In 500 words or less, discuss your personal hero:
I remember when my mother had her first (and thankfully last) big asthma attack. I woke up to a neighbor I'd never seen before shaking me, taking me to the hospital. My father put me to sleep in an office and I couldn't see her till the next morning. There's something disconcerting about seeing someone you love in a hospital. Looking back on it, I realize how sick she really was - not just the asthma - how thin she'd gotten to let me eat. No matter how bad things were, she always took care of me with a smile.
If the apocalypse comes tomorrow, my mother is the lady to beat it. Anyone who survives what she's gone through and still gets out of bed to face the world is nothing short of spectacular. Not to mention I've heard stories of her breaking a man's jaw in a pub fight.
Winnie re-reads the essay and sighs, chucking it across the room and into the bin. She'd just write about some imaginary person; easier to make someone up then to try and communicate her feelings. She pushes back her chair and checks her reflection in the mirror: thick hair tied back in a straw-colored bun, ocean coloured eyes. She's tall, athletic, nothing like her mother's tiny frame.
Her parents are at the kitchen table, making a grocery list. Windows and doors are flung open, and warm morning air shines through. It's salty with the beach across the street, golden with summer. The scene is comfortingly familiar: Robert, his short hair and sloppy tie, getting ready for work at Sydney Hospital, and Bowen, hair dripping water from her early lesson. They're still young, only forty, but you'd guess they were younger, the way they laugh and smile at each other, like some couple that just met.
Bo looks up to see Winnie paused on the stairs. "Morning lovey! Anything from the market?"
"Can you get some Solo?"
"Get anything done on that essay?" Robert asks.
"Yeah, but I didn't like it." Win saunters over to the fridge, deciding on a bunch of grapes. "I'll do it when I get home, right?"
"Not to worried," he says, grinning, snagging a grape.
"Winifred Chase: terrible students, shame of her parents," Bo laments with a wink. "Who all's going then?"
Winnie rolls her eyes. "Jess, Justin, guy Sam, girl Sam, and Bailey."
"Stay safe. There's a bit of a current today."
"Yes mum." she kisses both their heads. "Love you."
"You too."
"Love ya Win."
They watch her walk out the door and head across to the beach.
"You going now, then?" Robert asks, gesturing to the list. "Or you want me to come?"
"You wanna come?"
"I always want to come."
Bo kicks him under the table, smiling. "Liar."
"You're blushing! I can make you blush more if you want."
"Fucking- go to work! Diagnose some people!"
"All right." He stands. "Come here, then."
They hug like they do everyday, close and long, her cheek on his neck, his in her hair. "I love you."
"Mm. Love you too."