The Beauty of Impossible Things by Rachel Donohue

Author:Rachel Donohue [Donohue, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books

* * *

‘It’s so awful, I can’t think straight,’ my mother said.

She was putting dishes away in the kitchen later that afternoon. There had been no news yet as to Lewis’s where abouts. She kept pacing up and down, starting tasks and then not finishing them. She had also rung his mother and the guards several times to try and find out information, but no one knew anything yet.

‘I’m going to help in the search this afternoon,’ she said.

‘Nobody is taking it too seriously yet, but they should. He never runs away and I’ve. . .’ I said, stopping.

‘Please finish,’ she said, eyebrows raised.

‘I’ve had some dreams about him and I tried to warn him not to go to the Ridge.’

She leaned on the table for a second, her head down. ‘I painted his parents once.’ She looked out the window then.

I turned to look out too. Mr Bowen was reading in the shade, sunglasses on, a pen in his hand and a sheaf of paper on the ground beside him. We had not spoken since the evening before.

‘When?’ I asked.

‘Years ago, before he was born. I called it The Wedding Party. They were on the bandstand having their photos taken and she was wearing a blue wedding dress, all frills and a veil. It was the most extraordinary sight, she was trying to hide her pregnant stomach under the bouquet. His father was smoking, restless. It was odd and not joyous in any way, to be honest. They looked miserable together, which in the end they were.’ She stood up and walked to the cupboard.

‘Why a blue dress?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know, for shame maybe, she felt she couldn’t wear white,’ she said, looking at me, her eyes sad.

‘And she was pregnant with Lewis?’ I replied.

She nodded. ‘I hate weddings really, always have.’ She took a vase out of one of the cupboards.

‘Always?’ I asked.

‘Always, even as a teenager which I was when I painted that picture. I never saw the romance of it,’ she said, looking at me, her gaze steady.

‘Why?’

‘I shouldn’t mind being a bride at a wedding. . .’ she said.

‘. . .if I could be one without having a husband,’ I finished it for her. ‘Maybe whether you are wanted or not as a baby changes your life, like decides it.’

She didn’t answer but gathered up the lavender she had collected and left on the table.

‘Don’t think everything about us was a mistake,’ she said, putting them into a vase.

‘Did you want me?’ I asked.

‘How can you even ask that? Of course I did,’ she replied softly. ‘I’ve had the life I chose.’ She touched the top of my head with her gentle mouth.

I wanted to believe her, to think that our aloof existence here was all part of her life plan. Some voices from the front garden drifted in through the open windows. A woman from the city, in thin heels and a nice dress, was talking to Mr Bowen. She flicked her hair continuously and laughed gaily.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.