A Serious Question

Daddy, she says, and I can tell it’s going to be a serious question, she has on her serious face. Why are carrots orange? I can’t help a chuckle on the out breath and she eyes me suspiciously. I try to picture her, that exact expression, with a nose ring or whatever teenagers will be into ten years from now. I try to imagine her serious questions then, what they will be like and if she will still come to me to ask them. And I picture her ten years after that in a white dress, then berate myself for being such an old fashioned git. Because maybe she’ll have a live-in girlfriend, maybe she’ll go off into the world with nothing but a backpack. Maybe she’ll have experiences in life I know nothing about and won’t be able to guide her through. In fact, she probably will. Suddenly I feel an overwhelming rush of fear and inadequacy, wanting to save her from all of that. But who’s to say she’d want to be saved anyway? I look down at her impatient face, clearly wondering what’s taking me so long to answer a simple question, because don’t daddies know everything? I wonder briefly what explanation to go with. Carotene? She’s a little young for that. Or maybe I prefer to keep it that way, at least for now. Carrots are orange, I say, because they knew you like pink and they didn’t want to make you jealous.

A Long Weekend

He drops his travel bag by his feet, though gently, he’s not one for the harshness of sudden moves. It’s red and oiled, or so he thinks of it. Plasticy, shiny material, he doesn’t know the word for it. A good sized travel bag, though often he leaves it half empty. He doesn’t usually take long trips and this one is a short one too, just a long weekend. It has a reason, supposedly, a purpose. But as he boards the train he’s not too sure about it. Truth be told, he no longer wants to go. His heart’s not in it. But he took the extra day off and so go he shall. It’s too depressing to stay in his room for days on end. He wants to change his life. It’s heartbreaking really, to watch life twist and turn, except in the one way you want it to. Wanting something so single-mindedly isn’t good for him, he knows this deep down somewhere. So he decided to focus on other things, such as a change of atmosphere. But he feels tired already. The doors start beeping and just as they’re about to close, a butterfly comes drifting in on a fickle current of air. Or was there a purpose there too, he wonders. Did it wake up and think, I know exactly what I want to do? Probably not, he guesses life is rarely that clear cut and sometimes things just happen. It floats this way and that, white and airy, seemingly not yet perturbed by its captivity. Or maybe it just knows that everything is temporary. Because at some point those doors are bound to open up again. With that he settles more comfortably into his chair and looks out at the flashing landscape, and decides to make the most of it.

Puddles

Three bras –two black and a white one, hand washed in two separate bowls– are slouched over the back of a garden chair, dripping a puddle onto the tiles. Why three for just two days, I wonder. My daughter’s home for the weekend. Alone. A formation I’m no longer used to. And neither is she, I can tell. She walks around in one of the striped bath towels she got me for Christmas, swirling a Q tip around her ear and looking for all the world like she belongs. Her hair is wet, looks longer, makes her look younger and is dripping too, just like the bras outside. Look what you’re doing, I grumble, then regret it. Everyone should be allowed a day of making puddles of themselves. And anyway, it used to be her mother making those remarks, not me. I must be getting old. I blot the water with a kitchen towel and notice it smells sweet. I’m still trying to place the scent when she walks back in, wearing jeans and a T shirt and, I imagine, bra number four. I don’t think I’ll ever understand them. She’s making tea, her back to me, trying this scenario on as one of many possibilities. I’ll just move in with dad. I can see it in the straight line of her shoulders. But there’s too much tension there and I know she’s unconvinced. She looks lost, in fact. I don’t know the details but I can read her like a floor plan. I’m not sure what to say. Why don’t you try, is stationed on the tip of my tongue. Life is like that. But I relegate it to the back. I know she knows it anyway. This weekend is a time out. She’s four again and hiding under a blanket turned into cave. When she comes out the world will look a little friendlier. So I do what I used to do: hand her a flashlight and her teddy bear. Two sugars for me, I remind her, and squeeze her shoulders. What a nice surprise to have you home, I say.

PMS

We had just made love and we were quiet. But there are many kinds of quiet and this was not one that felt right. Honey? I called. She was in my arms, her hair snaking down my shoulder and her face turned away from mine. I tucked my chin and tried to see her eyes. But she dug her nails into my flesh and shook her head, a tiny movement. I racked my brain and waited, hoping she would give a hint. I stroked her head and wrapped my arm more tightly around her middle. There was a moist, trickling sensation around my neck. I listened, caressing her hair. Suddenly, a deep intake of breath, and a sigh that sounded like relief to me. She wiped her cheeks across my chest, first one and then the other, evenly distributing a fine layer of salt. Then, without meeting my gaze, she got out of bed. She stepped into yesterday’s shirt, much too wide on her, and left the room. Breakfast, she called over her shoulder. I got up and followed her.

The Last Of The Afternoon Sun

He watched the dress slide off the washing line without a hint of provocation. No sudden gust of wind, and he was certain that those clothes pins were practically glued onto the hem. She’ll be miffed when she finds it there, he thought. But he didn’t get up to prevent this. The afternoon sun felt too good, melting his bones. He gave a shrug. Sometimes you just had to accept what life brought you. Go with the flow, as the youngsters said. So he stayed where he was: on a folding chair under the lemon tree. In the illusion of shade, protection. He no longer believed in the reality of such a thing. But he liked the scent of citrus, always had. Some clouds yawned across the sky, soft looking and the colour of apricots. Badly drawn, was how he thought of them. Meaning that if they were in a drawing or a painting, he would label the artist naive or too romantic. He no longer believed in that sort of romance either. Just call a cow a cow, was how he saw it. She came out to retrieve the laundry then and he chuckled at her impeccable sense of timing. His dear old girl. She frowned as she approached, at the glare of the setting sun. And he watched the frown deepen when she spotted the heap of linen on the grass. White, of course. It had to be. He could almost hear her grumbled thoughts about impossible stains. She swerved her head in his direction and glared accusingly at him. He burst out laughing, couldn’t help it. Without wasting her breath on him she turned her back and bent down low to pick up the crumpled dress. He struggled out of his chair and shuffled across the lawn. He was greeted with a harrumph. I know, I know, he said soothingly, the laughter never quite leaving his voice. She turned and gave him a look she’d been perfecting throughout their life together. He laughed again. Come here, he said and kissed her nose. And took the laundry basket from where it was balanced on her well padded hip, and carried it inside.