the strange men.They greet her formally, taking their hats off they announce their names & ask if she is the woman they seek? Yes, yes she says picking her daughter up & unlocking the screen door. She smiles a timid smile, a scared smile at the men in blue uniform & tells them she won’t be a moment. Primal instinct has set in; she knows whatever these men have to tell her is for her ears only, that her precious little girl must be passed into the arms of her neighbour until she has heard them out.
“Madam, we have to inform you that…..” She hears them, she understands what they are saying, and she accepts the phone number that is given to her. She can hear her little girl crying next door, wanting her mummy, knowing that mummy is in some kind of pain.
It was all so surreal; she wasn't really there at all. She stood looking at him, hoping to finally understand what everyone was saying…that he would not be coming back.
Of course he would be back, he always came back. Wasn't he, didn’t he always show up just as his two ladies had almost given up hope.He looks like him, but so very still & his colour just not right, his features waxen & his hair all wrong. Why no piercings & why wear a suit? His eyes closed & lips silently together. Wake up!!! She reaches out to touch his shoulder to gently shake him awake. Wake up!
Has he been indulging again in the vices he promised he would leave......wake up, please just WAKE UP!
How could he do this to her, to their baby girl? The baby girl he had wanted so much, that he had walked away from & returned to so many times. How could he be so selfish to walk away this time & never come back? He always comes back. The phone calls telling where he is & what he is doing, asking how his “Little Princess” is, how her mum is coping. Apologizing for not being there but not meaning it. Telling them he would be home soon but not sure when. The expectation, the waiting this was all a part of their lives…what on earth do you mean you won’t be coming back. Wake up! Wake up!
No time for taking drugs now, your addictions are finally over. Never…never will you wake again.
“Mummy?” a little voice so far away, “Mummy?”
She shakes her head & a fog lifts, she is standing behind a curtain, leaning over a coffin, sobbing, pain piercing her heart & her little girl is looking for her. She wipes her tears, but cannot stop the gasps & spasms that rack her chest. She must walk now past the other mourners, those that she has never met before, those that have despised her for bringing this child into the world.
She walks, head held high, her little girl running to meet her, to the place where her father waits.
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