Just Like Her

Chapter 21

Emma

I returned to my flat around four in the afternoon. Once I was through the door, I immediately kicked off my shoes and began stripping off my work clothes that felt impossibly heavy against my skin. 

Eventually making my way to my room, I collapsed onto my bed and pulled the sheets up and over my head. The exhaustion from the day's events settled painfully in my bones as I was faced with a fresh onslaught of tears.

I wiped them away angrily and, still clutching my phone, called the one person I could think of.

"Mum?" I sniffed when the line finally picked up.

"Here!" She sang, her voice sounding slightly tinny through the connection.

I pushed the sheets off of me and sat up, hoping my change in position would help. It didn't.

"You're on speaker!" She exclaimed in a near shout.

"What are you—"

"I'm making bread," she cut in, anticipating my question.

"Well if you're busy, I can—"

"Oh no no," she cut in again. I'm just kneading the dough. I've still got 7 minutes left before I can leave it to rest."

Sure enough, the sound of the dough slapping against the worn wood of my mother's kitchen counter drifted through the phone rhythmically punctuating her words.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself there, sitting on the counter opposite her watching as she expertly worked the dough and listening to the cadence of her voice as she recounted the village's latest news.

The library's annual lawn party; a new vendor at the outdoor market; speculation regarding a neighbor's plans for their hedgerow. No mention of drunken men or bruises or scheming bosses or clandestine royalty...

My mother's voiced pulled me back to London.

"You calling just to chat or you need something, dear?"

"I was just..." I sighed as I ran my fingers through my tangled hair. "Were you scared when you were choosing your life?"

"Of course not."

I dragged my eyes to the window, which faced the brick building across the alley. I wasn't surprised by her simple answer, though admittedly I had hoped for something a bit... more.

My mother was born and raised in the town of Newton, where she met my father at a young age and married him only a few months later. They moved together only a few kilometers away to the nearby village of Kerry, where they'd had me. My father commuted to work, and my mother happily took on the role of housewife and full-time mum. 

It wasn't that I judged my mother for her domestic decisions, but sometimes I did wonder if they really were decisions she had made or if maybe they had been made for her...

"I didn't make one decision on Tuesday afternoon and that was it, you know."

"I know," I mumbled, not really knowing if I did.

"I chose my life every day, and I loved it."

I could hear her smile, still, I frowned. "I don't like you speaking in past tense."

"I love it," she repeated with a chortle. "Better?"

"Much."

I listened to the slapping of the dough and tried to recall the sour aroma of the yeast.