The Chair

The Chair

The chair in this room reminds me of my mother: elegant, trusting and always there. It is made from thickly cut pine smoothed down by a carpenter's plane. The tapered ends are shiny from resting hands long since gone. The seat is made from wicker that has been wound in perfect formation. Part of the wicker has come away and sways in the breeze whenever a window has been left open. This chair is loved but neglected, overlooked. It was leaning against an old clunking radiator covered in white pants and odd socks, remnants from a winter wash. Below the radiator sits a hairy monster of a cat whose golden fur sheds mercilessly on the wooden floorboards. He looks content purring loudly in his dreamy slumber, disturbed only now and again by the spinning washing machine that twitches his whiskers.

A teenage girl enters the room in that way that only teenagers know how. She sits on the overlooked chair draping one slender leg over the creaking arm. She is listening to her Walkman, closing her eyes whenever she reaches the parts of the song she loves the most. She looks out of the window, her eyes gravitating towards her brother who was swinging on a tyre tied to the old sycamore tree. His grin became wider the higher he went. She tutted to herself thinking how childish he was, but secretly she longed to join him. She looked across the garden and saw her mother shading her eyes from the harsh sun. She looked beautiful framed by the bright sunlight with a determined look on her face. She turned away from the light towards her cherished rose beds with her pruning shears in her hand. How serene she looks, the girl thought to herself.

The mother silently prunes her roses trying to forget her visit to the hospital the day before. That awful sterile smell and peppermint walls made her shudder. The weight of her secret kept her hand steady as she carefully cut the stems of the flowers. Small amounts of hair had already started to decorate the shower-tray; she used the showerhead to wash the hairs down the plughole. They would soon know. She looked at them differently now; she noticed things she hadn't done before, looked at them for longer. She wanted to remember every detail in their faces, so she could revisit them in her dreams. She looked towards her son on the tyre swing; she smiled with affection at her baby. She felt guilty at the thought that she would soon be leaving him, leaving them all. She breathed deeply to stop the tears that began to sting her eyes and rushed inside, there was washing to hang out on the line and school uniforms to iron.