Daughters of the Teardrop Sea

Chapter 4: All About the Colour White

Chapter Four:

All About the Colour White

Laura woke up early in the morning. Larry was still asleep. It was raining outside and she could hear music playing in the living room. She couldn't identify the song but it sounded happy. She got dressed and left the bedroom to her sleeping partner. He was laid out like a fallen leaf.

Morry and Cathy were already up. Morry was in the kitchen puttering around while Cathy was playing 'doctor' with Sarah in the living room. She was lying flat out on her back on the floor and Sarah was kneeling on her stomach. The little darling had one of her father's stethoscope draped around her neck and a jar full of tongue depressors beside her on the floor. There were also some band-aids, some toothpicks, a few tampons, a wooden spoon, and a small hammer.

Sarah was trying to put a tongue depressor on Cathy's nose with a band-aid while Cathy wagged her head back and forth and said, "No, no , no , doctor, the pain is in my neck!" Sarah said, "Well mommy, I KNOW the pain is in your neck but I just have to put this piece of wood right here on your nose first 'cause if I don't YOUR NOSE MAY FALL OFF!!!"

Cathy laughed and cried out at the same time. "Oh no!" she said. "Not my nose! That's the most important part of my whole face. Can't you do something, doctor, so it won't fall off? Please, Please."

"Well," said Sarah. "There may be something we can do. There!", she said, and she touched the end of the stethoscope to Cathy's nose. "I'll staple it with this."

"Do you have an invisible ray or something that you can zap my nose with to make it stay on?", Cathy implored.

Sarah looked surprised. "Well I don't know for sure, Mommy, but..oh, look..." She picked up the wooden spoon. "I think is a special ray, special for noses. Let's see." And the little girl put the end of the wooden spoon to the bridge of her mother's nose and said, "Zap! Yep, that's a special ray alright. Now your nose won't fall off and you can have it forever."

Cathy and Laura laughed. They said good morning to each other. Morry came out of the kitchen and put his arm around Laura and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Laura liked Morry a great deal. She liked his intentness, his passion, his humour. But he frightened her just a little in some ways as well. He was so strong in his convictions that he seemed sometimes to be just short of religious. He was irritating sometimes because he was always trying to penetrate conviction by promoting controversy. And he was even dangerous sometimes because he challenged so ruthlessly one's idea of what was right. Standing beside him, now, with his arm around her shoulder, Laura felt the presence of a man treading very close to the edge, of a man who could go too far.

She gave him a big hug. "You Massive maniac.", she said to him. She looked into his face. "You know, I worry about you sometimes."