Chrysalis

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But to be an adult is to forgive your parents - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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My Mum types words on a typewriter for people. Sheets and sheets of words and they give her money. She likes gardening, especially roses, and she cooks a lot and cries at night. I like her pies. She bakes one every Sunday but she always makes too much and I can have the leftover for breakfast on Mondays.

My Dad does nothing. He used to be in the army but now he is in a hospital bed and never comes home. He doesn't speak and he can't move. It is a bit boring.

The furious beat of her heart makes Elysia feel sick. It echoes dully in her ears and it ties her stomach into a knot. She glances nervously at the piece of paper clutched in her hand. Roy had looked at her with shrewd eyes, silent for so long she had thought he would refuse before nodding curtly and detailing in a neat handwriting the journey from her house to the hospital. He had added a phone number at the bottom of the page and pressed a two pounds coin in her hand. Call me if there is any problem. She had smiled at him, not quite daring to hug him and snapped the camera at his face.

Now standing in the middle of the Grand Plaza, everything seems so much more complicated than she had anticipated. All familiar cobblestones end up there and beyond the place stretches a warren of unfamiliar streets. Elysia feels dizzy with noise and people and anticipation. For a second the thought of turning back, of retracing her steps to the safety of her house crosses her mind. But before her resolve can crumble she takes a deep breath and a faltering few steps, lurching forward blindly like one does when entering the freezing ocean.

She doesn't stop to think again.

First, the tram. Number 13 toward Clapton Road, the streetcar arriving near the kiosk. One pound slipped into the beefy hand of the driver leaves her with a small red ticket clipped twice on the side and 40 cents of change. The tram sets off, gliding on rails to a melody of creaks and moans. Central passes by in a blur behind the window and Elysia feels like she is dreaming, floating. She closes her eyes and lets the jolts of the tram rock her gently. She counts each stop in an addition and a subtraction, one stop, five to go, two stops, four to go and then the bell chimes for the sixth stop and Elysia alights in front of the Zoo garden. She checks Roy's instructions once again and spots the next tram sign a couple of feet on her right.

She tugs on her skirt as she waits, holding her bag closer when a round little man stops next to her. Her father's camera is inside and her fingers tighten around the strap. At eight past three, tram 37 toward Thetterfield arrives with a mechanical purr and she dives back into the fish tank-like wagon.

Growing up is much more than overcoming restrictions. It is also about sharing the burden of your parents, helping the people around you as they helped you before. It is about giving, now that you are able to see the world for yourself. Good essay. Watch out for your tenses. B+

It takes Elysia three quarters of an hour to reach St-Vincent Hospital. The clinic is in the outskirts of town, a nice area west of the river where trees and parks line up the streets and houses are small and nicely spaced out. At the reception the nurse doesn't ask her why she is there on a weekday or why she is there without her mother, she simply tilts her head and invites the teenager to follow her. The walk to her father's room is familiar, stone stairs and linoleum floor that screeches under her shoes but without the warm presence of her mother it feels eerie.

They pass rooms from where soft moans escape, aisles where patients leaning on crutches attempt a few tentative steps and finally arrive to a door where a sign reads Mr Hughes. The nurse leaves Elysia there with a soft smile and then she is standing alone in front of the bed where her father lies, limbs thin with atrophy and face twisted into a perpetual grimace. Nine years of visiting this room every week-end and Elysia is used by now to the pathetic sight, to the nauseating smell of antiseptic and the thick oppressive silence of the room. She takes off her bag and her coat and lays them on the chair next to the bed.

"Hello Dad. It's me, Elysia."

She learned over the years to fill the expectant silence that follows such statements with a noise, any noise, so she goes to the window and opens it wide. A warm breeze sweeps into the room and Elysia reflects that even if the man on the bed can't feel it, can't revel in the sunlight flooding his room, he might at least hear the piping songs of the birds.

"Today is Wednesday and it's only me this time."

She is not sure if there is someone behind the glassy eyes but her mother has never stopped talking to him as if he could understand them. When Elysia was 7 she had asked her how she could be so sure. She still remembers the pain on the face of her mother, the sad, sad little smile that had thinned her lips. Wouldn't it be cruel not to fill the silence if he is indeed there, prisoner in his own mind? But maybe, maybe I talk as much for myself as I do for him. Elysia thinks she might understand what she meant now. She sits on the bed next to him and begins.

"I found your old camera in the attic and I thought... Mum told me that you used to take a lot of pictures of us, of Uncle Roy and..."

She stretches to grab her bag on the chair and starts digging through it. Her fingers close on a stack of photographs tucked away in the inner pocket and Elysia lets the bag slid to the ground. For a moment she finds it hard to swallow, her tongue thick and clumsy in her mouth. She hopes she is doing the right thing. She feels slightly guilty of her inability to love him. There is but emptiness between daughter and father, infinite and irremissible. Now though, she wants to be a good daughter to this man she doesn't know, she wants to reach to him if she can and share a little piece of the world with him. Because she is 13, almost an adult, and this is what adults do. They take care of each other. And with that thought, a tiny nod to herself, she takes a deep breath and starts talking.

"The trigger was a little jammed but it worked after a few times... I took some photographs for you. Here, I took this one of Mum for Mother's day. It was sunny and we went to Rosamond Park. I made a chocolate cake and well, it wasn't as good as Mum's but still it was nice."

She waves another photograph in front his face. "On this one, I am with Tasha, she is my best friend. Her parents have a bookshop near the cathedral and we like to go there after school. We talk, sometimes read, but mainly we spy on people from behind the shelves. This, is Uncle Roy. I took it last week at headquarters. He is always so serious but I think he liked my idea of coming to see you. He told me I reminded him of you..."

It might just be a trick from the light but as she continues to speak, as life pours from her lips, Elysia could swear her father's eyes are shining.