'Curtains' by Liz Milne

I really liked her shirt. It was white with lace flowers all around the bottom edge in a cheerful sunflower yellow, and nicely fitted to her figure.

When I was little, I loved our living room. We had floor-to-ceiling windows with French doors that were usually open onto a garden filled with hot-pink bougainvillea, smoky blue hydrangeas and flame-coloured zinnias. The curtains, white and almost see-through, billowed in the light breeze that carried the scent of roses into the room. I would have spent hours, if my mother had let me, just watching the play of sunlight through voile and the movement of the flowers in the wind, but she chased me away to the kitchen to play near the maid or out into the garden where Dad would be tinkering with the car or laying out another bed for the growing veggie patch he was putting in.

So, when I saw her shirt and smiled and said, ‘I like your shirt. It looks like curtains,’ I knew what I meant.

First published at Pandora's Inbox, 2018-2019.