“Have you spoken to him yet? To Ted?” Darren asks, not looking at me.

 

I search through the pages of the old album, passing faded photographs of people I have never known. I go on. Searching. Looking. Checking to see, to know.
 
We were here.  

"He's damaged goods," she says. 

I look away from Ted’s bright face and brush a hand against hers, squeezing it momentarily.

"Aren't we all, Mother?" 

Ted is staring at me from across the fire. I thought it would feel good, like some sort of self-righteous justice. I thought evening the playing field would make all the difference, that watching him in pain, would make my own pain seem less immense. I thought sinking his boat, would make my own float. But as it turns out, now we’re both sinking, losing in this game. 

I nod silently. It doesn’t seem like he wants to discuss this further, yet the curiosity is a burning itch underneath my tongue. I want to ask him, shake him. But Merlin knows, I can’t go out like that. Why and take care of yourself are bubbling in my throat, the words limping backwards, rolling back inside before they reach the air..

The air is humid and dense up here, as my knees hit the floor. Brown dust sinks around me, coating the underside of my arms and legs. My hands are large and cold. There is blue silk and a small note of announcement in my lap, poppies in the corner and hard paper between my fingers. Something that says baby, but baby is long gone and folded into a small and simple box, hidden away. 

“I would like to see you there.”

“What? Me as an old fat lady-cat? And wallow in my pity? How rude!”

“No,” he laughs, “in London. You know. In your natural habitat.”

Habitat. Like wildflowers, growing out of their element, into pavemented cities. Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water, gasping for air in the sand with no one there to rescue me.