Free Losing It by Sandy McKay Page A

and when she smiled it was only her mouth because her eyes were blank holes. Blankety blank. Everything in slow motion. Hey, Mum. Knock, knock. Who’s there?
    ‘Go away and leave me alone.’
    She didn’t get mad like she used to. She didn’t cover her ears or lose her temper or slouch off to the bedroom when Matt played with the pots any more. Nothing like that. The trouble was, she didn’t get anything. She just smiled this fake robot smile and cleaned the house. Oneday I watched her cleaning the bench. Wipe, wipe, wipe with the dishcloth on the same spot, over and over, gazing into nothingland. Where are you, Mum ? I wanted to scream. Where the heck are you ?!!!
    Her pills were in a line on the windowsill above the sink. Dad used to say if they tipped her up she’d rattle. He tried to make a joke of it but it was hard to laugh.
    The pills made her fat and her face went into a different shape – like a potato. They made her forget things, too. Important things. Like, one day she forgot to pick me up from school. In the junior school you’re not allowed to leave until someone collects you. And because Mum didn’t arrive I had to stay on the mat until the last kid left and then Mrs Clayton took me to the office and phoned home. She waited for ages, tapping her long nails on the desk and pursing her lips to let me know she had more important things to do – looking at her watch every two seconds. But there was no answer. So then she phoned Dad’s work and he came racing over – grumpy, but pretending not to be.
    At home Mum was fast asleep on the couch with Matt crying his head off in his bedroom. Matt’s face was blotchy red like he’d been bawling for hours but Mum hadn’t heard a thing.
    Dad was really mad at first but he soon calmed down. When Mum woke up she burst into tears. I had a sore tummy after that – every day my tummy felt like something bad was about to happen.
    Dad tried to explain. He said that Mum still wasn’t well and that she felt sad most of the time, which I didn’t understand . Why was she sad? I had so many questions. Like why and how come and when was she going to get better?
    Dad couldn’t answer most of them. He said it had something to do with having the baby, so I asked if she was sad after having me as well and Dad said yes, a little bit, and I said well, what did she go and have another baby for then?
    And Dad just shrugged.
    Some days were better than others. Some days Mum seemed fine and others were write-offs. She couldn’t cope with anything going wrong.
    Like, for example, not long after Mum came home from hospital our fridge broke down. We got home from school and the ice cream was all melted and the frozen veg were soggy and there was blood dripping from the mince. So we took everything out, put it on the bench and waited for Dad to come home. Dad said there was no point mucking around because once a fridge broke down it was just as cheap to get a new one. So we all traipsed into town to choose a new fridge. The man said the new fridge would be delivered the next day and they’d take the old one away for nothing.
    When I got home from school the next day I couldn’t wait to see our new fridge. I’d been thinking about it all day. But Mum was sitting at the table with her head in her hands like something bad had happened. And there weretwo fridges in the kitchen – the new one and the old one. Side by side. I asked her why they hadn’t taken the broken fridge away and she said they didn’t take it away because there turned out to be nothing wrong with it. A fuse had blown, that was all, which meant there was nothing wrong with the original fridge.
    I still couldn’t work out why we now had two fridges. And I don’t think Mum could either. She just sat there with her head in her hands like the whole world was coming to an end.
    When Dad got home he just laughed. I should have checked all that out, he said. Oh well, not to worry.

    Dear Jo,
     
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