A Flash of Words 2

Something Beginning with… Carolyn YoungAngela heard the school bell ring as she drove through the car park looking for a space. Dammit, she was late again. Her heart raced, and she fought back tears as she drove farther down the street looking for somewhere to stop. Today had been a complete disaster from the time she’d dragged herself from bed to the sounds of her daughter screaming for her morning feed, leaving her husband, Ben, in bed to sleep off his hangover. If only she could adjust to the lack of sleep. Between the summer heat, her baby girl still waking for night feeds and her return to work disrupting her sleep patterns, she functioned at the productivity level of a zombie. No wonder she’d been so irritable with everyone this morning. She’d been left to organize the kids, get herself ready for work and drop them both off at school and daycare while her husband did a tractor impersonation from the bedroom. She’d been late to work, arriving wearing two different coloured shoes and wielding a hairbrush to try to tame her greasy hair into something considered appropriate for a professional workplace. She was a complete mess, fighting to stem the flow of tears that always seemed so close to the surface lately. Pulling into a loading zone, she gathered her purse and ran to her son’s classroom to find him crying in the arms of his teacher. Miss Baker regarded her with sympathy, turning Matthew gently towards her. He threw himself into Angela’s arms, wiping his snotty nose on the shoulder of her new top as she resisted the urge to join him in his sobs. Matthew was still out of sorts when they reached the car, arguing that he wanted to sit in the front seat with her. It was so hot, and it was only a short drive. Sweat dripped down the back of her neck as she felt the judgmental stares from the other mothers. She couldn’t handle a tantrum right now, so she opened the front passenger door for him and walked to the driver’s side, glancing guiltily at the windshield wiper to see if she’d received a ticket for her parking infraction. Relieved to see her windshield bare of the familiar card taped to the corner she slid into her seat. She just had to pick up the baby from daycare, then she could go home and rest. Hopefully her husband would be feeling well enough to take over for an hour or two so she could take a nap. “Let’s play I-spy,” Matthew said, grinning at her as she fastened his seatbelt. “I’ll go first. I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with S.” “Okay, let’s see. How about …school?” She pulled out from the curb and turned the air conditioner up high. “Nope,” he said with a giggle. “Sky?” “Nope.” More giggles. “Street? Sign? Socks?” “Nope, nope and nope.” “Sun?” “Nope.” “Hmm. This is a hard one. Can you give me a clue? We’ll be at daycare soon, so we need to make this a quick game.” Matthew’s giggles intensified, and she just wanted to snap at him to tell him to shut up. It was a stupid game and she was too tired to care what he spied. She took a deep calming breath. It wasn’t her son’s fault she was so tired. “No clues, huh? How about snot? Do I have snot on my face?” She pretended to wipe her nose while her son laughed and shook his head. They pulled to the front of the daycare centre, and Angela submitted. “You win. So, what did you spy?” Matthew turned his head to the back seat where the baby capsule was tightly buckled. “Sarah. Sarah starts with S.” Angela’s heart skipped a beat before her vision faded into dots as she almost fell from the car. She was supposed to drop off Sarah at daycare this morning. Usually that was Ben’s job. She had dropped her off, hadn’t she? —She couldn’t remember. The morning had been such a mess. Wrenching open the rear door Angela stared into her daughter’s blue-coloured face, her eyes wide and unseeing, buckled tightly into her baby capsule. “See, Mummy. I spied Sarah,” Matthew said proudly, taking her hand in his.