Page 4 of Fix Them Up
Her warning rang in my ears.
Don’t let your mum convince you out of it.
I knew I shouldtellMum. Be bold. Brave. But I really wanted her blessing. And I didn’t want to have to beg for it.
I heaved a breath, a combination of my unfitness and my anxiety.
‘Mum –’
‘How is work?’ she asked, her tone swift and demonstrative. My confidence plummeted.
‘Good.’
‘You think you’ll stick this one out?’ she mused.
I took a sharp inhale of breath; the noise of our boots crunching on the hard ground grew loud.
‘I’ve been there four years, Mum,’ I said gently.
‘I know, but I know you can get… restless. You’ve always been restless, even as a baby.’
‘Well, I think Dr Harris explained that one.’
I’d gone for my diagnosis with Dr Harris at university after a lecturer had suggested I might have ADHD. I came out of the examination room, Dr Harris having announced I was having twins! She diagnosed me with dyslexia and ADHD. I remembered looking at the psychology report like a flash of lightning had struck me. It all made sense. It all slotted into place. There was a reason for the struggles: the missed appointments, constantly running late, the feeling of being bored and unmotivated. The euphoric highs when that strike of motivation hit. The lows, when I couldn’t move, no matter how much I wanted to – my feet stuck in sinking sand.
It all made sense, and I had a community of people who felt the same way.
Despite that, inadequacy lingered.
Mum scoffed. ‘I’m still not sure she was a real doctor. They saythat some of these places aren’t proper clinics. They sign whatever paper you want them to.’
I closed my eyes.
‘You know, they didn’t have these labels when I was a kid. Now everyone has some problem –’
‘Mum,’ I warned, ‘let’s not get into it.’
I’d had this argument with her a million times and I was so tired. Tired of justifying my diagnosis.
‘Katherine,’ she continued, ignoring my pleas, ‘you were a bright child. Sure, you had some… organisational challenges. But you were bright, clever. You just didn’t apply yourself.’
Anxiety rose like bile in my throat. My eyes and nose stung with tears.
‘Mum, can we please change the subject?’ I asked as calmly as I could.
She relented, and we walked in silence for a few moments. We passed a couple hiking back down the hill. Mum and I gave them a courteous nod. I looked up at the clear blue sky, trying to calm my nervous system, which had gone into overdrive.
‘Have you called the estate agent?’ Mum asked. She probably thought it was a less controversial topic, which made me want to laugh. Or cry. ‘We can do it remotely, I checked. We can send them some keys. Then, they can value it. I can’t imagine it would get more than what your father bought it for before –’ Mum gave a constipated look. ‘You know.’
Before he diedwas what she meant, but she couldn’t say it. ‘You know’ was the extent of the conversation we’d had about Dad’s death since the funeral. While I empathised that some people felt icky about death, it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to talk about him. I needed to. I craved to say how I was feeling. I wanted to claw at my skin and scream into the sky. But Mum shut down every attempt I’d made to talk about him, and she was one ofthe few people who knew Dad. Graham rarely met him. My friends had never met him.
Mum was the only person who could relate to how I felt, but she was content to shove it all under the carpet.
‘I haven’t yet, no –’
‘Oh, come on, Katherine. You need to move quicker than this. It could take forever to sell that house. Not all housing markets are like the one in London. I imagine it’s a lot slower in the Northwest.’
‘Actually, from my research, they are having a bit of a boom at the moment.’
