You’re there to make others happy
I’ve become adept at avoiding my ruff when bending to kiss my kids goodnight, but it still scratches my chin. Kat and Tom cry less now than they did that first night, one year ago, when I sat them on the end of their beds and explained that Daddy’s going to be living in a different house now.
Don’t cry, Tom said, but by that time my tears were already tattooed on.
Touch up your makeup regularly
At the start of it all I couldn’t look in the mirror. My hair, pink since it happened, was unbrushable, my skin had frozen into a white mask, and my nose was a permanently glowing crimson balloon. I learned to value the broadly painted smile, twice the size of my real one. The greasepaint never fully fooled the other kids’ parents, or the head teacher who called me in regularly to talk about Kat’s fighting, but that smile has been my prop.
Stay in character in public
I got the car adapted to my violin-case-sized feet. After weeks of tripping up, the lack of feeling in my elongated toes became natural, like the empty chair at the kitchen table, or the void in our bed. I would have preferred it if the car had come back from the garage without the rainbow paint-job, but the kids loved it, and I couldn’t bear to disappoint them by getting it resprayed. I’ve noticed similar cars around the neighbourhood, and when I pass one I sometimes wave to the driver. Some wave shyly back, others stare straight ahead.
Never be sad in front of your audience
It’s not that I didn’t suspect. You started to bloom while I watched the lines creep from my nose to my mouth, my hair become thin and frizzy around the edges, my light turn to shadow. You stopped telling me about your days, and I stopped hoping you gave a damn about mine. By then your BMW was already parked in someone else’s driveway, and the audience at the school gates with their whispers and smirks, their oohs and aahs, had already bought tickets to see the show.
No cigarettes or alcohol in costume
Your words cannon-shot straight from the paper through my tumbling heart:
I love her. She makes me happy.
I juggled those words into alternative patterns, but they made no sense until I cut them up with my pinking shears and burned them in the garden with that blue custom-made shirt you left in the laundry basket. The flames nearly caught my neon-striped jumpsuit, like some flimsy polyester joke. But that didn’t stop me pouring your favourite 30-year-old whisky on the bonfire.
Conduct yourself appropriately whilst clowning
I’m sorry, I never should have, said your drunk text last month. I swore and fumbled my phone straight into the local swimming pool, drowning out your voice as well as the entire School Summer Fete! WhatsApp group. After that I bought a dumb phone, changed my number, and revelled in the quiet.
Make a grand entrance, but a quiet exit
This morning the mirror shows new brown roots under the pink strands on my scalp, and a thaw across my cheeks. My real smile reaches all the way to my eyes now. My steady breathing – the result of many midnight meditations – has replaced the panic attacks.
Kat and Tom thunder down the stairs as I put on my (standard-sized) black boots, pick up my keys, and completely forget to wonder who assists you in your sad sideshow now. After wrangling the kids into their outdoor coats and sending them out to the car, I check my reflection one last time. The new top hat fits me well, complementing my red tailcoat and black waistcoat perfectly.
Lucienne Cummings writes fiction and comedy in the north-east of England. Her fiction has been published in Mslexia’s “Best Women’s Short Fiction 2023” anthology, and National Flash Fiction Day’s “FlashFlood” and “Write-In”. Her comedy writing has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio Scotland, and BBC One Scotland. Find out more at:
https://luciennecummings.com/