Lily stood at the door with Grace on her hip. She was very pale and she was patting her face with a towel. She looked at him, at the poster still pinned to the floor with Grace’s bricks and she pressed her lips tight together.
“There’s a job,” Andy started again. “Stevie was saying there’s a job . . . “
He sat back on the bed, his hands smoothing the bedspread.
“Don’t mention that eejit to me!”
Lily marched straight across the poster and leaned over him, Grace clutching at her neck.
“Get yourself a fuckin’ job! Nobody’s going to hand you one, Stevie or nobody else.”
“Fuck sake, Lily!” Andy tried to stand up. “I’m going out now. I only came in to – “
“You only came in to lie down. That’s all you do. You lie down and sleep and dream about fucking bikes, and your own child – your daughter . . . “
She thrust Grace onto his lap. The baby’s eyes were red from the cold and she stared up into his face.
“We’ve no dinner,” Lily said. “I was in the shop and I opened my purse – but there was nothing, there was – “
She began to cry; loud, angry wails.
“Ah, for fuck sake, Lily. Don’t cry. Would you not ask your mother – “
Lily let out a louder wail. She hit the wall with her fist. Oh, Jesus, Andy thought, trying to breathe calmly. He pressed his feet against the floor and hugged Grace tight, trying to stop himself from jumping up and running out of the room.
His eyes fell on the poster; Lily was standing on a corner of it, wrinkling the smooth, shiny surface. He wanted to move her off it.
“I’ll get a job today, Lily. Honest to God I will. I won’t come home without one.”
“Chrissake! What are you like?”
Lily blew her nose and slapped away the baby’s reaching hands.
Read the rest of this story and eighteen other interlinked stories in “We All Die in the End”. Please have a look at the 5 star review on http://www.thebookdelight.com. Thank you.
amazon.com/author/elizabethmerry
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embookstuff 
Intense. Love the book cover.
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