Into Bones like Oil by Kaaron Warren

Author:Kaaron Warren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Meerkat Press, LLC
Published: 2019-07-03T17:32:30+00:00

FIFTH DAY

SATURDAY

BREAKFAST

Dora didn’t know what the doctor had given her but when she woke up she felt calm, able to be with people.

•••

Mrs. Reddy was at breakfast without her family. She sat in the corner, eating cereal that was placed before her, drinking coffee. The doctor sat with her, rising to wash his hands every few minutes.

“She’s a bit tired still. Family are having a break away. How’d you sleep, Mrs. Reddy?” the doctor asked her.

Her mouth was droopy and her eyes dull.

“How are you feeling, Dora? After your panic attack? We’ve all been there. You can tell us about it if you want,” Julia said. “You know it’s good to talk.”

“You just want to hear another sad story,” Larry said. “You’re a fucken pariah.”

“We all love sad stories,” Julia said.

Dora said, “I don’t know if you’ve been married, or in a long-term relationship . . .” In the breakfast room all the cutlery was silent. “I . . . but you know when it starts out, you can’t imagine it being over. Like a friendship, like you know your friend from high school, who you think will be your friend forever? And they fade away and you think of them every now and then till you don’t. Long term relationships you start in love but you end up hating each other. He fucked around on me which makes him an arsehole. Not a monster. But if I thought of him as a monster I could pretend he was evil, that I never loved a monster. I told my kids he was evil, didn’t I? Told them so many stories about how awful he was they didn’t trust him.”

Luke came and sat with her. She’d imagined his past by now, wondered what it was he’d done to make him want to live here. It wasn’t what he’d seen, it was what he’d done. She was sure.

“Tell us about it,” he said. He put his hand on hers.

“I wrote a story about it,” she said. “This isn’t my story. This is made up.”

No one told her that a safe place could be dangerous too.

When she was five, her bedroom was safe if she pushed her chair against the door. Her sister could not get in to pinch pinch pinch.

But you couldn’t trust safety. Like that man you thought you loved. Loved you. How quickly he turned.

When she was twenty-five, she could lock herself in the toilet, stuff toilet paper in her mouth and scream scream scream, then she would be safe from hurting the children, safe from taking up the cord from her electric frypan and swinging it around like a lariat, spinning it against the flesh of those nagging, smelly children who trusted her because she was Mummy.

“Don’t forget your lunches,” she says to her children, her two little girls.

She dropped the children at school and tried to decide what to do for the day. The phone rang. She knew it was Derek. He called every day at 12:15, when his boss went to lunch.

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