Ghosts

by Dolly Alderton

“No,” I said. “I’m not having any of this. Women shouldn’t have to trick men into keeping their attention.”

The choreography of well-coordinated parenthood—they’d never know what those brief moments were like to watch, from the outside looking in. It was worth spending an exhausting day of tantrums and stinking nappies with a young family, just to get a glimpse at these short-lived shooting stars of togetherness.

I didn’t romanticize child-rearing—I couldn’t, having spent so much time observing it close-up through my friends over the last few years. But I didn’t need to. Katherine

was so desperate to hide the mess of her home life from me, little did she know it was the mess that I longed for. It was not the domestic, cuddly quiet I envied—the sleeping baby in the pram or the perfectly arranged family portraits on social media. The shambles of raising children was what I craved—the toys on the floor, the Disney soundtrack filling a kitchen, the rainfall of tears followed by the rising steam of laughter, the wet jumper after bath time with a wriggling, splashing toddler. My flat had begun to feel so quiet—my shelves too neat, my surfaces too crumbless, my diary pages too blank.

Now my dad was fading, I wanted to keep in touch with as many past versions of him as possible.

“I’ve found everything really difficult recently. And I can’t work out if this is just a tricky period or whether this is what adulthood is now—disappointment and worry.”

“I know that clever women aren’t meant to worry about having a family. And I know I still have time. But I’m scared that if I don’t plan for it, it will never happen.” He shrugged. “It might not ever happen.” I found the starkness of this fact strangely comforting. No one had ever said it to me before. Everyone had always said, in one way or another, that I could have whatever I wanted.

“I want to show my age. I’m thirty-fucking-three. My age is an accumulation, it’s an asset. It’s a furnishing. It isn’t a loss. I’m a CATCH. Why don’t they understand I’m a catch?”

love is being the guardian of another person’s solitude. Maybe friendship is being the guardian of another person’s hope. Leave it with me and I’ll look after it for a while, if it feels too heavy for now.”

I’ll keep your hope safe for you until you’re ready for me to hand it back.”