I never looked much like my parents. People would ask if I was adopted, and I’d stare daggers into them before I knew what a dagger was. But in the picture in the palm of my hand, Mum’s smile and Dad’s eyes shined on a tiny face with a blue bonnet.
Dad
refused to look straight at it when I asked. Don’t let that get near your
mother, he said and left it at that. He couldn’t snatch things away from me
anymore.
I’d
always wanted to be a big sister, but Mum never even humoured the idea;
unspooling the hats and socks I knitted in my mind with a word and a chuckle.
The
next time I visited Mum, she wrapped bony arms around me and held me close. The
nice man from the hospital had been in to do her bloods and the kettle was
still piping hot.
We
sat on opposite sides of the sofa as the tea cooled. I passed on the biscuits
and ignored what she had to say about what I should and shouldn’t be eating. My
mind went to the yellowed square tucked away in my purse by my Nectar Card.
With
a motion I could cut her chattering short. I could bring dark clouds over us
and turn the tea sour. I could.
