Precise by Rebecca Berto, Lauren McKellar Read Free Book Online Page A

dying.
    “We’ll look after Ella. Take a walk, Katie.”
    Rather than answer, I huff loud enough to hear air between my teeth. What does she think she’s doing? I don’t want to leave. Not now she’s pushing me out.
    While I think about how I hate her even more than usual, a feeling simmers inside of me that perhaps she is right. I want to go, but on my own terms. Even for a little while. But damn if I’ll tell her she’s right.
    She sniffs and I take the opportunity to yank my hand again. It slips free.
    I’m aware my heels clank on the tiles once I enter the living room, but I don’t bother to conceal anything. That is past me.
    I need to walk, clear my head. I concede. I never used to be the type who had the urge to punch something or someone when mad, but it’s somehow who I am these days. I need to get out before I do something so stupid.
    I find the drink I left behind before our chat and gulp down the rest of it in one go. As it burns, I curse silently how much I hate it, and it feels good to hate something other than me.
    As I pick up my bag from beside the drawers, I see Dad is on the floor, tickling Ella. His hands freeze when we lock eyes. I’m the first to draw my eyes away.
    Someone at waist level tugs my dress just before I open the front door. Ella is staring up at me with big eyes, like Puss in Boots from Shrek . Something about her vulnerability catches a feeling in my throat. It suddenly hurts, a lot. When I swallow, the chlorine sensation burns again. At half my height in an A-line dress, fluffy lace socks and with a frown wobbling from her chin, I’m frozen by my daughter’s needs.
    Ella mouths “Mommy” but no words come out. Perhaps she can’t talk without bursting into tears.
    I pat her head, fingering a ringlet. As soon as I smile, and start saying, “Mommy needs a—” she throws her arms around me.
    Again, chlorine mixes with the scent of her soap wash from when we played bubble bath earlier. She’s so tight against my chest as I crouch by her that I can feel her ribs. I squeeze, but it’s not as tight as her death grip. My head is spinning with the toxic chlorine in the air. Pulling away from Ella feels like letting her slip off the edge of a cliff, but anger is pooling in my fists and I can’t bear to hurt her.
    She squeezes tight, relaxes, tight, relaxes. I’m still here, I think, but she doesn’t know that. Her hug reminds me of squishing a milk carton—trying to squeeze out every drop.
    A blonde ringlet flings in front of my nose and her watermelon shampoo fills the air I suck in. But I’m really seeing, thinking, smelling blonde, curls, blonde, curls.
    The flashback pulls me in faster than I can pull my mind out.
    Paul is pale, lavender eyelids, lying by us on the floor of my parents’ house. His eyes are slits, much thinner than a cat’s. Knives begin to tear at my skin, pulling my insides out.
    Head down, I hear the front door slam after me by the time I realize I let Ella slip off that cliff without so much as a goodbye, and I’m heading that way myself.

I ’m not sure where I will go but I’ll sort that out somehow. I shouldn’t have bothered trying tonight just for Mom. Look what it did.
    I pull my cardigan from my bag when the wind bites at my skin, forming goose bumps. I wrap the ends around the mid-section of my dress.
    My car sits beside the driveway. I contemplate going back, imagining Ella’s big, sad eyes, but my feet won’t let me. Minutes later and I’ve kicked off my heels and unpinned the hairdo inspired by an old magazine Ella found at home. I don’t deserve to be made up like this.
    I drive and drive, my windows low. The winter chill is so cold it stings my bare arms and coats my open chest. I look to the cardigan I threw off as soon as I became too comfortable—it’s now on the passenger’s seat. I think I’ve looked there half a dozen times. I repeat, You must not feel comfortable, whilst driving in the dark. It’s too easy to recall