Watching the Sunrise

After my mother got better we collected her from the hospital and then we went and got more food than we could eat and more than enough wine to make us drunk. We got an extra large chicken, veg for roasting, stuffing, gravy, ice-cream, apple pie, chilli peanuts, four different types of cheese, a large tub of crackers, champagne, white wine, red wine, whiskey and some apple juice for the children.

We went back to my parents' house and I immediately put the oven on. We cleaned & then we cooked. My brother & I were in the kitchen for three hours and we hardly said a word. We put the radio on and listened to "sounds of the '70s", occassionally singing along. My brother put on a silly falsetto voice. I had glass of white wine which my father kept topping up, even when I'd only taken a couple of sips; my brother was drinking a glass of beer, similarly never empty.

Nothing I can remember has ever felt as brand new as it did that day. I watched my hands as they held the knife which chopped the potatoes and I thought about how amazing it was that I could stand there and chop potatoes. Every song sounded joyous, almost spiritual (I'd never have described anything as "spiritual" before). I kept gazing out of the window at the sunshine. I kept looking at my mother as she sat on the sofa and fell asleep, her face relaxed for the first time in months. My sister buzzed around, hyperactive, organising the children, organising things. We were all exhausted.

When the food was ready we brought it out on huge trays and laid it all out on the table with the "special" cutlery. We ate more than we ever had before in our lives or it certainly felt that way. We felt fuzzy around the edges. It wasn't just the wine. After everyone had finished the food on their plates, we all wanted more. No one had eaten this well in a long time. We had collectively got our appetites back and it was glorious.

After the main course, the ice cream and the crackers and cheese, my mother made her way upstairs to the bathroom and my sister found her twenty minutes later, sobbing by the sink. We got her to her feet, helped her downstairs and sat her back on the sofa with a cup of tea. She cried solidly for over an hour. My father held her the whole time. She said sorry and we said don't say sorry, you have nothing to apologise for. We hadn't seen her cry at all until now, so I guess she needed it. It kept coming, on and off, til dawn.

We all stayed in the living room, apart from the kids, who we tucked up in the adult beds around midnight. We barely spoke, I guess everyone was spent. But we knew that it was over. The accident was in the past and Mum was better. Finally over.

Around 6am my mother asked if her and my father could go out for a walk, just the two of them, to the park to watch the sunrise. We watched them walk down the road, hand in hand, and then we went back inside and sat there, not saying a word, just smiling at each other.