'Seeing Red' by Rachel Burrows

I remember whiteness – parents’ faces and echoing ward walls. The smell of disinfectant so different to school where it somehow carried painty milkiness in its waftings. My sister, blanket-tucked, pillow-plumped, sat up beaming against spotless metal rails. Someone else had loved her, which made me itchingly jealous. But nothing like that heart-splitting envy on seeing those new red slippers. Just for having pain - crimson pompommed toe-warming treasures. Tidal-nausea, greater than hers, rose within. Because even this five-year-old knew she was faking! Adult-her confessed years later - from backstage, dressing-room Number One, minutes before opening.