Recently, after the Day of Finding the Silver Hair, I started thinking about what my children are going to think when they read my stories. The things I have written. The things I have made indelible and allowed to swirl about in the web-cache-cookie-box-thing. They're going to think I've had a terrible life. They're going to have, or think they have, insights into my consciousness, my psychology.
So this is a prolepsis for future sproggles, It's fiction, kids. Mostly.
This story-in-process was inspired by a recent student assignment which I'm marking now. Always good to try them, I think. Failed miserably. It was one-about-death, whereas I got as far as, to quote Schmidt on New Girl (I love Zooey Deschanel's bouncy hair), a bit of light choking.
The title isn't meant to be modern or clever. I just can't yet decide. Redrafts and Death Story to follow, no doubt…
Thumb-prints / Red and Blue Makes Purple
Georgie's fingers are red, slick with paint.
As I look at them, my mouth dries. My tongue and cheeks feel sticky. 'There you go. Just like that.'
He slaps the page. Looks for me.
'Perfect. You're so good. Now, shall we try the blue?'
I look at his hands, twisting in the paint on the PVC mat that Andrew made.
Andrew has a day off. He's shaving butternut squash at the dining table, one ear on the football.
Georgie has been shouting me. 'Purple, mummy. Mummy, purple!'
'Where are you, Liv?' Andrew's says, as I check my phone again.
*
Your thumbprints on my arms remind me of my mother bending her weight into the pastry, making her imprint. My eye-level perspective. The floury worktop. The hard whizz as she spun the dish about, rolling her thumb into the lip of the pie. Always the quick glance downwards, for me. The one thing that will never be lost, now that she is gone. The way I am tethered to my son.
*
But I had bumped into you again last week. We had. All of us. A plastic rattle as we go bump up the curb. And directly into you. I veer the buggy right. Thanks for your understanding. No civility required. To Andrew, you're just some guy in non-descript clothes with a home-made haircut, who slightly eyed me up.
'Bakery's that way?' Andrew says.
I mumble something. The shock is static, raking down my cheeks. It cools.
On the green, I watch Andrew with Georgie, skidding around the grass with aeroplane arms. Skirting the pond.
'Not too close.'
Both of them turn to stick out their tongue.
*
I remember how you liked to have sex. That twisting of my limbs and hair and throat. The red patterns on my skin a reminder of you. Little kisses that evolved over the hours and days apart. Turning blue. Seeping deeper into my skin and bones and thoughts. Mottling black and jade and mustard and aubergine. You have sent me a text.
*
'Red and blue makes purple,' I say to Georgie, who has his purple hands up in surrender.
Andrew smiles.
I think about how I thought about having children with you.
In bed, Andrew draws an invisible arc from my eyebrow, over my cheek, slipping to my mouth. His thumb stamps a by-proxy kiss on my lips.
'Are you okay?'
I know what this means. I almost wish Andrew knew how much I had loved you. Because then he'd understand that red and blue makes purple. And he wouldn't have to ask me any more questions. I press my own thumb to my lips. Give him his kiss back.
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