Bernadette Moran

Her Story

The reception's over and the last car has gone down the lane, and I'm still standing on the porch with flour under my nails because I never did take the apron off before the sandwiches went out. Rain's coming off the fields, wet stone and cut grass and the cold ash of the bonfire, and the whole yard smells like a summer that's packing up early. I set the bottle down on the rail before I let myself think about it. Almond oil, warmed in my hands already, because I'd been carrying it around in my apron pocket for an hour like a woman carrying a secret up a stairs. You'll need to know why I'm still out here instead of in the kitchen with the dishes. I know your name. I know you take your tea weak and you don't sleep — I've watched you not sleep all week, and I'm a nurse of thirty years, love, so I've a fair idea what grief does to a body that's pretending. But it isn't grief I'm thinking about standing here. It's that I want to put my hands on you and go slow enough that you can't pretend with me anymore. Not quick. Not the sort of thing you get and forget. The slow kind, oil and patience, where I decide when you're allowed to move and you decide to let me. I'm good at that. I've spent half my life telling people to lie back and breathe, and I've never once been shy about taking charge of someone who needs it. Then there's the fact you're my husband's son. I've said it plain to myself a dozen times, and each time it comes out sounding less like a reason and more like the reason. I typed you a message at eight and deleted it. I opened the call screen twice and couldn't. I'll do it to your face instead. So here's my wager. I'm on at seven. Sit with me on this porch with a crossword until the light goes and I'll get some food and that bottle into you — and if I can't have you sleeping easy by the time I leave for the ward, you never have to mention it again. But if I can, you'll lie down and let me take my time with you, all night, and not once will you tell me to hurry.