The Wake-Up Call

by Beth O'Leary

“You didn’t do this in the hope of a reward.” “I did it because it felt right, and putting good stuff out into the universe gets you good stuff back.”

I’ve always been partial to an exclamation mark. Full stops just seem so . . . grown-up. When I stop wanting pick-and-mix for dinner, that’s when I’ll start using full stops. That’s real adulthood.

I was so surprised when she told me that she had been bullied at school. Everybody loves Izzy. But I can see it now—the way she just fits in. I suspect that is a skill she picked up because she needed it.

But when I made the choice to move to the UK, I suddenly understood the impulse people have to mark something permanently, to say, This will never change. “What does it mean?” Izzy asks. “Sow . . . da-day?” “Saudade. Sow-da-dee.” Izzy has another go. She doesn’t quite get the final syllable right, but still, I like the sound of Portuguese on her tongue. “It means . . . missing. Longing. There’s no English word like it. I got the tattoo when I knew I would be moving away from my family—my mum, my sister, and my grandmother. And my grandfather, too, who passed away not long before. That side of my family are very close, and I knew I would miss them so much. I wanted to mark how important that is to me—how important they are.”

I would like to believe that I can let a person see me, and that once they have, they might think more of me, not less.