'Sixty Percent' by Jeanette Sheppard

T-shirt

The hand therapist says Mini’s mother needs motivating after her fall downstairs. Perhaps Mini could bring in some of her mother’s bird drawings?

Every day after school, Mini puts on the Little Wattlebird T-shirt then stares out of her bedroom window at the shed where her mother usually draws her commissions. Mini soaks up the Eucalyptus air. Imagines her mother holding a pencil again.

At the hospital the wattlebird drops from the T-shirt as the hand therapist tells Mini’s mother that the severity of her fall means she will only ever achieve sixty percent dexterity. The wattlebird skitters around the ward; frantic wings flap against beds. Synthetic lemon floor cleaner pushes at Mini’s nostrils. She slips away from the ward, seeks out a corner.

Encased in an eggshell muffled sounds swirl around her: the ringing of phones, clumping of walking frames, chatter at the volunteer book stall. But her mother’s silence smothers it all.


Red Ribbons

In the hospital chapel underneath a golden image of God Mini replays her refusal to wear the wattlebird T-shirt her mother had asked her to wear that night. At the top of the stairs as T-shirt cotton slips from Mini’s hand her mother stumbles. At the bottom of the stairs: the thud and snap of arms. A metallic taste slicks across Mini’s tongue.

Red ribbons lie in a wicker bowl. A laminated card rests against a small spiky tree. The writing on the card suggests Mini tie a ribbon onto a branch; explains that in a few days the tree will be placed in the ground and her worries will rot as the ribbon rots. Mini ties a ribbon even though she doesn’t believe in God and hates ribbons.


Cloak of Guilt

In the garden that night Mini creates a bone plectrum to drag across her heart strings. From her mother’s broken bones she weaves a cloak of guilt. Bones become briars to wrap around her days.