Soft

Smoke rises, dragging across a stark sky, and it smells of you last October, or the October before that. A smile curls up, lopsided, and a bitter half-chuckle tumbles out, drowned in sheet rain. It's weird how life circles, as if water down a drain, isn't it?
   Lumps on the throat, that's what the lady said, all heart and concern, not realising I'd sink that in my bones and let it fester, not realising I'd write email upon email to my daughter - just in case. I'm nothing if not fatalistic, always have been. It keeps the blood pumping around. I, a careless puppeteer, stand watching the pigeon in her sodden, grey coat, wondering if she's failing at positivity too.  
     She smiles at me, all teeth and small limbs, tugs at my dress.  
"Mummy, in now? Too windy." Pretty simple conversation but it cuts me out of my old ways.
"Alright, kid, scrambled egg?"  
"Yummy tasty." she nods, closes the door behind me. I put calypso on and we dance in the kitchen, her on my hip even if she's too heavy now. I sink her youth into my thigh and let her enjoy the moment, lose myself in the rhythm of steel drum. The concept 'moments are fleeting' still spins in my head, even if unfounded, it's just how it works.  
     We stumble through a little painting, bath, story and bed routine, Dad working away. It's all on me, home alone. I don't mind it, think a little clearer without a man to worry about - I think. I don't have to consider his wants, needs, whether his internal monologues are as dark and wild as mine.  I swing from moment to moment as if each is meaningless, as if memories are the only things that matter, because usually they are - I think. And my daughter sleeps, there in the tree house made in her bedroom, after singing to herself, demanding two cups of milk, her hair brushed, a different blanket, a cuddle, a wee and a kiss for her stuffed monkey. Yes, life is a grand thing, in those awkward, mundane, extraordinary fumblings that tumble together to make the history of a life, pretty interesting on the whole - I think.