Before she died and came back to haunt me, I lived with my mother for two years. They wouldn’t let her out of the hospital bed until they knew she was coming home to someone, and my father had the foresight to die a decade prior. I asked her doctors for a care package. No result. When they told her this, she took it to mean that no one cared.
Behind the dusty velvet curtains in my mother’s spare bedroom was a streetlight bright enough to seep around the edges and keep me up all hours of the night. At four o’clock I’d stand in the window and watch the rain fall like knives and write descriptions in my head of the garden, four metres square of concrete jungle. To the song of her snoring I’d walk along the landing and trace my fingers along the bannisters, planning how to photograph the woodwork for the house listing. When I spoke of my mother, the neighbours’ mouths gaped, horrified at my exasperation, and I made a mental note to warn the next owners they could never be honest.
I flooded the charity shops with her clothes after she finally died. Delicate jewellery went to nieces and grand-nieces who used to see her twice a year. The rag and bone man had the contents of her garage. I kept my father’s favourite fountain pen and nothing else. I bought my own house out of the money from selling my mother’s. The day before I handed over the keys, I sat on the stairs and asked her not to follow me.
When I stood in my new bathroom sizing up the vacant space on the wall where a mirror should’ve been, I felt the ghosts of other mothers washing their young daughters in the bath. My new mirror eventually found its way onto the wall – when I looked into it, my own mother would put her hands on my shoulder, her sharp, skinny claws squeezed white. On the patio, my eyes closed, I’d hear other mothers play catch with their children, a reprieve from homework. In my ear my own mother would whisper to me. You weren’t even in the room when I died.
Before long I could do nothing without her, even if I wanted to. Every time I stirred my coffee: You drink too much sugar. Every time I took to bed after midnight: No wonder you have those godawful bags under your eyes. She was talented, my mother. She wove her way into the foundations of a house she’d never stepped foot in.
When I put the new house up for sale, I warned the real estate agent that the new owners would need to exorcise it before they moved in. I suggested sage smudging. I don’t think he believed me.
Before she died and came back to haunt me, I lived with my mother for two years. They wouldn’t let her out of the hospital bed until they knew she was coming home to someone, and my father had the foresight to die a decade prior. I asked her doctors for a care package. No result. When they told her this, she took it to mean that no one cared.
Behind the dusty velvet curtains in my mother’s spare bedroom was a streetlight bright enough to seep around the edges and keep me up all hours of the night. At four o’clock I’d stand in the window and watch the rain fall like knives and write descriptions in my head of the garden, four metres square of concrete jungle. To the song of her snoring I’d walk along the landing and trace my fingers along the bannisters, planning how to photograph the woodwork for the house listing. When I spoke of my mother, the neighbours’ mouths gaped, horrified at my exasperation, and I made a mental note to warn the next owners they could never be honest.
I flooded the charity shops with her clothes after she finally died. Delicate jewellery went to nieces and grand-nieces who used to see her twice a year. The rag and bone man had the contents of her garage. I kept my father’s favourite fountain pen and nothing else. I bought my own house out of the money from selling my mother’s. The day before I handed over the keys, I sat on the stairs and asked her not to follow me.
When I stood in my new bathroom sizing up the vacant space on the wall where a mirror should’ve been, I felt the ghosts of other mothers washing their young daughters in the bath. My new mirror eventually found its way onto the wall – when I looked into it, my own mother would put her hands on my shoulder, her sharp, skinny claws squeezed white. On the patio, my eyes closed, I’d hear other mothers play catch with their children, a reprieve from homework. In my ear my own mother would whisper to me. You weren’t even in the room when I died.
Before long I could do nothing without her, even if I wanted to. Every time I stirred my coffee: You drink too much sugar. Every time I took to bed after midnight: No wonder you have those godawful bags under your eyes. She was talented, my mother. She wove her way into the foundations of a house she’d never stepped foot in.
When I put the new house up for sale, I warned the real estate agent that the new owners would need to exorcise it before they moved in. I suggested sage smudging. I don’t think he believed me.
