CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
To her credit, Naledi at least pretended that she
definitely wasn’t thinking about her mum’s medication as the day continued,
though she most definitely was. She
was half-listening to a news bulletin about a local boy involved in an accident
on his bike when her mum came back home.
By then though, Naledi didn’t quite fancy confronting her about it, so
just told her that her meds were ready and pricked two microwave meals with a
fork as her mum made threatening comments around attempting to cook a roast
dinner over the weekend.
And then she said something that she
hadn’t been expecting to say at all: “Mum, do you still have that drawing of
Dad saving the day? The one of the bus and the fire”
“What?” Her mum bolted up from the sofa
where she had spread-eagled herself.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” stuttered Naledi,
surprised by her mum’s reaction, trying to wave the question away as the
microwave started to hum. “Just a drawing I remember doing for Dad, as a
child.” She smiled. “It’s silly. Just popped into my head is all. It’s one of
Dad being a su—”
“A superhero?” Mum smiled. “Oh, don’t look
so surprised. You were so pleased with it; you walked straight in on your dad
and me…” she paused and smiled again. “Well, it doesn’t matter. You were waving
this thing around and trying to talk about it. You were so proud of it, Naledi.
A proper little artist.”
“Do you still have it?”
Naledi’s mum shrugged. “It was on the
fridge for a while, but we changed fridges and… I’m not sure.” She craned her
neck to look at her daughter. “Does it matter?”
“No,” said Naledi,
lying. “It just came to me in a dream the other day, out of nowhere. I seem to
remember that Dad liked it.”
“You made him a hero,
Naledi.” A smile again. “Of course he liked it. It’s nice to feel like you’ve
saved the day every now and again; nicer still when people draw it without you
having to even get out of your seat.”
“If you did have it,
do you know where it would b—“
“Oh, Naledi, stop it.
I’m tired.” Naledi’s mum gave a groan. “Ever since the inspectors left, Duncan
has piled on the work to us…”
“And you to us, too,”
muttered Naledi, thankfully drowned out by the microwave’s thrum.
Suddenly, Naledi’s
mum made a great show of studying her clothing. “Oh, Clive’s picking me up
later by the bye. We’re going to work at his place tonight.”
“To work. Right.”
“And then at the
weekend… the roast…”
PING!
“Dinner’s ready!”
“Thanks, Naledi!” A
peck on the cheek. “You’re a star.” She pottered out of the kitchen. “I’ll eat
this upstairs, whilst I’m getting ready.”
Naledi shut the
microwave door and heard the refrigerator start to hum to itself. “Sure. Okay.
Bye, Mum.” She picked up her
dinner and made her way to the table, determined to find the picture. Since her mum mentioned it, she could
vaguely remember it hanging on the side of the old fridge for a while, but
quite where it ended up afterwards was a mystery. She knew that Mum had a
scrapbook somewhere which had lots of old doodles and paintings and pictures
which she had made as a child, but surely Mum had stopped collecting them all
by the time she was in school and bringing home a ton of work every day?
Naledi poked her fork into a lump of
microwaved potato and watched as wisps of steam escaped it. She swallowed her potato and thought on
firemen and heroism, ignoring the sting on her tongue and the anxious concern
for an incinerated roast dinner in the not too distant future, which no manner
of frozen time would abate.
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