I hadn't switched the alarm off on my phone, so at 6:15 I was woken up. For a few moments I was stuck in lethe. I was not happy. I was not sad. I didn't know what had happened. I am zen. I am in the moment. I feel the uncomfortable mattress that has been on this, my childhood bed, for the last 25 years, I hear a few cars on the road outside, a dog barking in the distance, I see a pattern on my ceiling, created by artex that used to remind me of a mountain range, I can smell a slight damp smell of clean bedding, but no fabric conditioner. I forced the covers back from my legs, the layers of blankets and sheets pressing down too hard and felt the chill from the unused room which had probably had the radiator turned off. Then suddenly memory hit me and my shoulders sagged and I didn't think I could stand up. My father was dead. Killed in a traffic accident in which my mother was driving. I was staying in the house to take care of my mother following a late night, whispered semi-row with my sister in which she insisted she had to go to look after the boys. I whispered back that surely that was the point of marrying the damn father. She rolled her eyes to indicate that despite her unerring love for her husband she did not trust him with delicate matters such as getting two teenaged boys to school on time, with bus fare and lunch. I widened my eyes in a gesture designed to indicate that although she was a mother, she was also a daughter and perhaps that role took precedent tonight.
I had lost the row. I took a deep breath and put my clothes from yesterday back on. I thought I ought to ring work. I picked up my phone which had run out of battery and had been charging over night. When I switched it on, it was silent for a minute, then pinged several times. I had never had so many text messages. I opened the list but couldn't bear to read any. They all started "So sorry...". I scrolled down until I found Alice; a colleague I liked but who wasn't too nosy. "Not coming in today. Please msg." After pressing send, I texted again. "Not for rest of week. x"
I looked in the mirror, but I didn't have any make up with me, or a hair brush. I walked down stairs and went in to the kitchen, savouring the few moments by myself. All the washing up had been done and the kitchen was immaculate. Mum must have done it after I had gone to bed. I boiled a kettle. There was instant coffee in the cupboard. Supermarket own brand. I told myself I wasn't a coffee snob and made filter coffee. I went to warm the tea pot for Mum and Dad and then stopped and placed a single tea bag in a white mug for Mum.
Mum shuffled in from the lounge. I jumped. She was fully clothed and asking me to help her with the collar the hospital had supplied.
"I couldn't sleep upstairs," she apologised. "Can't sleep without your dad." Her eyes filled but she blinked back tears and took the proffered tea. She sat down at the kitchen table, but I stood up, feeling uncomfortable at her proximity. I put the collar on and smelt her familiar smell, the perfume, the smell of Mum, and stood behind her to do it, not feeling as if I could look her straight in the eye again.
"Do you want breakfast?" She asked, making no move.
"No, I'll have fruit, what can I get you?"
"Toast, or something...nothing thanks."
Mum got up and picked up my spoon from the worktop, washed it, dried it and put it away. I took my phone into the living room and put on daytime television while Mum tried to find dust to clean. At half past ten the front door opened and my sister came in calling. She was carrying bags of food and started to put it away in Mum's fridge. I could see my mum hovering nervously around the fridge, waiting for Ali to drop something or knock on to the floor the carefully balanced jars of pickles that went out of date in 2014. There was no space in the fridge or freezer, Mum and Dad had only just been shopping.
"So..." Ali began, starting a sentence in my least favourite way, sitting us down with tea and coffee and dirtying more cups. "The pastor will be here this afternoon at about two-thirty to discuss the service and Aunty Val is coming this evening to stay Mum if that's ok."
Mum barely responded, but I frowned. "The pastor? What pastor? What service?" Ali silently appealed to me, please not now.
"Mum and I talked about it last night." she said, glancing at Mum. "And Dad and I had been talking about it for a while."
"Talking about what?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. When had they had this conversation? These conversations? What had my younger sister talked to my dad about that he hadn't spoken to me about. "He doesn't go to your church."
"No, but he had been, Bryn knows him, it's better than someone who's never met him conducting the service. " My sister's tone felt patronising, as if she'd had all these conversations before, which she may have done, but not with me.
"It's fine." my Mum said, briefly reverting to herself from when we were fourteen and twelve and bickering over the tv controller. We were quiet.
Alison made lunch from the party food that she had bought for the wake that wouldn't fit in the freezer. She didn't ask what Mum wanted, just fed her, like she sometimes buttered bread for us, or put sugar in our tea. I liked it a bit. It seemed to demonstrate that she was what she had always been, even before she had children, a mother.
"At least it's nearly Christmas." she said pointlessly, and perhaps poignantly. "Lots of food in the shops. It's like organising a wedding... but in a couple of days. "
"I enjoyed organising your wedding." My Mum said. And any other time I would have chosen to see that as a dig at me.
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