Only a Mother
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I step outside and close my front door. Out of habit, I examine it quickly from top to bottom. My shoulders relax. The green paint is covered in tiny cracks, but there’s no writing sprayed on it today, no excrement wiped across or pushed into the keyhole. The door’s been free of graffiti for nearly eighteen months, but it won’t stay that way for long.
It was always the same words: Murderer; Get out; Scum. It was like they thought I did it. I used to wait till after dark before taking a scrubbing brush to it. There was hardly anyone around at three o’clock in the morning, and I didn’t have to be up early for anything. I still don’t – well, except for Wednesdays.
I don’t know why we settled on Wednesdays. I suppose it’s because it was my day off when I worked at the… No. There’s no point thinking about that: my other life.
The clouds are grey and heavy and it’s raining. I like it best this way; people have their heads down or under umbrellas. I open mine and catch sight of the bit of tinsel lingering in the inside corner of next door’s window; it’s been there for over a month. Don’t they know it’s unlucky? Though I don’t believe in luck. My mother used to be superstitious. No new shoes on the table, no passing anyone on the stairs. For years after she died, I imagined what she’d say to me. You can’t become a single mother, Erica! What would the neighbours think of you? Or A job in a supermarket, Erica? I pictured you doing so much more. I expect it’s for the best that she passed before my Craig was born. Then me being a single parent would’ve been the least of her worries.