Saving Red for Sunrise

Short story | Will she be able to protect her daughter?

Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

She told him no. He cannot enter and yet he does. He comes in and makes himself at home. Her daughter, the simple-minded one, gave him a key and opened the door.

She wants more. More silence, more solitude, more being left in peace.

Her daughter’s wants, however, are for a man. Maybe any man, but a man who can make her heart sing, her tongue and lips bleed and beg for the sweetness of pudding. It’s what one might wish for their child.

Driving into the long blue night. Saving red for sunrise. Saving herself from all that happened. She stepped on the pedal and motored onwards. The long night was a time for telling old tales, the ones from the shadows, the ones that scare and embolden all at once. She needed stories to protect herself, put words in place of boundaries. Make sure her daughter, the shy one, had a safe place.

Bad enough she still smokes and her daughter, the wise one, moved back home, swiftly followed by Jeremy. A man of large stature but small intelligence, although house-trained, it seems. He does what he’s told, he’s not mean, but really, is that all there is to recommend him?

She can’t say no, it seems. She can’t allow herself to want more. She lets him enter and she’s sorry immediately.

She learned early on to accept her lot, but it’s not a lot. It’s very little and why should she not want more? More for her, more for her daughter. The smoke gets in the way, making her cough, darkening the air, sullying the furniture. If only she could stop. If only she had stopped Jeremy from moving in.

She needs to know how, needs to grow strong and stand up. She sees herself in her daughter, the silly one, and knows she ought to have protected her from the lumbering fool.

Tonight’s pudding is steamed, baked, tasting of sugar, vanilla and cardamom. Her lips smack, her mouth salivates, she waits. He serves and watches while she tastes. She wants to spit it out, to refuse the gift, to make a point, but it is truly delicious and for all his faults, she sees that he can bake. He can make sweetness from very little.

Maybe he’ll be good for her daughter, the canny one. Pretty useless when it comes to organising his life, but at making tea and desserts, he’s a champion. But is that enough? Enough for her daughter, the tiny one, this enormous megalith of a man, standing in her way.

He’s benign for now but too big, that if he changed his mind, he’d be dangerous. She’s always aware. Past experience taught her well.

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