Free Your Father Sends His Love by Stuart Evers Page A

Always she thinks of her. Perhaps unlatching the morning door, clothed from a night out.Maybe brushing her hair, picking her toenails on the sofa. Perhaps turning channels on the television, maybe giving some sage, useless advice. But today, nothing.
    Without thinking she reaches for the remote and turns off the television. She puts her hand on his and kisses deep into the crevice of his neck.
    â€˜I want to go to bed,’ she says. His hand feels cumbersome beneath hers. As she pulls him up she can feel resistance, not a little confusion.
    â€˜Come now,’ she says.
    The bedroom is dark at her insistence; for this function it is always dark. After long kisses, she feels his hands on her back, palms on the wings, fingers massaging where the ink has stained and he does not seem to notice anything different. The ease of this deception surprises her. She lies down on the bed, sweat on her top lip, her illustrated skin sticking to the fitted bed sheet, but otherwise entirely airborne.
    They make love every night that week. When the pleasure comes, she feels the wings beating, taking her higher, up into darkness. Tom is excited by the freedom she allows. He touches her bottom in public, kisses her open-mouthed in front of the girls. This is what it feels like to be desired; what it is to desire.

    Good fortune stalks her. Tom at last finds a job; pay okay, enough for them to breathe easier, tackle some of the debts. She receives a pay rise and a school inspection records good things about her teaching. The kids, hers and the ones in class, behave. Amy is accepted on a scholarship to the local public school and Chloe is given the kind of glowing report that the year before would have seemed impossible. In class, Maria senses trouble before it happens, hears the jokes before they are told, sees the tears before students weep. At home, the girls seem to listen to her a little more closely; do not shy away when she gathers them into her arms. Tom and Maria redecorate and have people over for dinner; both of them cook. Everyone – Kevin and Megan, Alex and Helen, John and Nick – agrees that the house looks lovely; that they have done so much with the space.
    She thinks of Gwen at random moments. She is there at school – walking the corridors, red-lipsticked, bobbles on her thick black tights, legs like pipe-cleaners , a rucked-up skirt – but mostly she is there when Maria is alone, in front of the mirror.
    Maria wonders whether Gwen would have forgotten about the tattoos by the time of her fortieth birthday. Wonders whether she only has such a fearsomely exact memory of the poorly carpeted flat, the wood-box television set, the garish print above the mantel salvagedfrom a skip, and the promise made that they would get tattoos because Gwen never even saw her thirtieth birthday. Had she lived, would Gwen have questioned it ever having happened? I said that? Really? I don’t remember that. Maybe I did. I talked the most perfect rubbish then.

    The house is silent and Maria is in her bedroom, shirtless and looking over her shoulder, pulling the skin taut over her shoulder blades. The morning is bright and the windows are open, curtains too. She looks at the tattoo and is glad it is Saturday morning.
    Maria woke after Tom and the girls had headed out; a cup of tea left for her on the bedside table. Every Saturday the same, Tom taking the kids swimming. He swims alone, lengths, while the girls take classes with a trained coach. Maria never swims, only occasionally watches her daughters from the observation area, high up, the chlorine stink giving her headaches. She hates swimming pools.
    She is thankful for the quiet, though the argument of the previous night remains loud.
    â€˜Won’t you think of the girls?’ he’d said. ‘Won’t you think of me?’
    That night he’d come home in excitement. An old colleague had moved to Orlando and had offered him their condominium there, they