Rokitansky

Chapter Four

FOUR

Moira slowly opened her eyes and stared at the artex ceiling. She focused on the swirls and patterns and found comfort in the silent shapes. Since she came home from the hospital, these brief moments between sleep and wakefulness were the most precious, safest time of the day. Unknowledgeable seconds to be enjoyed, before memory reminded her who she was and what she would never be. She breathed a silent sigh and wished that she had not yet found out what she already knew. Her sixteenth birthday had been and gone, spent in a lonely hospital bed with little cause for celebration. It didn't matter. It was best forgotten about.

Moira carefully manoeuvred her left arm out from under the duvet without moving any other part of her body. Her fingers spidered over the surface of the bedside table, before locating the old fashioned alarm clock and lifting it in front of her face. She squinted her eyes until they obeyed her brain. They translated the hands of the clock to contribute to her decision-making on the matter of getting up. It was seven-thirty. If she was going to school today, it was time to get out of bed. She sat up too quickly and the pain ripped through her. It had been five days since the operation and it still hurt when she moved. She was tired of sitting around the place, and bored with the self-pity her parents encouraged and imposed upon her.

Moira washed herself and poured her limbs into her uniform. She checked her reflection front and back twice, to be sure that nobody could see the giant pad between her legs beneath her school skirt. The bleeding had almost completely stopped, but mother would be angry if she got any more blood on her virgin underwear or the white bed sheets.

She made her way downstairs, where the house was unusually quiet for the time of day; no kitchen sounds, no radio, no voices to greet her ears. Mother and Father were sitting in silence, together but apart at the kitchen table. They stared at her as though an unwelcome stranger had entered the room, fearful but protected in a bubble of twinned solitude.

"Let me handle it," muttered Mother under her breath. The words were meant for Father's ears only, but an unexpected breeze drifted through the open kitchen window, it caught the words and hurled them in Moira's direction. They were mere whispers by the time they reached Moira, who still stood statue-like in the doorway. She blinked with understanding, well aware that she was the ‘it’ and curious to discover how she was about to be handled. Father's eyes accepted Mother's words, they avoided his daughter and turned down to frown at the table.

"Good morning, how are you feeling?" asked Mother, a bizarre forced cheerfulness in her tone. She tried to smile at her daughter. It had been so long since she had done so, that her face twisted with confusion.

"Okay," said Moira, wanting desperately to leave this place and go to school. "Thank you for asking," she added, afraid to say the wrong thing, careful to use words that would be deemed to be polite, anxious to avoid confrontation. Mother had been kind to her since the operation, Moira didn't want the ceasefire to end.

"Come and sit down, darling, I see you have dressed for school, but are you still in pain?"

"I'm okay," lied Moira and sat down opposite them both.

"Good, that's good," said Mother. "We just wanted to sit down and have a chat with you before you go back to school. Would you like some breakfast?"

"No."

"No thank you," corrected Mother, a flash of danger in her eyes.

"No thank you," repeated Moira.

"Your father and I having been thinking about how best to handle your situation." There was a pause then, an empty vacuum for Moira to fill, but she didn't have the right words to fit the space, so it remained barren. It was like a square desperately trying to fit with a circle, another invisible gap widening between them and her. In the absence of a response, Mother took a deep breath and continued. The words which came out of her mouth had been carefully considered and rehearsed.