The Dazzling Truth by Helen Cullen

Author:Helen Cullen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Published: 2020-06-23T20:53:05+00:00

Inis Óg: February 1996

Dear Diary,

The wind is blowing from the east.

What a torment.

It always brings one of my headaches with it, scattering debris about my feet, unearthing saplings of hope before their roots are secure.

It carries the voices from the schoolyard into my room as if the radio was blaring static in the air between stations.

Murtagh loves to hear it, the life from the schoolyard, but it chills me.

They sound like a flock of seagulls screeching, competing with each other to banish any ounce of silence. I hate to think of my own children among them.

Are they being drowned out, or are they the drowners?

I sometimes wonder who they are when we aren’t there to witness their behavior, who they will become after we’ve gone.

Sometimes they feel like strangers to me.

As if they belong to someone else.

As if I am babysitting and their real mother will come to collect them soon.

Not that I could ever say such a thing aloud, not even to Murtagh, who loves to spot the little bits of me and him in them as they appear.

I hate that game. It frightens me to think what genes I have passed along, genes they may already be hiding.

Of course, I love them.

Of course, I do.

But sometimes I feel I’ve somehow kept them at arm’s length, like I don’t want to become too attached to them, or they to me. That’s absurd, though, isn’t it? And I’ve never been very good at keeping my distance, despite my best/worst intentions.

I need to know they love me, and sometimes I test them.

Pull away to see if they will chase me.

That’s not an easy thing to confess, even to myself, but I do.

Murtagh never seems to have these struggles. He says your heart gets bigger the more you love. That the more energy he gives the children, the more it energizes him.

But it’s not more heart I need, just some peace, some privacy, some time to myself.

I suppose it must be different for men. They’ve never felt their child feed on their own body, take their life source from theirs.

I feel Nollaig monitoring me sometimes, so suspicious.

I think she can read my mind. It’s ridiculous, but I find it unnerving and it brings out the worst in me. Last night I felt her watching me from the landing as I massaged rose oil into my legs. Why wouldn’t she come in instead of lurking about?

In those moments I know I should reach out to her, call her closer, but something holds me back. Instead, I stretched my leg out and slammed the door with my foot without ever looking up.

What are all these minor aggressions doing to us?

I don’t know, but I’ll make it up to her.

I always do.

And we’ll forget anything ever happened.

Or at least never mention it, and that’s the same thing in the end, isn’t it?

I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t write these lines into the ether. My mother used to warn me never to

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.