Part 49

Some twenty years since I spoke to my
mother. It still feels like a cold, rainy
December that will never end. The chill
creeping up from the marble floor, the
damp seeping in through the walls and
that incessant drumbeat on concrete and
tile, like a foreboding. It was her way: a
monsoon sky, overcome by persistent
cloud. An umbilical cord is not designed to
be an enduring bond. The womb is not the
guarantor of expectation. When you first
learn about disappointment, when you
first realize nothing is certain, when you
first encounter the taste of misgiving, the
days grow a mouldy, chemical flavour.
Doubt becomes a halo around your frame.
A chalk outline where you fell and never
got up. There are pretty myths about
unconditional love. There should be stories
about ordinary estrangement. The eclipse of
affection. The way water does not think of
itself as wet. The way the grey sky congeals
as it descends further. The way light does
not always see. The way good and bad are
forgotten in different ways. The way some
mornings you wake up, red-eyed and sore,
still curled up tight, in that foetal position.