Just Like a Woman (28 page)

She listened to the whirring sound as the casket was wheeled electronically through the curtains. She was gone. She really was gone. Dr. Short touched her arm gently, finally murmuring words she did not want to listen to, his eyes still refusing to meet hers. Why didn’t she feel a sense of euphoria? She was gone! Gone for good, never coming back!

She looked around at the empty room, the uninviting empty seats she had imagined would be full of people who knew her mother. Only the two of them present. No one else came. No one to see Sarah in her lonely sadness, to admire the way she stood erect, to sympathise as the tears flowed. The tears hadn’t been in her daydream, but other people had. The hat she had wanted to wear had also been elusive, so she stood bare headed. She stamped her feet. This was not how it was supposed to be!

‘It’ll soon be over, and then you can warm up again,’ the Doctor whispered.

No relative arrived. Dr. Short had advised her to put a notice in the newspapers to alert anyone who would like to come. Sarah had complied, putting notices in all the local and nationals although she wasn’t sure if she actually had any relatives. She read various different newspapers, reading the obituaries. Finally deciding to list her mother’s name, the address she had lived at all her life, and the date she died.

She prayed her father would turn up. Surely now she was dead he would come back. Where was everyone? It was a cold room and she shivered as she looked up at the huge coloured glass window, reaching all the way to the ceiling. Waist high vases containing white carnations and lilies stood in each corner of the room; their scent faintly noticeable against the clean sterile smell. She wondered how old the building was, deciding from the décor and style it could only be about twenty years old. Her eyes moved back to the space where the casket had lain, the curtain back in place as if nothing had taken place.

Gone. Nothing but a few ashes remaining. She searched for feelings and emotions but found none. Nothing but emptiness and the sound of her own heart.

The doctor drove her home. He stopped outside her house, turning the car engine off, but not looking at her. Instead he looked down at his hand on the brake handle. He asked if she would be alright on her own. She stared at him before quietly speaking.

‘You guessed what she did to me. Didn’t you? You ask if I’ll be alright alone. What do you think?’ She paused, then continued when he did not answer. Sarah opened the car door and as she got out she heard him say.

‘Come and see me tomorrow, will you? After surgery, so no one else needs to know. We can talk about this, and are you still being sick?’

‘It comes and goes, but mostly in the mornings.’

‘Come in about six, when everyone else has gone, tomorrow? Can you do that?’

Sarah nodded her head, before getting out of the car.

Walking up the drive she didn’t feel anybody’s eyes on her, no neighbours looked through their windows to watch her. No one cared her mother was dead. Except her. Except her, she thought to herself. She cared. She cared how it was going to affect her life; how it was now going to change; how everything was going to change.

She cared enough. The next day she returned to the crematorium to collect her mother’s ashes. She took them home; she took them upstairs to her mother’s bedroom and there, carefully she sprinkled them on the bed, under the sheet as much in the shape of her mother’s body as she could manage, leaving just enough to put some on the pillow. When she had finished she went downstairs to the dining room and took one of the mahogany chairs. It was heavy, but she carried it up the stairs. Now her mother was home again, Sarah could go and speak to her every evening, relating to her mother the day’s events, what she had been up to, what she would do the following day. She could spend the evening in perfect conversation with her mother. Her mother listened, Sarah talked.

‘Sarah, I’m ready for you now.’ Dr. Short called.

She followed him in to his room, she hadn’t been in there for a long time avoiding it as much as possible once she worked there. Too many memories of the visits as a child. It had hardly changed. The same posters on the wall, his old desk, covered in notes and papers. The only real difference was the computer on the side.

‘So how are you feeling? Do sit down Sarah. Here.’ He pulled the chair out for her, and went to sit behind his desk. ‘Have you lost weight recently?’

‘I’m still being sick and find it hard to eat, so I assume I’ve lost weight. And I feel tired all the time. I thought it might be a bug.’

Dr. Short came round the desk to stand beside her, and took her blood pressure. When he had finished, he went back to his seat and asked a few more questions. Finally he cleared his throat and coughed.

‘Um, Sarah, you told me a little about the events concerning Robert. But I’d like to know, have you got a boyfriend?’

‘No.’

‘Um, well, I just need to ask you, just to make sure.’ He cleared his throat again, and looked at the notes on his desk. ‘And it is correct, you did have sex with this man?’

Sarah looked at him, her face flushed scarlet. What had it got to do with him? It wasn’t his business. When she didn’t answer, he continued,

‘Sarah I have to ask you this,’ he paused. ‘I think you may be pregnant, Sarah. We need to do some tests, but I think you’re going to have a baby.’ He looked up at her.

Sarah stared at the floor for a moment. And then, looking up at him, she smiled.

Slamming her foot on the brake the car came to an abrupt halt. She could hardly recall driving home. Thoughts tumbled around her head in complete chaos. She had been aware of a few car horns, but took no notice of them. She was going to have a baby. A little girl. Of course it would be a girl. It could not be anything else. She couldn’t wait to tell her mother. She had so much to do.

She got out of the car, slammed the door, and walked quickly up the drive remembering all the daydreams, and suddenly they appeared to have come true. The house looked clean and fresh, the front door remained shut. She slowed down, enjoying the sensation of freedom. A curtain twitched in the front room. She froze. Then she smiled, noticing the window ajar; just a gentle breeze blowing through the house. She continued to the front door and enjoyed being able to put the key in the lock. Slowly opening the door she recognised the taste in her mouth. A voice whispered. She didn’t shake her head to rid herself of it, but listened. Listened to both the voice and the silence of the house. She let the voice come, as she walked to the kitchen. She would tell her mother the news later. After she had phoned that nice doctor and asked him to come to dinner. The baby was going to need a father.

THE END.