Tuesday 12 November 2013

Jigsaw Part Five

The jigsaw pieces made up a picture. In it were three people, a mother, a father, and a baby girl. The child was newborn, but though so young, Alice recognised her own features. The mother and father were not the parents Alice knew. They were standing in the background, their hands neatly clasped in front of them, their eyes looking over at the other couple.

  Alice peered closely at the faces. The father seemed to blur, his features going in and out of focus so that she could not really say whether he was dark or fair, or handsome or blue-eyed or red-haired or anything. The mother was looking over at the older couple, Alice’s parents, seeming to fix her gaze on the older woman’s face.

  Alice ran her finger over the faces, wondering what the picture meant. The mother holding the baby suddenly turned to speak, and Alice snatched her finger away, and fell back on the carpet.

  “This is you, Alice. This is you, you realise that don’t you? I am your first mother, I had you and gave you away, because I could not keep you. I could not afford to keep you. I would have been beaten up by my father, and by my mother, and probably my brothers. My grandmother would never have spoken to me again. They would all have called me a slut, and I would have been cast out. They don’t know, and never will know, about you. They thought I went off to work in another state for a few months. Don’t you ever tell my secret, Alice.”

  Alice put her finger under the edge of a piece of the jigsaw. She flicked it up and sent it flying. She did this with the next one, then the next and the next. Until the pieces were strewn all around her room.

 

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