Backwaters by Emma Ling Sidnam

Author:Emma Ling Sidnam [Emma Ling Sidnam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2023-08-24T00:00:00+00:00

Strange Beats

I call Mum. She picks up after seven rings, sounding flustered.

‘Hi, Laura.’

‘Hi, Mum, are you busy?’

‘No, no, just out for a walk, that’s all.’

We talk about my day and her day, and about how I’m coming over for dinner on Sunday, like always.

I try to gently edge into the topic of adoption. But it’s impossible to broach it gently.

‘Can I look for your birth parents? I know you said you don’t want to know, but Max and I really do. We really want to know who our grandparents are.’

She pauses. I can almost hear her thoughts like assaults against the inside of her skull.

‘You can look, if you want to,’ she says, finally. I can tell it cost something for her to say that. Mum putting herself last like always.

‘Thank you. Really. Thank you. It means a lot to us.’

I try to convey my gratitude in the tone of my voice, but it just comes across as overly emphatic.

‘I don’t know if you’ll find anything,’ she says. ‘The adoption might have been under the table. There might not be any records.’

‘Well, if there is anything, I want to know.’

There’s another long pause.

‘If you do find anything…’

‘Do you want to know?’

‘Well, if you’re going to find out anyway, it’s a bit strange if you know and I don’t…’

Her voice is hesitant, nervous. But somewhere there I can detect thin traces of hope.

‘Do you want to talk about how you’re feeling about all this, Mum?’

I’ve never made an offer like that before. Mum has always been the kind of mum to keep a smile pasted on her face in front of the kids. She talked to her friends about her feelings, never to us.

‘Carly even helps her mum with dating problems,’ I told Mum once, when I was about fourteen. ‘She says that her mum is like her best friend.’

Mum shook her head. I could tell she didn’t approve.

‘I’m your mother,’ she said. ‘I look after you. You don’t need to hear about my problems.’

‘But what if I want to help you?’

‘You can help me when I’m old.’

It always came back to that. I’ll look after you now. And one day you’ll look after me.

On the phone now, I wonder if that day is coming sooner than we both thought.

I hear her breathing down the line, and for a moment I feel like she’s about to open up to me. Tell me her feelings, fears, secrets.

‘I’m fine,’ she says in a tight voice, and I can’t hear her breathing any more either.

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