Cheryl Wilson 

After selling the house the least I could do was tee up an empty place for Lola to use while she searches for somewhere else.  The leftover furniture I organized with mate Jim, well, Jim plus his trailer so he could store it in his mother’s empty garage.  Lola doesn’t want any of it, not in her frame of mind; and frankly she is quite despondent.  As I have told her I am over it. I want out.  I’ve had enough.  She knows it can happen these days.  That some kids go into government care when their development is not going right.  And now that they are finally observing and diagnosing our son, he is housed with them for six months.  This I accept, and I will move on with it.  Lola also needs to move on.  It is Lola’s choice as to whether her future will be with our son, as she will be doing it on her own.  While the thing for me is that I totally deserve a break.  For weeks I have been kipping in another friend’s loft, but now that the money’s come through, I have used some of it on tickets, and tomorrow will be flying out. 

*** 

The house Michael mentions is directly opposite a funeral parlour – and is a sprawling monolith on busy Nicholson Street.  I imagine they do a roaring trade, with their long grey cars gliding in and out of the grounds at all hours.  You could sit right here on the upstairs balcony, if elderly, of a particular mind; and peacefully watch over it with sweet tea and Marie biscuits and ponder your imminent fate.  But.  That’s only my own deeply depressing thought.  Sorry about that.  Much of it is to do with the way I feel about our young son.  He is four.  But as Michael’s convinced I am not myself as of late, I may as well indulge.  As I am also aware it’s a woman he knows well who lives in this house, and she is currently overseas.  I had no clue about her life here, then I spotted the giveaway photo of Michael that had obviously been tossed in an empty fire grate downstairs.  

The photo was unburnt and intact – a square black and white snap of a youth at seventeen, and I’m guessing was taken the year before I met him on North Melbourne Station.  He is tall, boyish, grinning as he leans casually against the dinky front gate of his parent’s old place in East Brunswick.  It’s Michael all right.  Looking so effing sure of himself, and as I dropped it to the lino, I knew for certain the score and wished that I had a match.  Perhaps she didn’t have a match on her either.  In fact there is very little here, no feminine knickknacks; just vacant cupboards, an empty fridge that could have done with a wipe, a few kitchen utensils, an overgrown garden – although the phone is connected and the power still on.  It is as if she left in a hurry, but is still hedging her bets; and perhaps is even weighing up about coming back. 

My discovery of Michael’s photo has suggested there was something between them, that it may have been in her possession for some time, and I briefly wondered if he had also shared her bed.  Though it hardly matters now that the true damage to our marriage, his callous abandonment of our son, has finally taken place.    

This upstairs room is where I will sleep tonight, as I’ve found downstairs a bit drafty.  It will have to be in the double bed.  On my arrival I noticed it stripped bare; the bedding untidily piled in the bottom of her empty wardrobe.  Lucky my two cases hold enough for my immediate needs, including an old cotton sheet and a blanket.  Jim has nicely taken the rest of my belongings from the sold house and is minding them.  Jim often asks me about my boy, as do Maureen and Brenda, friends from my old job in the methods office at Yakka – and it is comforting they all care.  

*** 

It has long gone midnight, and now in the upstairs double bed and dog tired, Lola fitfully turns.  As her husband, not long ago rang here from Crete, where he has been holidaying this past week.  She doesn’t know why his call so distressed her – all he did was gently suggest that after she sorted her share of the money, she should drop everything and fly over.  That a break in the mellow sunshine would do her good.  Told her to think about it.  That he would call same time next night – though Lola has no intention of joining him… ever.  She curls on her side, and widely yawns, next is pulling at the cotton sheet to cover her shoulders, as the air has noticeably cooled.  Everything is still.  It’s as if she is adrift in some chill vacuum – all is dark – and a persistent and slightly pitched hum now slowly engulfs her – Lola’s breathing becomes shallow, deliberately shallow as she hides deep inside herself, scared, and waiting it out – when the dry stroke of a woman’s hand gently caresses her right cheek.  Just the once, the back of a ghostly hand, then the eerie humming ceases and the presence is gone.                                                                                                                                                                                      

Now that the street lights reflect once again through balcony windows, she grabs sweaters and blanket from her case; intending to sleep on the lumpy couch downstairs.  As the next day, after her midday shift at the vegetarian café Lola will pedal on down to Melbourne Uni, to the Students’ Union, to the notice boards that advertise all those cheap and friendly share houses… as she is ready to move on, and align again with her son.  

Copyright Cheryl Wilson, October 2025. All rights reserved; this intellectual property belongs solely to Cheryl Wilson.

About Cheryl Wilson 

Writing stories may be a way of life or as an escape from real life. I enjoy inventing characters and placing them in surroundings once familiar to me – especially our inner northern suburbs during the seventies. I also write shorter pieces about real people who are closer to my heart.

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