Her voice began to get that flutter in it.
Her eyes had gone all watery. There was something about the newspaper, the boy
knew that.
The family meal finished, Mike had cleared
away and was already in the other room watching the tv. Sam was at the sink
washing up. He was trying to pretend not to notice the change. It was when her
voice quivered that he stopped asking questions. He let the silence of the
evening half-light take over.
He gulped nervously and seemed to swallow
what daylight was left. He turned to the window like a plant straining for the
light, turning his back on the secret. She didn’t know that he listened to her
sobbing in the night.
Kneeling up on the chair over the sink, the
sorrow that seemed to be plucked from the twilight pulled his gaze towards her.
She sat hunched over the newspaper which
soaked the tears that fell from her cheeks. He looked again. She had never
cried openly in front of him before. It seemed to the boy that she didn’t even
know she was crying. The boy did.
He wanted to abandon the wash up and go and
stroke her hair and whisper
“Are
you ok?”
He imagined himself doing it then turned
and edged closer to the darkness. He couldn’t do it. He had to pretend not to
notice her tears. He knew it was because of something that happened a long time
ago. It was something that prowled in the darkness of his existence waiting to
consume every happy moment he had ever experienced.
He listened carefully at night to the
muffled sounds that filtered into his room. He sat on the other side of doors
covered in layers of paint, listening, hoping the secret would unfurl itself.
He looked into the patterns in people’s eyes analysing the dark shapes.
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