You, Lila, are two years old. There are a lot of things you don't yet understand, like where she's gone. For that reason only, we take a trip to the park, one evening, to say goodbye to your mum.
They didn't let us see her body. Oh, we saw the car and smelled the bleach and touched the jagged dent in the roof where her head smashed into the metal. But we couldn't stand the shattered bones or the beaten skull or the half-leg halfway across the road.
They didn't want you to see me when I found out, either. They knew that the monster that hides itself under your bed at night would come out and tear the room to pieces. My scaly arms ripped and struck and tore with all fifty teeth dripping saliva as I lost my mind in the battle between resolve and despair.
Eventually, my storm of grief faded into the overcast skies which now hide the setting sun.
As we walk through the trees to the open field, you take off on your tiny legs. You swerve under the lampposts, catching every gleaming light in your quest to conquer the grassy plain up ahead. I stick to the shadows. You jump and giggle and swirl. Your little hands reach out and tickle the shrivelled leaves whilst I, in my solitude, hold back. There was a time when your instinctive curiosity would've sparked mine. I can't feel sparks any more.
That's all that ever happens. I have to let go and ignore everything that once made me happy, because every joy only hurts more and more. I hold onto the misery, the angst, the brokenness and the desolation my life entails because being depressed and empty is only thing that my existence equates to now and what it will ever only equate to. In the end, it's better to feel empty than to live in constant agony. I can't ever share your joy. Mine died with your mum.
It's a small comfort that you won't ever feel the pain of losing her. It helps even more that you don't remember the night I drowned my grief in alcohol and left you screeching in your cot until the dawn turned my incoherence into a series of pounding headaches. I'm so sorry, Lila.
I pull a balloon, two notecards and a pen out of my pocket and you rush over in excitement.
"Lila," I breathe, "if you could say one thing to your mum, what would it be?"
"Come home!" you shriek. "Come home come home come home COME HOME!"
Your determination breaks my heart, but I shake my head. "Mum's not coming home. I'm sorry. But you can send a letter if you'd like. What do you want her to know most in the world?"
Stories of your friends and playtime pour out onto the paper alongside snapshots of memories, half of which I never saw. Your last great meal, how terrible I am at building and the first brown splodge you brought home after painting at nursery all make it onto the notecard. I tie it to the balloon with a tiny bow.
I shouldn't join in your little game, yet I get caught in the childish idea of talking to your mum once more. I play a thousand conversations over in my head, but can think of only one thing.
A minute later, a notecard with I love you in shaky, smudged handwriting appears next to yours.
As the sun sets, you let go of the balloon and the combination of hot air and cold wind lifts easily into the sky. Behind, the blank canvas of the clouds comes alive. Streaks of red, orange, pink and gold brush the sky, filling the horizon with shining beauty, and your tiny fingers spark out in fascination. You recognise the colours. Red, orange, pink, gold, shining and swirling and streaming in folds of light over and over again. The exact colour of Nat's hair…
…and yours. I watch, as you play on the grass, and begin to notice. You've got her curiosity. The twigs and leaves on the ground, to you, are no different to the Duplo bricks back home, nor are they any different to Nat's random assortment of wood in the shed. You have her joy, too.
But there's something else. For the first time in months your high, ringing giggle sparks mine, and we laugh with the same ridiculous sounds. I grab your hand and place it against mine, curling my fingers over the top of your miniature yet identically shaped digits. There are tiny bits of both me and Nat weaved inside you.
And maybe, just maybe, it's not too much to hope that I'll see those spits and spats of your mum emerge. Maybe, in three years, you'll be a miniature architect. Maybe, in seven, you'll be able to screw in a lightbulb with one hand quicker than I can with two. Maybe your mum isn't entirely lost to us.
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