I Remember Saying Nothing by Corrine Leith

I remember Mum standing at the kitchen sink with her back to me, hands in yellow rubber gloves, stacking dishes on the drainer. I remember orange walls. I remember thinking don’t turn around Mum, I can’t tell you if you turn around, because faces are baffling and chase words into hiding places where I can’t find them.

I remember taking a breath, opening my mouth and closing it, and opening it again, and trying to ask for a wardrobe that locked with a key on a cherry-coloured cord, like Nanna and Grandpa’s. And I remember, my voice wouldn’t reach my lips.

I remember a blue satin ribbon tied in a bow at the top of her ponytail. I remember chestnut-brown hair. I remember holding an invisible thread between us.

I remember wanting to tell her how it always began with the scratching of claws, and muzzles pushing open my wardrobe door, and black dogs crawling on their bellies, red eyes manifesting in the darkness; and how I would creep out of bed and sit at the top of the stairs and brush dust off the stringer board as I listened to the muffled sound of the TV downstairs until I was cold, and awake, and no longer afraid.

I remember a saucer slipping suicidally to the floor, and Mum sweeping it up with a dustpan and brush and tipping the pieces into the yellow flip-top bin in the corner of the kitchen. I remember her looking at me, asking what’s wrong.

And I remember saying nothing.

Corrine writes flash fiction and poetry. A finalist in The Scottish Arts Trust Flash Fiction Prize, and runner-up in Mslexia’s Flash Fiction Award, her work is published in Flash Fiction and Poetry Anthologies including “Solemates and Other Stories”.

@corrineleith.bsky.social

Illustration courtesy of Lin Beresford – Bosworth Art Hub/Facebook

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