Snowflake

by Louise Nealon

Finishing school is a strange kind of grief. It’s the boy I never talked to who I miss the most. The fantasy of him stays inside the school walls, decaying like a memory mausoleum.

When we fall asleep, we go to a place where words dissolve and become meaningless, like rain dropping into the ocean. As soon as rain hits the ocean it is no longer called rain. As soon as a dreamer enters a dream there is no longer the dreamer. There is only the dream.

Father John is a slight, Filipino priest. The community took an instant liking to him because he is affable and able to hide his intelligence, sort of like a holy Louis Theroux.

It is socially acceptable to be an alcoholic in our parish as long as you don’t get treatment for it. Being fond of the drink is a form of survival around here. If Audrey had kept quiet and continued to drink at home, people would have still sent their kids to piano lessons. Audrey’s problem was admitting that she had a problem, and the problem was with alcohol, the one thing everyone loved.

‘You can use all the techniques in the handbook, but when it boils down to it, therapy is just two people talking in a room. Me trying to understand you. So I always treat the first session with a new client as a trial run. If you feel at the end of this session that I’m not the therapist for you, there will be no fee. It has happened many, many times. I can’t expect to be everyone’s cup of tea. I will still shake your hand during the Sign of Peace at mass.’

You paid a doctor to tell you that you’re special. That you’re sad and edgy. You’re so full of shadow and light, Xanthe. So complicated. So many layers. Not just a pretty girl.’

‘I only got that first because I bullied myself into going to the library every day. I wrote six different drafts of the same essay. You want to know how to get a first? Give out to yourself. Constantly. Be disappointed in everything you write. Tell yourself you’re worth nothing if you don’t get over seventy per cent. I actually like hating myself. It’s my comfort zone.’

‘Relax,’ Mam says. ‘I’m really sorry, I don’t think I can, Mam.’ ‘Just keep breathing,’ she says. ‘Breathe with the waves. Stop where you are now and listen. Notice how the water is breathing.’