Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

She held the blanket to her face and breathed in. The fragrance hit her. She pictured him in sunshine, among the flowers of the rose garden they used to visit. She saw his smile and those wide blue eyes.

The fragrance wasn’t him of course. The smell that had stained the blanket was the medicine, the insulin that had kept him alive. How many injections over the years had she given him? Every day, at least five times a day, those little units of clear liquid that controlled his blood sugars and allowed him to grow.

And then the war had come. At first the chemists kept up a supply. Gradually it became inconsistent. The black market sprang up to fill the void. He had no choice, she had no choice. When the money ran out she did what she had to for the life-sustaining vials.

By the third year…