Page 85 of Am I Allergic to Men?
‘Well, that’s stating the bleeding obvious,’ she says, laughing.
‘Mum?’
‘Yes, Lucy…’
‘What do you think about my last ten years? What I’ve done with my life?’
Hello, existential Lucy who has never really shown her face before this. I don’t think I ever sat still long enough to consider these questions. I just did what was in my gut and what felt right and time ticked along without me ever gazing at my watch in doubt or regret. Mum looks out the window for a minute, at a sliver of sky visible through closed blinds.
‘Lucy. I remember when I held you in my hands for the first time. You were so close in age to Grace and I just remembered, this mass of curls, and thinking, a fifth daughter. How the hell are we going to do this?’
‘I was a mistake, wasn’t I?’
‘A happy accident.’
‘A mistake. But well done for letting Dad hop on when Grace was only three months old.’
She ignores that last comment, which is standard Mum.
‘But there’s always a moment when you’re holding a baby and you’re studying its little face and these miniature little hands and you just wonder about the path, where they’re going to go, what they’re going to do.’
‘Did you think I’d end up on this path?’
‘No. But then did I think Emma would be divorced? That Grace would be a widow? I never thought that either. I didn’t think I’d end up with all these grandchildren.’
‘You’re avoiding the question.’
‘Your path is unfamiliar to me, Lucy, so I can’t comment. I never thought I’d end up with five daughters either. There is no wrong or right path. It is a bemusement to me though that your path seems to be laden in troublemaking and pictures of penises.’
‘They are funny though, aren’t they? The penises.’
‘You youth just have too much time on your hands. Back in my day, if you wanted to send a girl a picture of your penis then you had to set the timer on your camera, take the film down to Snappy Snaps and then probably be banned from that branch.’
I laugh. ‘Spoken like someone with experience. Did Dad make albums for you?’
She shakes her head at me.
‘Seeing as I’ve been at death’s door though and we’re alone, then why are you sometimes the critic, the judge? I never quite know what you think of me. I don’t think any of the sisters truly know…’
She smiles. ‘Lucy… All you girls are my proudest moment. But you’re my force of nature, my whirlwind baby. You’re not on a path, you’re raging through fields and you let people know you’re in the room. I’ve given up trying to understand it but I like your energy. I’ve always liked that. Any criticism of that always comes from a place of love.’
‘Of honesty?’
‘Maybe of trying to protect you all from the bad. Your dad describes it like this. He always says I spend far too much time getting in the way of you and your sisters. The truth is, I hate seeing any of you hurt or upset. It lights a fire in me. When it comes down to it, I’d jump in front of moving traffic for my girls.’
‘A fitting analogy.’
‘Apologies. But he’s right. I wished it were me who got run over and not you. I’d do that a million times over.’
I pause for a moment to hear the emotion in her voice.
‘If a bus hit you a million times over then you’d certainly be dead, Mum.’
She doesn’t see the humour in my retort.
‘So please don’t do that. I quite like you, Mum.’
‘Quite?’
