Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Kids.
Everywhere.
Running wild, nipping at Father’s Christmas’s ankles as he stands, large as life, in the middle, surrounded by his believers.
A boulder hits me so hard in the stomach, I’m knocked back a few steps into my office. The noise. It’s unbearable. I see Debbie look up at me, her smile fading. Her palms are on the shoulders of a small boy as he looks at Santa in wonder. “What’s going on?” I ask, not nearly loud enough for her to hear me. “What’s going on?” I yell.
She comes at me with the child, and I back away. “It’s Bring Your Kid to Work Day,” she says, almost in apology.
“Since when?”
“Since the memo that went out yesterday.”
“I didn’t see any memo.” Fuck, I did see a memo. I just didn’t read the memo properly. “I can’t work in this,” I say, on the cusp of outrage. “For fuck’s sake.”
Debbie’s palms rest on the boy’s ears as his eyes bug up at me. I have to get out of here.
I grab my bags and hurry through the chaos, smacking my finger on the elevator call button urgently. The doors open, and a swarm of more kids come at me, yelling at the sight of Santa Claus. My whole body tightens, pulling in my limbs, making myself as small as possible, as they dart past me on both sides.
Stepping in, I tuck myself in the corner and only breathe easy when the doors close and the elevator carries me away from the never-ending triggers. I fucking hate Christmas. The noise. The screaming children. The happiness everyone else experiences when it’s the time of year that my life fell apart. And yet, he, of course, can simply move on. Because he thinks I am unreasonable. He left. He simply fucking left. I look down at my watch. Specifically, the date. The nineteenth is only four days away. How the fuck has three years passed?
The elevator is suddenly suffocating, and I will it to move faster. The moment the doors are open wide enough, I slip through the gap and hurry across the lobby, taking in precious air. I step outside and look down at my heels in the slushy snow. “Shit.” Dropping my bag onto a nearby post, I pull out my boots and socks and get them on, before following my feet mindlessly.
I end up at Mum’s care home. It’s all standard—a tight smile to the receptionist, a slow trudge up the corridor, my stomach turning with dread, a cautious peek around the door, my heart falling when I see her.
Her lunch is untouched by the bedside, the room basked in a hazy light, and she’s asleep. I push my way in and start my obligatory chores, changing the water in her jug, getting rid of the wilting flowers, cleaning the vase and trimming the stems of the new carnations, arranging them just so. Then I sit down. “You’ve not eaten,” I say, reaching for the fork in her pasta and poking it around the bowl. “Not hungry?”
Her eyes open, and she looks at me, vacant. Nothing behind her eyes. “I could manage a few mouthfuls, Nurse,” she says, straight-faced, nothing in her voice either. Just emotionless words.
I swallow and pull my chair closer, forking a piece of penne and offering it. Her mouth drops open, her head still sunk into the pillow, and I pop it in, watching her chew slowly, her empty gaze never wavering from mine. I don’t tell her I love her. I don’t call her Mum. I say nothing that’ll spike a violent reaction. I just sit here, feeding her, happy to be simply Nurse. It’s almost . . . peaceful. The quiet. I take a deep breath, and for a moment, I can let the desperate blanket of sadness go. It’s momentary, but I take it.
She surprisingly manages a quarter of her bowl before she doesn’t open her mouth for me anymore. “Water?” I ask, offering her the straw. She wraps her lips around it, lips that used to never be without a red tint that would last all day long. Now, they’re thin and colourless. Lifeless. They don’t smile, they don’t purse coyly, they don’t smirk when she teases me. And they don’t speak the words I so long to hear.
Mum’s here, my little buttercup. It’s all going to be all right.
Because she’s not here anymore. And I’m scared all can never be alright again because there’s no longer a soul in my life who loves me unconditionally.
I swallow down the grief and wait until she’s dozed off again before I clear away the dishes and get my coat back on. I dip and kiss her forehead gently so I don’t wake and alarm her. “Love you, Mum.”
“Love you too, buttercup.”
I smile as she squeezes me to her chest, stroking circles across my back with her palm as she breathes into my neck. “Don’t you think I’m too old at thirty to be called buttercup, Mum?”