“My mum.”
“She okay?”
“She’s fine.” I throw my phone onto the garden table, careful not to knock over our Supermalt. “She always is.”
Shu begins throwing some very questionable gang signs. “I almost forgot, I also brought what you asked for.” She takes two joints out of her pocket and passes me one. “Was kinda surprised, I’m not gonna lie. Didn’t know this was your thing.”
“It’s not really,” I admit, “but I tried it once and I just remember feeling…” I think of the brownies from that night. “It was nice.”
Shu lights our joints and I inhale. I cough twice, but it settles quicker than the brownies did—delivering a loosening, an ease I’ve been in desperate need of.
I lean back into my chair, inhale again and show the sun my face. “Did you know compassionate leave is only one to two days long?” I tell her. “Companies aren’t obligated to give you any more time than that.”
Shu pulls the sunglasses from her hair. They’re Ray-Bans. I remember she’s on a fifty-thousand annual salary. Sometimes I forget because Shu doesn’t like to spend a lot of money now that she’s saving for a mortgage.
Fifty thousand a year.
Shu is five months younger than me but earns more than twice as much. But she has a business degree. So? I have one in English literature. Reading and analyzing Middlemarch and Ulysses was no walk in the park. Shu works hard. I hardly recline on a beach sipping mai tais. What’s even in a mai tai?
“Only two days?” Shu repeats. “I think the fuck not.”
“Right? Can you imagine a mother losing a child and then going back to work on Tuesday to listen to Steve ramble on about commuter traffic?”
“Fucking Steve. How much time did OTP give you?”
“Two weeks,” I answer. “Then I can slowly reintroduce myself part-time and then full-time again when things start to feel normal.”
“It doesn’t ever feel normal, Mads. It’s just less shit on some days.”
I lower my unbranded sunglasses to look at her.
“Don’t,” she warns.
“You never talk about your grandmother,” I say quietly. “But I know you loved her more than anyone.”
“It’s not my style,” she says. “I get that some people like to talk; my sister still won’t shut up about her and it was three years ago, but that’s not me.”
I let it go. “I’m going to change that law,” I announce. “The compassionate leave thing. Is it a law? Whatever it is. I’m going to change it.”
“How?”
“Become prime minister? Although I am a Black woman with immigrant parents from a working-class background who went to state school, so it’s unlikely I’ll ever get voted in. But maybe I could marry a rich man who went to Eton, then poison him and garner the sympathy of voters before taking over?”
“Wasn’t that the series finale to Politician, Corrupted?”
“Oh yeah, it was.” I shrug. “The wife’s lawyer managed to get her off the murder charges though, so it’s still worth considering as a plan B.”
“Mads, the wife was sentenced to life and then suffered a heart attack in her prison cell.”
“Plan C then.” I rest my head on the back of my chair, inhale again. “You’re Christian, Shu. Do you always believe in God?”
“Yeah, course. Got to.”
“Why?”
“Because,” she says, “I can’t carry on living believing human beings are as good as it gets.” She looks at me. “We’re the worst.”
* * *
It’s really quiet when Shu leaves. I’m sat in the living room staring at the TV and think about texting Nia to hurry up. The silence begins to make a ringing noise. I pull my jumper over my mouth and scream.
When Nia returns hours later, she asks, “How were you?”
“Yeah, fine,” I answer.
She looks at me. “You sure?”
I nod and try to put some authenticity behind my smile. “Yes, I’m sure.”
We take a short walk to the local shop. Nia and I rank chocolate bars whilst we’re there; we disagree on many but both hold white chocolate in high regard. We make omelets for dinner and finish season one of The Cabin Plan.
Penny
Dear Maddie,
I’m so sorry to hear about your father. We’re thinking of you and your family at this difficult time.
Lots of love to you and we’re here for you if you need anything. Xx
* * *
Friday is cereal for breakfast and then I sleep until lunch, then decide I’m not hungry yet and skip it. I’ve only cried two … three … four times since my dad died? That’s not enough. Only yesterday Nia made me laugh; this morning, I looked out of the window to another blue cloudless sky and thought, What a beautiful day.
Nia pokes her head into my room. “Come on, let’s go to Sainsbury’s, the big one.”
I lift my head off my pillow. “Too far.”
“The weather’s nice though,” she says as if that decreases the distance, “and I’m craving Twisters.”
“The ice cream?”
“Yeah. Let’s get a box.”
“Okay, I’ll check the bus time.”
“It’s only a twenty-minute walk.”
The thought alone makes my bones heavy. “I’m really tired, Nia, can’t you go alone?”
She smiles plainly. “I want you to come with me.”
“Are you afraid to return and find me swinging from the ceiling?”
“I am now.”
“Not to worry. I don’t have the energy.”
“Good to know,” she says.
“I’d just take the overdose route.”
Nia claps her hands twice. “Enough. Let’s go.”
* * *
I pull my hair back and put on a bra. My socks are odd, but the world has bigger problems. I have to shield my eyes when we’re outside, and we begin to walk.
“Please feel like you can talk about your dad if you want to,” Nia suddenly says. “But also don’t feel like you have to.”
“Those two options essentially cancel each other out, leaving the compromise to be … silence?”
“I’m just saying, feel free to say what you feel when you feel it. I’ve only just been able to start talking about my dad without feeling some kind of way.”
“But it’s been ten years!”
She laughs. “Don’t look like that, everyone’s different.”
“You know, only recently I’ve been thinking that it was because I never asked.”
She shrugs and says, “If you had, I would have shut it down quick.”
“I wish I’d called my dad or gone to see him sooner before he died,” I confess. The street’s quite empty today and we stop at a red light. “I was meant to be there that morning, but I went out drinking the night before, and I don’t even drink. I didn’t want to go out that night either, but I made both of those decisions and the regret is eating at me. I’ve never suffered such an irreversible regret before, a regret with no silver lining, and it makes me want to block out any noise or thoughts and it pulls me down until I’m heavy and tired from doing nothing other than attempting to avoid how I feel.”