Medicine

When you are five going on six, you don't need answers to all the great questions, you want small snacks of info. Mum clutches a glass in her hand, it's not orange juice, or any drink I am familiar with, I ask her what's in it? "Just my medicine." Mum drinks a lot of that stuff, every day when dad is at work. Later she gets happy, a shadow falls from her face, she hugs me, sweeps me off my feet in an awkward dance. By the time Dad gets home, she is in bed, taking her 'evening nap'. Dad says nothing, as he stubs out her still burning cigarette into an ashtray.