My mother tells me her new boyfriend calls her every day at seven. At two minutes after, her cheeks bloom red. “He’s playing mind games with me,” she says. “The bastard.” “It’s only two minutes,” I say. When the phone rings, she spews a torrent of recrimination. I fall inside myself, into childhood where I wait in my locked-door room, wait for my father to return from work to deliver the belting she promised, my father who I never blame, not once in all the years that pass. I show her to my door, and I never see her again.
Fiona H Evans is a mathematician and writer, currently revising her first novel. She lives on Noongar Boodja in Perth, Western Australia. www.fionahevans.com