A curled leaf, a tin of light tan shoe polish its colour, caught in a spider’s web stretched between table and chair. A rotary washing line, planted into the tarmac outside her bedroom window, nine pegs hanging, the tension in one wire broken, sagging, expired. Inside, across the room, Mum, head dipped, half hidden by the pillow, a tissue balled into her hand, held only just, hand resting against clavicle. Breath, body, in and up, out and down, rise and fall. And the second hand sweeps. She sleeps. Light outside the window, dappled, printed on the curtains. Light through the trees, branch and leaf disconcerted by the wind, sunlight here, through gap and thicket and canopy which bends and blocks, which spills and showers this fabric in the room, bright, then dark, a dance of shifting tone and hue. Warmth, too. On her skin, soft, that dance, then bright, then soft. Quiet. Such quiet. A calm that exists only here. A tissue, held only just, but light, so much light. Lightness, so much lightness. | Peach and pear, grape and cherry: pale cubes and spheres of tinned banality, sat in a lake of watery syrup. I pass her the spoon and she punts it towards the fruit, concave side down, and so drops and lifts it without reward. She takes time to change her grip, thumb and three fingers slowly spinning the handle, the belly of the spoon catching the light as it rotates. She dips into the fruit once again, lifting out green, yellow and red and takes a shaking hand towards her mouth. She spots the top of the sheet and her nightdress with the sugary water and I reach for the napkin on her table. She withdraws her hands, surrenders herself to my care, waits patiently – such patience, such acceptance – and I smooth out the fabric across the top of her chest. I press a corner of the material up around her neck and tuck a length of hair back in place behind her ear, signalling that she can try again. She smiles. The light comes again, shimmering momentarily on the wall behind her. She lifts just yellow and I see the tissue from earlier, pushed into the bottom of her sleeve.
‘Friday Fragment’ is an additional weekly instalment to my A Thousand Fragments monthly newsletter.
Matt Inwood you have broken my heart this morning with this detailed study. At the spilling of the juice from that fragile, shaky hand, I burst into tears. You express such loving attention here. Each detail you give brings memories of caring for my own mother in her last months. Her surrender, her patience with herself. My fear and feelings of inadequacy. Your words revealed old wounds I thought were healed. Grief does not go away. It just hides itself somewhere in the mind. Thank you. I needed this.
Mr Inwood - I seem to have leaky eyes again.