Page 53 of The Flowers of Bay C
‘Couldn’t find them.’
I sigh. ‘Socks?’
‘Here.’ He plucks out a pair of big red fluffy slipper socks. I’m not sure they’ll jam into the ballet flats, but they’ll keep my feet warm, I suppose.
‘What about my hat and gloves I asked you for?’
He brandishes a bulging Aldi bag at me.
‘What’s that?’
‘Well how was I supposed to know which hat and scarf or whatever you want?’
‘Jake, did you just tip the entire contents of our hat and gloves basket into this bag?’
He shoots his eyes off to the side and twists his mouth in a wry little grin.
‘Jake!’
‘Doesn’t matter, does it? You can get what you want and I’ll take the rest home.’ He shoves the bag on the floor under my chair, then gazes at me. ‘Listen, Mum, I… I made you something.’
‘What?’
He rolls his eyes. ‘There’s no need to look so surprised. I do occasionally do nice things, don’t I?’
‘Umm, yes…’
‘Wow.’ He scowls. ‘Well, this time I have, anyway.’
I grin at him. ‘What do you want? Money for a takeaway? New trainers?’
‘Muuum!’ He stares at me, more exasperated than amused.
‘Sorry. Just trying to be… I mean, just a little joke.’
He grunts.
‘So, show me then,’ I say. ‘What’ve you made?’
His cheeks flush with colour and he stands there, his backpack on the floor, twisting his hands together.
‘I just made you this.’ He bends and digs into the bag, then drops a large envelope onto my bed. I stare. Jake doesn’t make things. Jake doesn’t do things that are not on the computer or the phone or the football pitch. Jake doesn’t do things for me.
‘Well open it, then.’ He gazes at his bitten down fingernails. I pull a card out of the envelope, a piece of computer photo card folded in two. Turn itover and stare.
‘I know sunflowers are your favourite flower. And I know you can’t have flowers in hospital. And I know you think real cards are a bit boring and all that.’
I swallow, overcome.
‘I did it in GIMP.’
‘Um—’
‘Oh Mum, don’t look at me with those what are you into now eyes, like you think I’m into something creepy. It’s an open-source graphics program.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
‘And so here, I like free drew the petals using the paintbrush tool and then I gave them an alpha mask and kind of used this gradient to fill them, like orange to yellow, see here?’
