The Door by Joanna Rubery

Prompt: New Life | Word Count: 1000 | Genre: Mainstream fiction
The iced wind seared my patchy scalp, and I coughed again, a raspy, racking ache. My fingers stung. Perhaps we should never have walked all this way to the hospital, but when I was little, March never used to be this bitter. I remembered sunshine. We’d even drive over to the beach sometimes, and –
“Mum,” sighed Amy, “How much longer will this take?”
I caught us frozen in the glass front opposite: my daughter, a sliver of sulky green; myself, a sharpened stick. It would be the last time I set eyes on either of us.
“A few minutes,” I said, glancing at my watch. There was less than half an hour before my appointment.

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