And so the youngest has gone. I’m driving home now, along the Fosse, the rain hard on the truck’s roof, hissing as if boiling beneath my wheels.
We’ve learnt, over the years, of ways to make going-away easier. Both our girls boarded for college, so we know the drill. How to pack. To disbelieve them when they say they have all their chargers, and none of their sister’s jeans.
We know what to do when we arrive, too. To be charming through interminable admin, to smile and chat in queues for keys and ID cards. To radiate confidence, that of course everything will be okay, and look, what a nice view from the window, how lucky to be so near the common room. We make beds and organise wardrobes, and soothe our way through conversations of forgotten favourite hoodies, tasks undone at home. We prop up photos of dogs and ponies – never people, and reassure that no one knows where they’re going, but you’ll all soon learn. Be kind. Use your powers for good.
Then we give hard hugs and kisses goodbye, and don’t tell them how much we’ll miss them, how proud we are of them. How brave they are, and precious and God, loved so much.
We don’t tell them these things because they must not see how afraid we are. How empty our hearts will feel, when we’re home and not laying the table with the spoon they like, not swearing at the abandoned pizza boxes and filthy socks left, balled and inexplicable, beside the knife block.
They must not know how it feels to open and shut curtains in a room that no longer reeks of fake tan and cheap vapes, and to look at bed linen that stays clean and immaculate, day after day.
They must know none of these things.
And so I drive on. Through Stow, towards Moreton. There will be no more Drum and Base Father being revolting through my kitchen speaker, no more morose cowboys with their saccharine lyrics, that crack my heart on repeat.
The rain grows heavier, the traffic slower, but I don’t mind.
This is part of it, I’ve learnt. Nothing makes this bit easier.
I sit at the lights at Moreton. The rain splats fat drops down my windscreen. I turn up my window wipers, wish I had something similar, for my face. As it is, I use my sleeve. Remind myself that going-away is not an ending, not a finish.
The lights turn green, and I let the truck roll on.
Carlie Lee 