People think it’s weird to have a picture of an old lady on your desk. “Is that your nan?” the HR girl asked last week. I mumbled something vague because how do you explain that your roommate, best friend, and rock was an eighty-year-old woman?
Every morning, I nudge the calendar a little further. Now just the edge of her purple coat is showing.
I hate that I’m covering her up. But I can already hear Craig if he saw it, with that “banter” he thinks everyone loves. Something like,“Who’s the hot granny?”
It’s been four weeks since the funeral, and it still doesn’t feel real.
It happened so fast.
On Tuesday, she had a cough. Tried to blast it out with whisky and a hot water bottle.
By Friday, she was in the hospital.
The week after, I was picking out a coffin.
The doctors said pneumonia was “common at her age,” as if statistics make it hurt less. Like she was right on schedule.
The house feels off now. All the familiar creaks and groans that used to feel like background noise just echo in the silence.
Yesterday, the pharmacy’s automated line called, cheerfully asking for Mrs. Fitzgerald to collect her prescription. I almost lost it.
When I went to cancel everything, the pharmacist asked if I was “coping alright” while holding her denture adhesive.
No, Declan. I’m not coping alright while you give me that sympathy head-tilt over the glue that kept my great-aunt’s teeth from flying across the dining table every time she laughed too hard.
“Morning, gorgeous,” Roy says, dropping into his chair.
I blink hard, pulling myself back to reality, and slide a paper bag across my desk. “They had those blueberry muffins you love at the café downstairs. I grabbed a few before they sold out.”
His eyes light up. “You legend.”
He’s halfway through demolishing the first muffin when I hear the distinctive click-clack of Craig’s ridiculous shoes—dress shoes with secret lifts that fool absolutely no one. My shoulders automatically hunch.
He slams a document onto my keyboard hard enough to make my tea jump.
“What the hell is this?” he barks, his crotch hovering uncomfortably close to my peripheral vision.
I glance at the implementation plan he demanded. The one I’ve “simplified” twice already. I’ve been dumbing down technical diagrams for him so often I’m tempted to get business cards printed:Georgie Fitzgerald: Have You Tried Turning It Off and On Again?
“It’s the plan you requested,” I say.
Craig’s eyes narrow. “Georgina, get a bloody grip. I need something I can show Patrick without giving the man a splitting headache.”
“But I followed your template.”
The same template that kept me chained to this desk until nine last night.
He leans in close enough that I can smell his coffee breath. “Well, the template clearly isn’t working, is it? I need this redone.”
“The thing is,” I say carefully, “if I simplify it any further, we’ll lose some of the technical accuracy—”
“I don’t need a lecture on technical accuracy from you,” he snaps, his red face getting all worked up. “I was in IT while you were playing with Barbie dolls.”
Heat rushes to my neck. The whole office goes dead silent.
Yes, I still get carded buying wine at Tesco. Yes, people occasionally mistake me for the work experience girl. But that comment? That was pure, calculated humiliation.
“If you can’t follow basic instructions, I’ll give this to someone on the team who can.”
