”

There was an odd little pause before she answered, not as if she was hesitating but as if the call was. “I’m fine, Dad.” God, her voice was so strong, so normal, so cheerful.

“It looks like we’re stuck in here overnight, love, but we’ll get it sorted out tomorrow. I promise it’ll it’ll be all right.”

“I know,” she said, airily. “I’ve already told Mum.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Standing,” said Daisy.

“Standing?” I was briefly baffled but, when I thought about it, delighted. “It’s so good to have you on your feet.”

“I’ve been standing in the garden,” said Daisy.

Our tragic situation and haunted articulacy served us well with the judge and we were bailed the next afternoon. The lawyer thought we’d probably get off pretty lightly so long as we could keep it up and didn’t get into any more trouble.