Read Online The Day We Met by Rowan Coleman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rowan Coleman
Ads: Link
my daughter’s name.
I came downstairs carrying my shoes, and went into the kitchen for breakfast. Caitlin was already home from uni, looking tired and thinner. Wrung out from living life, I supposed, although her habitual black outfits and black-rimmed eyes didn’t do a lot to flatter her obvious exhaustion. I asked her once why she liked dressing like a Goth so much, and she grabbed a handful of her mass of jet-black hair and said, really, what other choice did she have? School hadn’t broken up, and she was taking Esther out for the day—because the childminder was sick—which was good of her. She looked like she really just wanted to stay in bed all day, and part of me wanted to put her there—tuck her up, like I used to when she was little, brush the hair off her forehead, and bring her soup.
They were already up when I came into the kitchen. Esther had dragged her big sister out of bed and down the stairs, and was ensconced on her lap talking babble and demanding to be fed like a baby. I walked into the kitchen, still carrying my shoes, and I looked at them, my two daughters, seventeen years between them, and I felt this little bubble of happiness that even with all of the life I had lived between giving birth to each of them, they still were so close and so bonded. I’d gone to call Esther over for a cuddle when it happened. There was just this wall of gray, this dense fog between me and her name. No, no, it wasn’t even a wall: it was…a void. A vacuum where something had been before, perhaps just moments before, and nowit was obliterated. I panicked, and the harder I tried to think, the thicker the fog became. And this wasn’t a meeting at work I’d forgotten to attend, or that woman from the book club I went to about three times, whom I sometimes have to avoid in supermarkets because I can’t remember her name. This wasn’t “someone off the telly, who used to be in that thing.” This was my little girl, the apple of my eye. My treasure, my delight, my sweetheart. The child I’d named.
I knew it then, in that instant, that the same thing that had come to claim my father had come for me too. I knew it, even as I tried with all my heart and head combined not to know it. You are stressed and tired, I told myself. Just relax, take a breath and it will come.
I filled a bowl with muesli, which tasted like cardboard in my mouth, and afterwards I went to brush my teeth. Keep the routine, do what you know, and it will come. I came back and filled a bowl with muesli, and Caitlin asked me if I was extra hungry, and I realized that actually I wasn’t hungry at all. Then I noticed my first empty bowl, still sitting on the table, and realized why. But still, I told her I was, and forced down a few more mouthfuls, making a joke about starting the diet tomorrow instead. Caitlin just rolled her eyes, in that way she had perfected over the years. “Oh, Mum.”
Trying to press the panic down, I looked under the table and stared and stared at my shoes. Low, black, kitten heels with a long pointed toe that I loved. I wore them because they didn’t hurt, even after a long day teaching, and they looked purposeful and just sexy enough to get away with. But that morning, the more I looked at them, the more of a mystery they became to me. I simply couldn’t decipher which shoe went on which foot. The angle of the toe; the buckle on the side—none of it made sense to me anymore.
I left the shoes under the kitchen table, and went and pulled on my boots. That day, the whole day at work, simply went by: I remembered which classes to go to, what I was teaching, characters and quotes from the books we were studying…they were all there. But not my daughter’s name. I waited and I waited for Esther’s name to come back to me. But it was gone, along with which shoe was left, and which was right. And it only returned that evening when Greg called Esther by her name. I was relieved and so frightened at the same time that I
I came downstairs carrying my shoes, and went into the kitchen for breakfast. Caitlin was already home from uni, looking tired and thinner. Wrung out from living life, I supposed, although her habitual black outfits and black-rimmed eyes didn’t do a lot to flatter her obvious exhaustion. I asked her once why she liked dressing like a Goth so much, and she grabbed a handful of her mass of jet-black hair and said, really, what other choice did she have? School hadn’t broken up, and she was taking Esther out for the day—because the childminder was sick—which was good of her. She looked like she really just wanted to stay in bed all day, and part of me wanted to put her there—tuck her up, like I used to when she was little, brush the hair off her forehead, and bring her soup.
They were already up when I came into the kitchen. Esther had dragged her big sister out of bed and down the stairs, and was ensconced on her lap talking babble and demanding to be fed like a baby. I walked into the kitchen, still carrying my shoes, and I looked at them, my two daughters, seventeen years between them, and I felt this little bubble of happiness that even with all of the life I had lived between giving birth to each of them, they still were so close and so bonded. I’d gone to call Esther over for a cuddle when it happened. There was just this wall of gray, this dense fog between me and her name. No, no, it wasn’t even a wall: it was…a void. A vacuum where something had been before, perhaps just moments before, and nowit was obliterated. I panicked, and the harder I tried to think, the thicker the fog became. And this wasn’t a meeting at work I’d forgotten to attend, or that woman from the book club I went to about three times, whom I sometimes have to avoid in supermarkets because I can’t remember her name. This wasn’t “someone off the telly, who used to be in that thing.” This was my little girl, the apple of my eye. My treasure, my delight, my sweetheart. The child I’d named.
I knew it then, in that instant, that the same thing that had come to claim my father had come for me too. I knew it, even as I tried with all my heart and head combined not to know it. You are stressed and tired, I told myself. Just relax, take a breath and it will come.
I filled a bowl with muesli, which tasted like cardboard in my mouth, and afterwards I went to brush my teeth. Keep the routine, do what you know, and it will come. I came back and filled a bowl with muesli, and Caitlin asked me if I was extra hungry, and I realized that actually I wasn’t hungry at all. Then I noticed my first empty bowl, still sitting on the table, and realized why. But still, I told her I was, and forced down a few more mouthfuls, making a joke about starting the diet tomorrow instead. Caitlin just rolled her eyes, in that way she had perfected over the years. “Oh, Mum.”
Trying to press the panic down, I looked under the table and stared and stared at my shoes. Low, black, kitten heels with a long pointed toe that I loved. I wore them because they didn’t hurt, even after a long day teaching, and they looked purposeful and just sexy enough to get away with. But that morning, the more I looked at them, the more of a mystery they became to me. I simply couldn’t decipher which shoe went on which foot. The angle of the toe; the buckle on the side—none of it made sense to me anymore.
I left the shoes under the kitchen table, and went and pulled on my boots. That day, the whole day at work, simply went by: I remembered which classes to go to, what I was teaching, characters and quotes from the books we were studying…they were all there. But not my daughter’s name. I waited and I waited for Esther’s name to come back to me. But it was gone, along with which shoe was left, and which was right. And it only returned that evening when Greg called Esther by her name. I was relieved and so frightened at the same time that I
Similar Books
