Free After Cleo by Helen Brown

in order to discover who they are. Not so long ago she’d been writing a sex column for a student magazine. I wasn’t sure what was more shocking. My daughter the sex columnist or my daughter the Buddhist nun.
    If she wanted to rebel, why couldn’t she just get a tattoo?
    â€˜What about your scholarship?’ I asked, trying to control the tempest whirling inside.
    Lydia nudged her chair under the table and glanced sideways.
    â€˜Do you have any idea how many kids would give their eye teeth for a scholarship like that?’ I said, standing to match her height.
    â€˜It’s not working for me,’ she murmured, hurrying toward the doors. ‘I’ve had enough of Economics and Pol Sci.’
    I reminded her of Shakespeare’s words, ‘Get thee to a nunnery.’ Convents had been dumping grounds for women for centuries. If a man wanted to get rid of his wife, or an unmarriageable daughter, he packed her off to a life of prayer and chastity. The number of convent ruins in Europe, and the size of them, is appalling proof of that. While I didn’t know much about Asian nuns, I’d heard they had miserable lives, sweeping, cooking and performing menial tasks for superior male monks.
    â€˜Where are you going?’ I asked, following her.
    â€˜Home to pack,’ she said, flushed with emotion. ‘I’ll walk. Thanks for the coffee,’ she added, before disappearing into a stream of shoppers.
    I stood at the counter in disbelief. What century was she living in? Dropping a tip in the jar, I recalled how I’d dragged her as a little girl along to some of the antics my New Age friends had got up to in the 90s. Crystal healers and aura readers had seemed harmless at the time, but maybe they’d tipped her into some wacky spiritual zone.
    While our daughter walked home to prepare for monastic life in a war zone, I drove into town to enter a different battlefield.
    If you want a steady support person, Philip’s your man. He sat beside me in the hospital waiting room later that afternoon, studying a yachting magazine while I worked through a book of crosswords. He appeared not to be emotionally burdened in any way. Maybe this forbearance came from his army training, or from his years at boarding school.
    The waiting room had a loathsome smell of fear. A raucous machine spat coffee from a pipe. Undrinkable sludge. Whoever chose the floral arrangement had a sick sense of humour. They’d placed a vase of arum lilies – didn’t they know lilies symbolised death? – in a prominent position beside the tropical fish tank.
    I pointed out the driftwood sculpture to Philip. ‘Better left on the beach,’ he muttered. It was his way of saying he hated everything about the place too. I loved him for that.
    A cheerful woman called my name and Philip followed me into the surgeon’s office. Lined with pale wood, it was a pleasant room with brochures about handling emotions and various other inconveniences. A regulation box of tissues sat on the desk. A nurse in the corner typed into her computer. I wondered if she was there to provide emotional backup for the patient – or a witness in case patients turned litigious.
    â€˜How did this happen?’ the surgeon asked me in a tone that was alarmingly tender as we peered at images of the swirling planetary system inside my right breast. The nature of her question was unnerving. She sounded like a mother soothing a child who’d fallen off a tricycle. I’d eavesdropped on enough doctors to know they have a good idea what’s wrong long before they tell you anything.
    â€˜What’s your feeling?’ I asked, deploying journalistic training (i.e. ask questions that don’t have yes/no answers).
    â€˜Do you really want to know?’ she asked – meaning, do you really want to sell Bibles in Baghdad/put your head in a pot of boiling porridge?
    No! Stop right there, thanks. I’ll just