I find myself slowly backing away, Dimple’s former sense of safeness swept away by the sense of something sinister.
“Are…are you sleeping with James?”
She cocks her head, a gesture so classically Dimple but eerily uncanny in this moment as the person before me morphs into a stranger.It’s clear she’s still assessing me. She takes a sudden step forward, and my tightly wound panic springs free.
“Natalie—”
I don’t wait to hear more. Simply turn, spring out of the bedroom, race down the stairs, Dimple’s footsteps behind me. I snatch my coat from the banister, knowing my keys are inside, and bolt out the door.
“Natalie!” Although it’s still morning, rain clouds have made the sky evening dark. I didn’t realize I was running into a downpour, but it seems I’ve a habit of running into things unprepared. Rain beats into my face, icy, as my feet slap against wet concrete.
“Natalie! If you just stop, I’ll tell you everything,” Dimple yells. “Don’t you want to know the truth?”
I want to get away from her, but I do want to know. Am desperate, even. I risk a glance over my shoulder and see she’s stopped running. See there’s a safe distance between us. I slow. Stop.
She removes her rain-fogged glasses and slips them into a pocket. A moment of relief washes over her, eyes closing for a micro rest before fluttering open.
“I’m just getting a little closer, so I don’t have to yell,” she says, taking very slow, deliberate steps in my direction, palms raised to face me.
Some wet hair has fallen over her furrowed brow. The locks are coiling in on themselves, revealing a curl pattern I’ve never seen before. The only time I’ve seen curls in her hair is when they’ve clearly come from a wand. Glasses discarded and hair curling up, she’s transformed. That feeling of familiarity returns, only this time it feels more like recognition. I’m transfixed.
“What?” she asks. “Have I got something on my face?” The tight smile she tries to float the sentence on fails to add the levity I think she intends.
“Your hair” is all I say.
Surprise flickers across her face. “Oh. Oh yeah. It does that when it’s wet.”
“Dimple, I swear to god, if you don’t just get to the point…” That sense of familiarity intensifies the closer she gets. A visceral dread builds with every moment, but I want to push on, know more. I’m the girl in the horror movie, hand reaching for the handle of the closed basement door, eyes welling with tears, a scream building in my throat, but still, I push the door open. “What the hell is going on? How do you and James know each other?”
She takes a deep breath.
“It’s not James I’m connected to. It’s never been about James. It’s always been about you.”
52
Now
Dimple
There’s something deeply bonding about surviving mothers who can barely survive themselves. I think that’s why Natalie, Claire, and I clicked so well. Our mothers’ mental health made for a roller coaster we were strapped into whether we liked it or not. There were moments everything was great, but predominantly we were just flung around in terror.
Looking back, I think our mothers were a little scared, too. Latched on to each other as two of the only nurses on their team who didn’t sound exactly like everyone else. For whom the culture was so new, their mother having grown up in a strong West African community, and my mother raised in a strong South Asian one. And fear is a powerful emotion. Bonding. Which is why the bond lasted beyond that one hospital, even if it would eventually be broken by other things.
I remember the play-filled evenings and weekends, no border between their home and mine. It was all just Home. To all of us. I’d sometimes stay with Aunty Melissa for a few days, or weeks if my mom went back home to visit family. And vice versa. Nat and Claire were always welcome at Aunty Dev’s. Wherever we were, Nat and Clairewould curl up in one bed and I’d take the other. At theirs, it meant me being in Claire’s bed, and at mine, it meant being on a mattress on the floor. Either way, we’d all get to play sleepover. We’d find torches, shine them in front of our hands and make funny shapes of shadow on the walls. When it thundered outside, we’d all cram together under one duvet and hold each other until it stopped.
The loneliness I might otherwise have felt with it being just me and Mom was curbed by the sense that we had a bigger chosen family. Until it all abruptly ended when I was still very small.
All I knew was that one day, they were all there, and then one day, they weren’t. I ran away from home to Aunty Mel’s more than once, but she’d simply take me straight back.
Mom was cagey about what had happened, although it was obvious her and Mel had had some kind of fallout. And then I felt it. The isolation. Mom was working shifts in the hospital all week and helped out at her friend’s florist on weekends for extra cash. My days were lonely. And Mom felt the isolation, too. I shouldn’t know what the inside of my mother’s throat feels like. Shouldn’t know my fingers pressed in there are the best way to get her stomach empty of pills she shouldn’t have taken. But here we are.
I suppose it’s what got me interested in psychology, really. I wanted to know how to help her.
She finally succeeded in killing herself before I finished my postgrad.
There was a lot of guilt in the wake of her death. I blamed myself for going off to uni, not being there. Wondered if I studied harder, learned faster, if I’d have been able to intervene. It was only in trying to downsize the storage unit of her stuff to save cash that I decided to fire up her old phone. Saw all the texts from Aunty Mel’s husband to Mom. They started friendly. Too friendly. Lewd, even. And my mom was just as bad back. Then the tone turned.
She’s already outgrown her shoes. I’m not asking for money. Please just buy her a new pair
