Gordon
When he’s home for the holidays, he leaves lines of undecipherable code open on his desktop, hoping his father will see.
White, yellow, and blue text against black, rendered in serious monospaced font.
These are the tools of his trade: his scalpels, his forceps, his retractors.
Sometimes he scrolls back and forth, letting the line numbers blur as his clean, honed code flashes by.
That he understands what is impenetrable to others, has written every bracketed, semi-coloned line of it, makes it beautiful.
And the brain of the computer proves it as it works through his commands, produces the intended result, and says, Yes, this makes sense. You are God.
Tuesday is for bleaching the coffee cups with lemon juice, vacuuming the curtains, sweeping the front doorstep, wiping down the kitchen cupboards, running a cotton bud along the lip of each door to catch any crumbs that might have fallen there.
It is for laundering bed linen, dusting the leaves of the houseplants, and making lasagne.
It is for looking at the empty calendar that hangs on the kitchen wall and scanning back across all the identikit Tuesdays that have gone before and all the ones to come.
Like one of those mirrors that reveals the same thing over and over, but smaller, smaller, smaller.
Because Cora shrinks with each week that passes, with each week that sits between her and whatever life she once had as a mother, a dancer, a schoolgirl, someone’s daughter, heart beating out of her chest as she learned to ride a bike or felt the happiness of biting into flapjack warm from the oven before the syrup had a chance to harden.
She is fifty-four, and she feels the whole world is moving on without her.
She’s been given a life, but she has somehow failed to spend it.
She hasn’t worked outside their home since she was twenty-three.
She has no friends to confide in, barely any relationship with her own mother.
Her daughter rarely asks to speak to her when she phones and, if she does, it’s something tagged onto the end of the call.
Must dash. Got to run. Can’t stop. Gosh, is that the time?
She knows their contact will be drawn to a close before Maia has even said the words.
And Cora does not cling or wheedle. Just tells the girl she loves her, to take care of herself, to remember to have fun.
Because she’s pleased she got out and has her own life up in London.
She has no right to feel abandoned. This was never Maia’s mess to clear up.
But somehow all this has come to mean her husband is her only constant, the only person to make her feel she exists.
She doesn’t even have the television for company now—the remote travels back and forth to work with her husband in his briefcase.
The landline in the hall has been replaced by his mobile, but sometimes Cora still picks up the receiver and listens to the blank nothingness of the earpiece.
Disconnected, it doesn’t even offer the seashell echo of possibility.
It is simply a lump of plastic held to her ear.
One day, she washes a yogurt pot and holds it against the side of her head, letting herself be carried away by the feeling of otherworldliness she hears within.
She remembers when she punched a hole in the bottom and connected it with string to another.
And she and Maia would sit, one in the kitchen, one in the living room, letting the vibrations travel between them.
Some days, she lies on her back in the skewed rectangles of sunlight that fall across the living-room carpet from the patio doors, just for that moment when it shifts or darkens.
Her favorite houseplant is the calathea Maia sent for Mother’s Day.
Not just because it’s from her, but because its large leaves close into an upright column at night and then slowly fan out like open palms during the day.
She loves the small sounds it emits as its leaves unfurl and brush against the wall.
But there are days, like today, when she feels furious with these things, which are not enough and only highlight her solitude.
Then, she wants to take the leaves in her fist and tear them from their stems, to hurl the plant across the room and cover the spotless floor in soil and grind it into the pile of the carpet with her bare feet.
Instead, Cora takes a pan of hot, soapy water outside, props open the front door, and dampens a cloth to wipe down the white paintwork of the portico’s fake pillars. The water cools quickly and her hands feel stiff and cold as she rinses the rag each time it colors with grime.
“Sorry, running a bit late this morning,” the postman says, making her jump.
When she turns, he is holding out the mail for her to take, satchel slung across his body like a grown schoolboy.
She looks at him, and he moves the post an inch or two nearer, as if to let her know he doesn’t have all day.
She accepts it dumbly, surprised he doesn’t realize this is illicit.
Because lately the mail has been delivered straight to the newly installed box that sits on the outside wall above the planter, which only Gordon has a key for.
“Thank you,” she says at last. The postman walks back up the drive and she watches as he works his way around the neighboring houses.
Inside, she sits on the sofa, the mail on her lap.
She knows Gordon is in a meeting with a drug rep until midday.
Sometimes he throws in these details to catch her out, appearing at the very time he said he’d be engaged.
But this morning, his mobile rang, and she could hear the man’s voice on the other end of the line as they agreed to set things back half an hour.
And so, she sits with the weight of the letters.
It’s unlikely there will be anything of interest to her, but she wants what they represent: possibility, a connection with the outside world.
She casts her eyes down and sorts through each piece in turn.
She studies the postmark, the small print of the return address on the reverse.
Lloyds Bank, BX1 1LT. Where is BX? Buxton, Brixton?
She doesn’t remember London boroughs having unique postcodes like that.
Next, an A4 envelope. She feels its thickness, traces the edges of what’s inside and decides it’s a medical journal.
The third envelope is addressed to her—Mrs. Cora Atkin—printed in smart black type.
How funny, she thinks, that people, businesses, still write to her, believing she’s a woman who will receive her own post, will open it, review its contents, and then act upon them.
She stands, goes outside, and posts the first two pieces of mail into the locked box.
And then she returns with the third, which seems almost to vibrate on her lap.
She feels if she were to stare at it long enough, the text inside might become visible through the white of the envelope.
But when it does not, she takes it to the kitchen, boils the kettle, and holds it over the steaming spout, heat pricking at her fingers.
The glue doesn’t lift as easily as she’d hoped, requiring encouragement from the probing blade of a butter knife.
But, finally, she’s in. She glances at the clock: 11:35 a.m. With morning surgery still in progress, she’s sure Gordon won’t pop home before his meeting and so she draws the folded paper out.
Dear Mrs. Atkin,
In relation to the estate of Mrs. Sílbhe Murphy, please confirm receipt of the funds relating to the sale of the deceased’s property and any remaining proceeds after fees and outstanding debts have been cleared.
Yours sincerely,
David Causley, Solicitor
Cora reads the words. Once, twice, three times.
And then a fourth. And a fifth. Unable to comprehend what she’s seeing.
Her mother. An estate. Deceased. She can feel pounding in her ears.
There is no need for yogurt pots or bits of string, the brush of plant leaves against plaster.
She can hear the pulse of her own blood, her own self. And she is alive with fury.
She goes into the hall, pulls a coat from its hook, and shrugs it on, pushing the letter down into her pocket. She doesn’t have a key, but she closes the door behind her, not caring what Gordon will think or how she will get back in later if she changes her mind.
It’s more than two decades since their daughters took swimming lessons together.
But there is no one else to turn to. She is the only person who has ever put a hand on Cora’s arm and told her they will be there if she needs them.
Charles Street. She cannot remember the house number, only a blue front door and a stained-glass window depicting a lighthouse.
She feels like she flies there, though it is a good twenty minutes before she turns into the road.
She studies the houses, trying to see which one slots into place with her memory.
And then there it is, the lighthouse. The door painted a light buttercup yellow now.
She knocks and it’s opened by a younger woman, about thirty, Maia’s age. “Fern?” Cora says.
The woman shakes her head and behind her the voice of a young child calls out, “Mummy, I can’t reach.” She begins to shut the door.
“Wait. Mehri and Fern. They used to live here. Do you know where they’ve gone?”
“Oh, Mehri,” the woman says, recognition on her face. “Yes. I can’t remember, only that they were staying local.”
“Might you have it written down? Their new address?”
The child calls again and the woman says, “Sorry, we’ve been here five years now. I can barely remember what day it is, let alone someone’s address from all that time ago.”