It was my fault. We were all sitting squashed up on the sofa on Friday night watching Coronation Street, the second episode of the evening. Well none of us actually were watching. Hanji was squatting on the arm of the sofa rubbing tomato sauce round her mouth, telling us over and over again that she was wearing lipstick like Mummy. My littlest sister, Hanji could win the world record for repetition. She's three and talks all the time, though most of what she says is nonsense.
My other sister, Mikasa, is six, but she hardly talks at all. She was lying on her back on the sofa twiddling with her short raven black hair and snuffling into her old teddy. She had her favourite fairytale book tucked beside her. Her twin brother Armin was driving a matchbox up and down her legs pretending it was a car, making silly whining racing noises.
I was flipping through the pages of one of my magazines, wondering what it would be like to be rich and famous and trying to choose which man I wanted to be. It was hard taking them seriously because they all had bushy moustaches. Armin had clearly been busy with his blue biro at at some earlier stage.
Mum was the only one of us sitting up properly and watching the screen but I knew she wasn't following all the Corrie people. She didn't change position when the adverts came on. She just sat staring, her chin on her hand, her eyes big and blank "Mum?" I reached out and gave her a little poke. "Mum, are you ok?" "Yeah" "You don't look ok." "Oh, shut up Eren," Mum said wearily. She was always acting tired now, since Nile died. She was too tired to get up in the mornings,
too tired to go to bed at night. She was too tired to go to work and then when she lost her job in the canteen, she was too tired to get another one. She just stayed at home smoking and staring into space. I made her go to the doctor because I was dead worried about her. He gave her tablets for depression. He said it was natural to grieve for a while when you'd lost your husband. I didn't get that. Mum didn't like Nile much when he was around. None of us liked him, not even Hanji, and he was her father. He'd either be yelling and slapping at us, even Mum, or he'd be zoned out on the sofa, looking stupid in his vest and pants and socks. We weren't aloud to sit on our own sofa when Paul was around. Mum muttered that he was a waste of space and a big mistake. She said she'd always had lousy taste when it came to men. That's what I couldn't understand. Whenever she didn't have a man she turned into Zombie Woman, acting like it was the end of the world.
I couldn't bear to see her like that, especially looking so ordinary in her old baggy T-shirt and trackie bottoms. Mum could look fantastic when she wanted, better than any of the ladies in the magazines. When she got all dressed up to go out she could make my heart stop she looked so gorgeous. So that's why I said it.