A Fulfilling Breakfast

I’m sitting at the kitchen table with a small cup of green tea in front of me. He knows I prefer coffee but insists that we should only drink herbal teas. I butter some toast and take a bite. While I’m chewing I admire the grooves that my teeth have left in the butter.

The digital clock on the oven reads 7.42. His alarm will go off in three minutes and he will press snooze, sleep until eight, then get up and go to the bathroom to pee. Shortly after, he will arrive in the kitchen in search of his camomile tea, which I will have prepared for him.

Sure enough, 23 minutes later he emerges, his hair bent at awkward angles and his eyes filled with sleep. I push his tea towards him and he ruffles my hair in a pitiful attempt of affection. I roll my eyes under my now tousled fringe.

“You eaten?” he asks, as he stares into the cereal cupboard.

“Yeah,” I respond, in what I hope sounds like a disinterested voice.

“What did you eat?” he asks, still with his back to me.

Ironically he manages to make me feel so small; exactly the opposite of his intentions.

“Toast,” I reply, not looking up from my lukewarm green water.

I feel him turn, but I do not look up. I let his disappointment linger in the air between us.

He measures two handfuls of muesli into a bowl and followed by a splash of skimmed milk. The thought of eating those dusty nuts with the watery milk is enough to make me throw up my two slices of buttery toast. Maybe then he’d be satisfied.

He drops himself into a seat and grabs the section of the paper I have discarded. It’s the sports pages. Neither of us like sports, it’s the only thing we have in common, but he has to read it because he is too annoyed to make conversation. I read and re-read the same paragraph, trying to focus on the words rather than the sound of his spoon scooping up dry nuts.

He stares idly at the paper and starts cheerfully humming a Cheryl Cole song. He is trying to get under my skin. It shouldn’t be too hard either, as according to him there’s so much of it.

He finishes his soggy rabbit food and lets his spoon clatter loudly into the bowl. I look up and he’s smiling at me, making his big stupid mouth stretch right across his face. His lips shine with fat free milk. I feel something coming up, for a moment I think I’m going to vomit.

“I want you to move out.”

Silence fills the room and gives me time to realise what I’ve said. He only shows his surprise for a split second, and then continues smiling at me.

“Do you?” he asks, his eyes resting on me. He knows I’ll struggle to pay the rent without him but I have gone past caring, I need him gone.

“How will you pay the rent?” his smile is now an honest smirk.

“Well, once I sell that ugly treadmill you forced me to buy, I’ll have a couple of months rent to survive off until I find a real bloke to move in. Perhaps if I’m lucky, this time I’ll find one who doesn’t spend all his time counting the calories in basmati rice.”

Family Values

“It should have snow drops growing underneath it,” my mother called after us, as we hunted the park for our Grandparent’s tree. My mum, brother and I were with my aunty, my Dad’s sister.

My father had passed away a few months before and we had made the trip to bury his ashes under the tree. My aunty had been up since 7am drinking white wine. My dad’s side of the family had been heavy drinkers, which explained why three quarters of them were to be buried under a memorial tree together. I did feel sorry for my aunty. She was the only one left of their small family, and she was the youngest and most emotional.

“There it is!” my brother yelled, and we ran over to it like we were children again.

“Oh look, the snowdrops survived!” said Mum. She was pleased. It was she who had planted the oak tree and the snowdrops nearly ten years before. We agreed that the two small snowdrops growing under the tree were representations of my grandparent’s children, my aunty and my dad.

Mum rooted through her bag and pulled out a small trowel, some grass seed and a box containing the ashes. She dug a hole at the base of the tree and stirred the ashes into the earth. I watched her as she put her lover into the earth, so he could go on living and grow into something new.

I photographed the small oak tree and then bent down to capture the snowdrops. Their modest flower heads bowed respectfully towards the earth. Their tiny white petals were almost too pure for the occasion. My aunty staggered around the tree, lurching in unexpected directions, and offering us a tribute sip of whiskey she’d brought in a hip flask.

“Careful,” I said, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice, “You’ll step on the snow drops.”

She looked down at her misplaced feet and with great effort and concentration, managed to take a step back. I watched her Converse shoes carefully out of the corner of my eye. She’d massively exaggerated the drama about that day, embellishing each ounce of pain we all felt. She had craved the outlets it would give her. A reason to talk, cry and drink, a reason to be miserable.

I could hear her slurring words to herself as she hovered above me. She relished those deep and meaningful conversations about love and family that made the rest of us squirm. Her body lurched forward again and her feet, quickly trying to accommodate her, crushed one of the snowdrops.