Nearly forty. Husband Missing In Action. Body no longer firm. If only I’d known then what I know now. Now my traitorous skin gives me plenty to care about but I just don’t. I don’t care.
Break away. Rerun. Reinvent.
The kids are staying at Mum’s, although Annabelle is disgusted at the idea – she’s twelve and thinks she’s old enough to be on her own. She probably is, there was never an older twelve-year-old than Annabelle, with all that she’s seen. The older she gets, the more capable, the more I want to wrap her up. I never did it when she was a kid; I was brave then. Now I feel her slipping away and I want to pull her in.
Turning the Top 40 music up loud, I dress and dance around my room like a teenager. It’s a kick in the teeth to Tim. He hated that music, or anything that was designed to make you feel good, or at least not to think. Freedom wells, making my toes tingle. My house is a blur as I spin – the green silk cushions my grandma made when she was a young wife, the lacy sheers that I’ve always hated, the floral carpet that is so pounded down by feet that it’s almost as hard as floorboards. The vinyl couch Tim brought to our first shared house, the only piece of furniture he ever owned. We used to slip off it in the summer, our sweat pooling in the creases. Now one of the seams is torn and every day I poke the stuffing back in. It can’t be restitched and can’t be thrown out, and I get the analogy, really I do. I stop spinning and look at the tear. I touch it, run my fingers down the hard, shiny edge, feeling the indents scratch my finger where the stitching left gouges. In the winter Tim would pre-warm the vinyl with a blanket or a quilt. He always stretched out first, warming a patch and then moving over to make space for me. I grab at the torn bit of fabric and I rip it. It tears down the seam and stops. It won’t come off. I pull and tug and scream at it. I pull out the stuffing and throw it to the floor. He’s finally, actually, truly gone.
Outside the wind whispers secrets. It doesn’t believe me, it doesn’t believe that I can say goodbye.