She touched her forehead. The ache is just the memory of the pain, not the pain itself.
The migraine had attacked with a brutal blow to her right eye early Saturday morning. She was braced for it. She’d known the fucker was coming, so she’d cancelled her plans in anticipation. She’d spent the weekend alone in her bedroom, the blinds down, a cold cloth on her forehead. No-one but her and her migraine.
It was her first migraine since Grant had moved out six weeks ago. No-one to bring her icepacks or glasses of chilled water, no-one to check in or care or lay a firm hand on her forehead. But she’d got through it on her own. A migraine wasn’t childbirth. Although she’d read a survey that showed women who had experienced both rated their migraine pain as the higher of the two, which was oddly cheering to hear.
She remembered her friend Ines talking about how, after her divorce, she’d constructed a desk from an IKEA flatpack on her own while playing ‘I Am Woman’， but then, after she was done, all she’d wanted to do was call her ex and tell him about it.
Brooke felt the same desire to call Grant and tell him she’d got through a migraine on her own. How pathetic. Her migraines were no longer of interest to him. Perhaps they never had been of interest to him.
‘Are you postdrome, my darling?’ her mother would say if she saw her this morning, because now, thanks to her podcasts, she recognised symptoms and spoke the lingo with jaunty ease.
Brooke wanted to snap: You don’t get to use the lingo, Mum, if you’ve never had a migraine.
But her mother would be so remorseful, and Brooke couldn’t stand it. She knew her mother wanted exoneration, and she didn’t think she was deliberately withholding it, but she certainly wasn’t giving Joy what she needed.
‘The thing is,’ Joy would say, ‘I was so busy that year, the year the headaches started, I mean the migraines, when your migraines started, that was a really bad year in our family, a terrible year, our “annus horribilis”， as the Queen would say, I might be mispronouncing it, my grumpy old Latin teacher, Mr O’Brien, would know how to pronounce it, he drowned, the poor man, on Avoca Beach, not swimming between the flags apparently, got caught in the rip, so no-one to blame but himself, but still, anyway, that year, that bad year, there was just a lot . . . and we thought we might lose the business, and both your grandmothers were so sick, and I had no idea what you were going through –’ And Brooke would cut her off, because she’d heard all this so many times before, right down to the drowning of the Latin teacher.
‘Don’t worry about it, Mum. It was a long time ago.’
Her mother had too much time on her hands. That was the problem. She was going a little dotty. She spent hours looking at old photos and then ringing her children to tell them how little and cute they’d been and how sorry she was for not noticing it at the time.
The truth was, Brooke didn’t even remember her mother dismissing her migraines. She had no memory of the ‘unforgivable’ time when Joy yelled at Brooke for coming down with a migraine when they were running late.
What she remembered was the extraordinary, astonishing pain, and her fury with her mother for not fixing it. She didn’t expect her dad or the doctors to fix it. She expected her mother to fix it.
Brooke managed her migraines now: efficiently, expertly, without resentment. Watch for the symptoms. Get on to the medication fast. This had been the first in six months. She was responsible for the incarceration of a monster, and sometimes the monster broke free of its shackles.
‘Last Tuesday, retired tennis star Harry Haddad revealed that he is planning . . .’
The radio announcer’s words slid into her consciousness. She flicked up the volume.
‘。 . . a return to professional tennis next year. The three-time grand slam champion retired after a serious shoulder injury four years ago. He announced his plans on social media last Tuesday and today posted a picture of himself working out under the guidance of his newly appointed coach, former Wimbledon champion Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan. Haddad, who is reportedly soon to release his autobiography, is obviously hoping for one last exciting chapter in the story of his incredible career.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Harry,’ said Brooke.
She changed the radio station to show her disapproval. He was making a mistake. His shoulder would never be the same and Nicole wasn’t the right fit. Former greats didn’t necessarily make great coaches. Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan was a beautiful, single-minded player but Brooke suspected she didn’t have the patience for coaching.