Wrong Place Wrong Time

by Gillian McAllister

Both phases of parenthood – the newborn years and the almost-adult ones – are bookended by sleep deprivation, though for different reasons.

but she still misses him in the way that children will always miss their parents’ guiding hands, the way they can hold your problems away from you, if only temporarily.

Evidence is often in what people don’t say. What they take out.

Because her husband can be evasive, comes the answer, from somewhere deep within her.

How sinister it is to relive your life backward. To see things you hadn’t at the time. To realize the horrible significance of events you had no idea were playing out around you. To uncover lies told by your husband.

Jen would always have said Kelly was as straight as they come. But don’t all good liars seem that way?

Walk around them like they’re statues. Love them, just love them, and never go forward into the darkness and lies that await them, remaining here in blissful ignorance.

The maternal habit of a lifetime, feeling guilty no matter which she chose.

“Another person just sort of makes life feel official, doesn’t it? Even if we just have beans on toast.”

We only think of the bad things that happen, rather than those that, through fortune, pass us by.