Day One

by Abigail Dean

I assembled the expression he would need when he next looked up; and it turned out it wasn’t particularly hard to cry at the right parts, when it came down to it.

They were sorry, they were sorry, they were sorry. I took hand after hand. Whenever people got near the front, they rearranged their faces to remove any vestige of humour.

Her mother’s face was pained. If you attacked yourself viciously enough, Marty knew, you could also hurt the people who liked you.

Maybe that was just how it went. Once you had loved somebody, you were stuck loving them, just a little, for the rest of time.

I hadn’t thought about those summers for years. Had thought about my mother very little, when it came down to it. Her death, sure, her grave; but not the stuff of her. The habits and expressions, the disappointments and quiet hopes. The stuff that makes up a person.