Photographic Memories

Val Roberts

Auntie Joan told me that Mum has displayed black and white photographs of me and my brother all over the living room. Ones where we played in the sand on the beach when we were small with spades and buckets. I gave Mum those photos when I saw her years ago. I was eighteen. Thought she should have them after my father passed them to me. I don’t want them, or you, he told me. Said they were just hanging there from the bedroom doorknob in a string bag.
           I’ve had no contact with my father since then and I haven’t seen my mum or my brother since then either, but I often meet with Joan for black coffee in Pret A Manger. We talk about family. How is so and so and all that, I ask her. But the conversation was different today. Joan told me about the photos I’d forgotten about, and the fact that she had to put Mum to bed because she is fragile, cannot stop crying. Said she had to wait until Mum fell asleep before she left the bedroom.
            Joan said my brother wasn’t well either. Had a stent fitted in his heart and couldn’t walk more than a few steps. Said that Mum was looking after my brother, that he’s moved in and is cooking his meals. That Mum’s gone thin because she’s eating what my brother is eating. Told me she can’t stay at Mum’s long as she herself has arthritis in her neck and needs to rest it. Feels like it’s snapped half the time, she said.
            I knew my brother had a daughter Poppy who I’d never met. Joan told me that Mum was close to Poppy but that she’d hung herself with her school tie from the bedroom doorknob, that my brother had found her, and that is why he had a heart attack. I imagine Mum bent over now, her frail frame placing photographs of me around the living room. Perhaps wants to see me. Doesn’t want to lose her own children as well. Regrets not protecting me from my father. Understands why I estranged myself.