Get another one

“Well, is that right? Television isn’t real life, sweetie. Neither are the movies. Believe you me, you know nothing about love. You won’t learn nothing about the real world from there. All that stuff you see on TV is make-believe. Your Aunty Vanessa? Good God. She doesn’t know much about anything let alone love. Kaycee, get down from there and pull your arm in. You wanna lose your bloody arm, do you? A truck will go past and rip it clean off. When Vanessa broke up with your Uncle Terry I said to her you’ll be down for a while but just go and find someone else. Go on. You get sad because that person leaves your life. But what happens when you get sad? You don’t stay sad, do you? That’s all you have to do. Kaycee siddown! Levi, grab your sister for me will you? Kaycee, sit next to Levi and stay there. Listen, if a man leaves you, you find yourself another one. Simple as that.”

Her face is red and alert, a deep cleave runs down the middle of her forehead, between her eyebrows.

“Who told you that rubbish? If there was only one person for each of us we’d spend our whole lives looking and we wouldn’t have time for nothing else, now would we? Well, don’t listen to her. I’m your mother, I should know. What if the one right person for you lived in Zimbabwe? Well, I’m certainly never going to Zimbabwe so how would I know? That’s right. What if your father was the only one for me? What should I have done when he left me? Waited out the front of the house for him to come back?”

She laughs but the crease stays, like a line drawn in sand with a stick.

“Now I’ve heard it all. That’s what you think is it? You’ve got a lot to learn, missy. If I had waited around then I wouldn’t have had Levi and Kaycee, would I? Leave that man alone, Levi. I’m sorry, mate. Say sorry to the man, Levi. Kaycee! You’re trying my patience. Behave, you two, only a few more stops and we can get off. Well, you can wait till we get home. There’s ice-blocks and drink there. And we’re having your favourite tonight. Levi, are you listening? We’re having pizza for dinner. How about that? Now be good. Sit still. We’ve had a good day, you don’t want to wreck it now. I’ll tell you something, life just isn’t like that. It’d be nice, but it isn’t. Nobody’d go to the movies if life was like that. If life was like that you could just sit there and watch it in your home in real life. You’d switch the telly off and you wouldn’t need it because life would be magical enough. Would you? TV shows would be boring because you’d see that everyday anyway. The what? I don’t know where it is, darling, where did you put it? If you put it there then that’s where it should be. I haven’t touched it. Here, you have a look.”

She passes a faded, rainbow-striped canvas bag to her youngest daughter.

“I don’t know, sweetie. I don’t know. They just do and that’s exactly what I’m trying to say to you. If a man leaves you, get another one.”

Lead Igloo

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