Flash Fiction, Monica Dickson

Friday

In the future, Marie will reinvent herself. But first she will disappear to have the baby. Then she will reappear to sit her exams, the baby safely delivered by her mother to a nice family that Marie will never meet, in a city she will never visit. She will get a place at Uni to study law, then she will use her natural talent for winning an argument to train as a barrister. She will drink too much. She will smoke too much. She will quit smoking. She will join a gym. One day she will write to Robert, the baby’s father, and she will tell him how well she is doing and how she hopes they did the right thing for all of them, and he will treasure the letter, but he will not write back. Marie will think about the child, and how and who they are, but she will only allow herself to do this for an allotted half-hour, every Friday, after work and before dinner.

In the future, Robert will sell insurance. But first he will party his way through an extended adolescence that lasts long into his third decade. He will drink and do drugs with a commitment bordering on a qualification. He will stop drinking and doing drugs when one of his friends has a stroke. He will barrel through a string of co-dependent relationships – with women who will cook and clean and care for him, until his tearful, late-night self-examinations become too difficult a form of mothering. When he finds himself alone, he will read and re-read the letter from Marie. He will keep the letter in a hanging file marked Miscellaneous and he will think about the child – now an adult – and how and who they are, and he will think about having a drink, but he won’t.

In the future, Theresa will watch as Marie’s star rises. She will congratulate herself on making the right decision. She will tell her friends how happy her daughter is, how she drinks cocktails with high-flying clients, how she stays in the best hotels. She will sometimes think about the baby’s tiny foot in Marie’s hand, just a child herself; the argument Marie couldn’t win. One day, Theresa will write to the adoption agency and she will ask them to pass on another letter, from her, to the child – who will always be a child in her mind – but Theresa will be told, kindly and efficiently, that it is not allowed under the terms of the non-contact agreement they made all those years ago. 

In the future, when Theresa dies, Marie will clear her house. She will break this task down into manageable timescales: Monday to Thursday, for half an hour, after work and before dinner. One day, Marie will find a sealed envelope, addressed, in her mother’s handwriting, to a person she doesn’t know. She will think about opening it, but she won’t. She will take the letter home, she will file it under Health – general, she will pour herself a large glass of wine and she will look forward to Friday.