Expectation

by Anna Hope

It is a beautiful morning. The broad swathe of Highgate Hill in the distance is alight with reds and golds and browns. There are runners, dog walkers; elegant couples in matching down jackets gesticulate as they talk in French, Italian, Arabic. It is the Great World and she is a part of it. ‘Isn’t

Cate looks around at her table, at her guests, and she feels happy – suddenly and completely happy. There is no future to fear, no past to regret, only this, only a series of moments, strung along, like lit globes on a string – there is warmth, there is food, there is comfort.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Cate. ‘You should have told me.’ Her voice is thick. ‘No,’ says Hannah. ‘You should have asked.’

She clicks off the phone, holds it lightly in her palm. Hears her breath in the corridor. It is as though she has taken half a step outside her skin, to a place where things are weightless, where there is only the logic of desire. She feels no guilt, only interest. She wonders if it would be this easy to murder.

for this is what marriage does – it flows out beyond the couple, engendering love, engendering life, making us believe, even for an afternoon, in a happy ending, or at least, at the very least, in the expectation that a story will continue as it should.

‘I thought I would lose you. That you would be shot.’ Sarah turns to her. ‘The world is a fearful place,’ she says evenly. ‘It was not my job to lie about that. It was my job to try to make it safer.

She sends Lissa and Laurie to the bookshelves over and over again – knows where each book stands on the crowded shelves, knows its neighbours, can direct you to a volume in the dark. She treats poems like medicine and knows what she needs.

And as Lissa talks, carving the air with her hands, Hannah feels a part of herself unfurl, just as she did that first time she met her – Lissa carries colour in her, she always did, and Hannah feels herself draw a little closer, warming herself at the small fire of her old friend.

a worry that taints their enjoyment of this beautiful May afternoon like a dark drop of ink swirled in clear water.

And finally to the beautiful women who have shaped my life, the horizon watchers, the fierce dancers, the van converters, the river swimmers, the caretakers, the ones who know the old ways. Thanks for all you’ve taught me and all we’ve shared. More, please, more.