The Reading List(12)
Once she’d picked up the meat from Iceland, she followed the busy bustling high road for five minutes longer than she needed. Partly because she hated the shortcut, lined with huge commercial dustbins always overflowing with rubbish, probably sickly sweet and stinking after the hot day. But, mostly, she was just trying to delay getting home. Home. She wondered what that word meant to everyone else.
As she turned the corner, she saw that, as expected, every window of their house was pulled shut. Every other window on the street was as wide as it could go, letting out the sounds of the TV, of kids playing Xbox, or a domestic in full swing. Her mum Leilah would be boiling, but she couldn’t stand the outside air leaking in, the inside air leaking out.
Aleisha unlocked the door cautiously, like one wrong move would set everything on fire. Aidan was already out, gone as soon as that clock struck six – announcing the end of his Mum-shift. Sometimes, when he was at home, he’d spend his time outside on the street in his convertible, which he borrowed their mum’s money to buy in the first place years ago, listening to music blaring through the car’s speakers. Their mum never minded. She barely noticed. Aidan was her golden boy. People in the street would sometimes shout out of their windows to tell him to shut the fuck up, and he’d shout back and say it was a free country, though usually only when his friends were around watching, expecting something from him. Other times he’d turn the music down to a reasonable level of his own accord and continue with his day.
Aleisha left the shopping bag on the kitchen counter and wandered upstairs to find her mum, knowing she’d be in the same room, in the same position, as she’d left her in the morning. She braced herself as she turned the doorknob.
Leilah was curled up on her bed, enveloped by a thick winter duvet. Aleisha started sweating just looking at her. Leilah’s eyes were closed and her breathing was deep, but she wasn’t asleep. It was still a bad day for Leilah, but they’d had worse days in the past.
‘Mum, I’m going to make lamb stew for tea, ’k? Just how Uncle Jeremy likes to make it.’
‘Fine, hun,’ Leilah’s eyes remained closed.
‘You wanna open a window?’
Leilah shrank smaller, disappearing into the bed, as though Aleisha’s words themselves had thrown burning hot pokers into her skin.
‘Guess that’s a no.’ Aleisha slammed the door behind her as she left, that ache in her temples suddenly back. The room had already started to take its hold over her; she stomped downstairs to shake it off. She wanted to storm out of the house. She wanted to shut herself in Aidan’s convertible, and blare music at full volume. She wanted the neighbours to scream at her, to yell at her. She wanted to scream back.
Instead, she slumped into the kitchen, tipped the plastic bag of ingredients onto the counter tops and began to organize everything with a practised calm. She thought of how Rachel and Jeremy always prepared their ingredients before they started cooking – like they were TV chefs or something. Aleisha got into a rhythm of slicing, chopping, measuring – it allowed her something to focus on. She looked up at the clock – seven thirty already. Just under the clock, she caught sight of the ceramic Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit plate in pride of place on the kitchen wall. Aidan had won it when he was about 10 for painting a (not-so-great) picture of Peter Rabbit for the school fair. It had been up there ever since.
She tapped her phone, her fingers sticky with onion, wondering if Aidan might have sent her a message, updating her on when he might be home later. No new messages.
She tipped her head back in frustration, her eyes back on the smiling, carefree Peter Rabbit. His little bum shaking his little fluffy tail.
‘Aleisha!’ Leilah’s voice was coarse, pleading. Aleisha felt the familiar build of fear charge through her gut.
‘What is it, Mum?’
‘I need you to come. My feet are cramping.’
‘You need to move them,’ Aleisha whispered to herself.
‘Please, come here now.’
Aleisha made her way up the stairs. ‘Mum, you just need to stretch your feet.’ She spoke softly, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice.
‘I can’t do that on my own. How can I stretch anything myself right now?’
‘This is how,’ Aleisha said, tiptoeing into her mother’s room. She sat on the floor and demonstrated stretching out her feet and her legs. Leilah watched her, moved her limbs gently to imitate the action before sighing audibly and collapsing her hands beside her on the bed.
‘I can’t do that.’
Aleisha stood up. ‘You can. Everyone can do that.’ She smiled, her voice encouraging. ‘That’s like beginner yoga.’ She held her breath for a moment, worried she’d taken it too far … too soon for a joke.
Leilah frowned at her.
‘Maybe you should try a yoga class,’ Aleisha said lightly. She got down to the floor again and tried the pose once more. ‘Limber you up.’
Leilah let out a single, strained, breathy ‘ha’, raising her eyebrows; Aleisha felt the pumping of her heart soften. Leilah mimicked her daughter’s pose once more, her limbs suddenly coming alive. Aleisha spotted a flinch on Leilah’s face as the cramp shot through her leg, but she continued to stretch. She put her thumb and forefinger together in an ‘o’ shape, ‘aum’, and she began to hum.