She knew her parents would be standing there: two silent bodies, their faces bare, untouched by expression or reaction to the world around them. It was a stranger to them – a world they were completely and utterly absent from. Sammy imagined them living in their own worlds, one where it was only the two of them that existed, depending on one another – a relationship that seemed to sustain them, even as it shut everyone else out.
She would dread friends meeting her parents. Their reactions were what angered her more than anything. Oh, that’s horrible or I am sorry dear, like it wasn’t something they both had experienced their whole lives.
You can’t miss or long for something you never had in the first place, you idiot.
That was Sammy’s immediate response – but she kept the “you idiot” part in her head. Or worse.
Sammy often found herself wondering why eyes were said to be mirrors of the soul. Her favourite people had the most beautiful eyes, not just because of the captivating fusion of colour but what lived within them, moments of unforgettable experience to those which we so desperately long to forget. Sammy thought that her eyes were somehow broken, with the truths of realities sprawled out in front of her with the blurred childhood innocence turning into a sharp clarity of adulthood. Eyes are lies, she thought, pieces of us which deceive because we yearn for a happier outlook. Sammy felt both love and resentment for them, those fragile windows that saw everything that the world had to offer, and yet understood so little. In some strange way, she envied her parents blindness and their ability to shield themselves from so many evils around them. She knew that was wrong, perhaps even a disgusting thought to have as a daughter, but she meant it.
As Sammy approached them, she couldn’t help but wonder if they ever blocked her out on purpose. Growing up, there were times she’d dress up in princess costumes and put on shows for her parents, and they would nod and smile. But other times, they’d fall silent again, return to that familiar absence, leaving her watching them without a sound.
“Mum! Dad! I’m here – on your left!”
“Ah, there you are!”
Melissa’s grip tightened around her daughter’s arms as she pulled her close to her chest, breathing her in. Sammy had worn jasmine perfume ever since she started secondary school – her “signature scent.” But now Melissa caught something unfamiliar: a burnt, ashy note. Wood, maybe?
Cigarette.
“You’re smoking again?”
“No, Mum. That’s Daisy you’re hugging.”
Sammy watched her mother flinch, quickly apologising before turning to ask her daughters best friend Daisy about her studies at university. When Sammy looked at her father, she noticed his hand tucked inside her mother’s trench coat – holding her close, as if afraid she might slip away.
‘Mum, take my hand. Let’s go home.’
