"The Moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it."
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Acacia Yung-Cooper is a disgruntled, divorced 41-year-old woman whose life was turned upside down fourteen years ago by the loss of her daughter. That's when Odys...
It was so hard on me when I lost my Nancy, but maybe made twice as hard by little Nicholas Loyola stumbling into that pool less than a day later. I hadn't even got my own news out to everyone before they were all flocking over to comfort poor, poor Sandra Loyola and her husband, Bill, who we all used to make fun of behind his back because he always seemed a bit confused when a joke came up, never knowing whether to laugh or not, and when.
It's no surprise, really, I shouldn't have been so worked up over it. The people I was telling, well, they hadn't seen me in months, probably, and they were sad to hear, but Sandra, they saw her at yoga class, at the supermarket, at dinner parties, at whatever it was my college friends were so busy with those days, anyway.
I do see them at the shops sometimes, but I always duck out before a situation can arise. It's much too embarrassing, really, watching them hesitate, should I hug her, do I shake her hand, do I kiss her, I used to kiss her, but do I now? Promising that they'll call me soon and then remembering later why they stopped calling me in the first place. I prefer to just avoid the whole thing.
Well, that day when I was mugged for the second time since I started making money, I was in a shop where I knew the man who worked at the counter, but I didn't think he'd recognize me anyway, so I kept shopping and just didn't look at him.
And what a quaint little place it was, all feathered hats and strappy shoes, leather belts. Not the sort of place I'd normally just muck about in without any real business, but that day, I fancied a new hat.
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Unfortunately, hat stores are known to be rife with mirrors, one of which took me rather off-guard as I entered, because since Tom had left I'd only been looking at myself in mirrors before leaving the house, and even then, only in the most preparedly pleasing expression, hair strewn over half of my face. But in the shop mirror, well, there I was, all sunken cheeks and thin neck in my felty, cream coloured jacket. I blinked at how thin I looked, flexing and unflexing my abdomen under the jacket. Oh, it was a rather good jacket, really, especially on the arms. Well hidden were my hulking, muscle-taut shoulders, or, as Tom had called them, my man shoulders. The woman in the mirror rolled her eyes at the thought, but they watered for a second, real pain. Well, maybe he was right, no one liked a lady with shoulders like a well-trained bull. I'd caught people staring before when I wore sleeveless dresses or t-shirts.
Who cares about your man shoulders? I told myself that day, giving Mirror Woman a smirk before melting into the shop with all the other, normal-shouldered people. I bought a black felt hat that I thought made my cheeks look less hollow and I was right, the man at the counter didn't recognize me at all. Just to give him a jolt, I said, "Thanks a bunch, Marco," when he handed me my bag, even though he wasn't wearing a nametag.
It's easy to forget that I lost Nan so many years ago, since when I see the young mothers in the streets pushing their prams, the wound feels so fresh. And, Sandra likes to assure me, it does for her two, even as in the Christmas card where she's saying it, her two new sons are glossy and blond on the front, leering replacements for the sweet, lost little boy.
