461

For the first time since she’d left home, when she woke in the morning, her head and her heart aching, there was dried blood on the sheets.

She lay for a long time staring at the ceiling.  She didn’t want to get up.  She wanted to hide, here, in her room, and never have to see anyone, do anything.  She heard Luke moving about in the kitchen, banging cupboards, the sound of the kettle boiling and then hurried footsteps down the passage, various muttered imprecations and the slam of the front door.  Still she stayed in bed.

The light drifted across the window and her room brightened. 

In the end she knew she had to get up.  Life went on.  Her father’s abuse had taught her that.  Sighing, she climbed out of bed and went through to the kitchen.  She put on the kettle.  Tea would help.  Tea always helped.  Even though her father had been from Yugoslavia and her mother from Italy, she had always found tea made her feel better.  She loved coffee; she made good coffee in the café; she drank too many cups of coffee a day.  But somehow tea calmed her.  The ritual of making it.  The wait while it brewed.  The careful precise mixture of milk and tea and time to make a good cuppa.  Forced patience and focus.  Zen.

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