Then she had changed into uniform and become the person who told me not to be stupid, made me drag hose until my shoulders considered legal action, and looked at me like she could see every ridiculous thought before I had finished having it.
I put my pen down.
This is not journalism.
This is whatever happens to a brain when it is overtired, over-caffeinated and under-supervised.
The kitchen door opens again.
This time it is Mish.
She stops just inside and looks around.
“Oh,” she says. “You cleaned.”
“A little.”
“Was it dirty?”
“No.”
Her eyebrowlifts.
“Yes.”
She comes in, opens a drawer, takes out a roll of tape, then shuts it again with her hip.
“Pip know you’re doing this?” she asks.
“She told me to hang out.”
“And your version of hanging out is washing mugs?”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain anxiety.”
“That too.”
Mish smiles, but there is nothing unkind in it. “Careful. You’ll make yourself useful and then we’ll never get rid of you.”
I should have a quick answer for that.
Something neat.
Something self-deprecating.
Something that does not involve the strange little pull at the idea of being useful here.
Instead, I say, “There are worse things.”
Mish’s smile changes by a millimetre.
Then she lifts the tape. “Don’t move the biscuits.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because we mean it.”
