Open Wounds

Sheila Padre

In moments of crisis, some obstacles are too big to confront alone.

A month ago, Mum arrived from Copenhagen and rushed straight to my hospital room. She spoke to my doctor, but we haven’t discussed it since. Instead, she cleans like a Catholic, determined to scrub away guilt.

She’s composed a routine of languorous living for us, the one variable she could control. Every day, we grab freshly squeezed juice and go for a long walk before the heat becomes unbearable. We’re later than usual today. Sweat beads on my temple from the casual use of my limbs in balmy air. It’s easy to feel like I’ve already achieved something for the day.

Under the glaring sun, everything is alive and golden, shimmering as if doused in olive oil: the grass, the flowers, the Thames. Ashy gravel crumples under our sandalled feet, like a giant troll chewing rocks. Children laugh and squeal with summer freedom. But a dark spot looms over us.

My shame pounds in my head, like I’m hanging upside down, and all my blood is rushing to my brain. Even in the blinding sunlight, darkness creeps in, like it has grown hands, plunging knives, and insidious thoughts into my skull. I’m a dark cloud against a brilliant blue sky.

Yesterday, behind the bedroom door, Mum cried on the phone. Her voice cracked, the sturdiest wood splintering. She asked her partner if she was a lousy mother.

It’s always been Mum and I against the world. To hurt her is to hurt myself. I slid to the floor, pressed to the other side of the door, and cried too. But to mention it would only embarrass her. So, we talk about the good weather and the oddity of the word pomegranate.

‘Why is it so long?’ she asks, staring at the juice in her hand. ‘Apple, pear, peach. Short and sweet. Those are good fruit names.’ She nods to her peculiar logic.

I squint at the sun. ‘And why does it sound like it’s got granite in it?’

‘Yeah,’ she agrees enthusiastically, ‘imagine eating granite.’ Her nose wrinkles in disgust.

‘Should we look it up?’

The last time I pulled out my phone, she disapproved. Technology had no place in the space she’d carved out for mother–daughter bonding.

‘Okay.’ She puts her arm around my shoulder and steers me towards a park bench.

‘Alright, here we go. ‘Pomegranate’: a spherical fruit with a tough golden-orange outer skin and sweet red gelatinous flesh containing many seeds, from the Latin granatum, meaning apple having many seeds. Makes sense,’ I shrug.

Mum reaches for the phone, catching the way it trembles in my grasp. My hands still have a stubborn tremor that no amount of resting has eradicated, like my hormones are on speed. I pass the phone over and tuck them under my thighs.

‘Actually, we’re looking at this whole fruit situation wrong. We should be pomegranates,’ she declares. 

I laugh. ‘Because we have sweet red gelatinous insides?’

Pushing her sleek brown sunglasses onto her head, she looks me straight in the eyes. ‘And a tough golden outer skin.’

Doubt must be evident on my face. She adds, ‘Seeds mean growth. Progress. More life.’ She directs her chin to the orange and yellow flowers adorning the grass to prove her point.

‘Okay, from now on, we’re pomegranates.’ Never mind the omission of spherical, orange skin and the echo of cheesy Drake lyrics.

The breeze lightly ruffles the curls shorn close to her scalp. She looks even younger now that it’s cut and highlighted. We used to have matching shoulder-length hair. During what she calls her ‘European tour’, she was passing through Seville, saw a picture in a salon window and acted impulsively. The concierge at her hotel called her a British Halle Berry. The comparison made her equally thrilled and horrified at being mistaken for English. In their defence, my mother’s Spanish roots are indiscernible in her accent.

‘Are you going to be okay without me?’

She must often contemplate this on a grander scale, not just for the coming weeks, but as an inevitable component of lifelong maternal unrest. Is my daughter going to be okay without me? 

It’s taken a month of brothy soups – despite twenty-eight-degree weather and the absence of a runny nose – countless shoulder strokes, my resting, her dusting, sweeping, mopping, and our hugging, chatting, and subsequent laughing to convince her she’s nursed me back to sufficient health. 

But there are things mothers can’t fix.

Plastering on a saccharine smile, I say, ‘Pomegranates don’t bruise easily. Those are peaches you’re worrying about,’ leaning over to kiss her soft cheek. She smells like home and cherry lip gloss.

‘Smarty-pants,’ she scoffs.

Families file into the park with drippy ice creams. The tranquillity of the peaceful morning is fading.

She gives me a sidelong glance. ‘Do something for me?’ Concern lines her face.

‘Anything,’ I say.

‘I want you to talk to someone.’

Instant regret, ‘Mum, I don’t think—’

‘Please.’

Birds chirp in my long silence.

‘I’m not sure I can go back, otherwise.’

If she cries again, I’ll lose it in the middle of this damned park. ‘Ugh, you’re so cringe. Fine.’

She smiles, but it’s wry and twisted. She’s still worried. Chewing her bottom lip, she says, ‘Also, I want you to try a self-portrait again.’

‘Jesus,’ I mutter under my breath – two hefty demands in one afternoon.

‘For instance—she places a hand on her chest—when I look in the mirror, I see a mother who doesn’t want to shy away from the important stuff anymore. Paint what’s there that you don’t see. Try it.’

I almost laugh at the hypocrisy of paying someone to face things she can’t. Shying away is putting it mildly.

My paintings have always scared her. She was so excited to share a hobby with me. In some way, I imitated her work, depicting some element of womanhood. But her hand flew to her neck in horror at the first one I mustered the courage to show her. The close-up of a girl’s face, with a masculine hand wrapped around her jaw, forcing her to bare bloody teeth in a painful smile.

I stand and say, ‘Okay, I’ll try.’

She grabs my forearm. ‘There are certain things you need to learn for yourself. But that doesn’t mean you’re alone. Understood?’

I look at the lines creasing the corners of her eyes – my beautiful mother, who laughs more than she cries.

‘Understood.’

Seven Months Later

During mating season, a ruby-throated hummingbird can have a wingbeat rate of up to two hundred beats per second, compared to the average of fifty-five beats the rest of the year. In a vague memory of a dream, my pulse is a ruby-throated hummingbird trapped in my artery, crimson-soaked, frantic.

I’m in a white hospital room that’s cold and clinical, like a blizzard passed by. A man in a white coat speaks, but I can’t hear him. The sharp scent of antiseptic hangs in the air, and that other innominate quality of hospitals – some aroma of death and grief carried by the endless draught that courses through the fluorescent-lit corridors.

Where is he?

The doctor’s mouth moves again, but my pulse hammers in my eardrums. In the periphery, a blur of red, white, and green. 

The wings flap faster and faster and faster. Brilliant red streaks from its beak add colour to the metronomic pounding. 

The flapping is so loud it’s difficult to make out what he’s saying. 

Then, an entire phrase: you must accept it.

The bird slams into the glass window with a wet smack.

Dr Platz rouses me from my tangled thoughts. I blink at her. 

‘How are you doing?’ she asks patiently again.

Uncrossing my legs, I sit up like she’s caught me ruby-throated and red-handed.

I feel attacked on the beige armchair, centred just so, in her office. Everything in here is deliberate. The blinds are adjusted to saturate the room with natural light. The path to the door is always unobstructed.

She waits, hands casually clasped in her lap. 

Dr Platz is stunning. She has flawless ebony skin, high cheekbones, and full lips. Her hair is shaved close to her scalp. Small diamond earrings glisten at her earlobes. Her silk blouse is an iridescent pearl against her dark skin. She’s from old money: understated elegance, fine clothing, no ostentatious branding. 

The urge to swallow grows more insistent, but it would be loud in the silence. Saliva accumulates between my gum and cheeks. I make secret air bubbles with my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

I’ll tell Mum the self-portrait worked; the therapy didn’t.

Her silences are merciless. I meet her gaze again. The biggest bubble pops. 

‘Okay, I guess.’

Her eyes narrow. ‘Could you expand on your answer, please?’

I scratch my forehead, itchy under her gaze. ‘Don’t know what you want me to say.’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Tired.’ She sits up, interest piqued. Shit.

She poises her pen. ‘Have you been sleeping well?’

‘Some.’ 

‘Define some.’

‘Not that much less than usual.’ The pen falters. 

‘What do you do when you can’t sleep?’

‘Paint.’ 

‘Paint what?’ 

I shift in my seat. ‘A self-portrait.’

‘And how is that going?’

The fresh canvases in my living room are still blank.

‘Can we open the window?’

She smirks. ‘Sure.’ 

She opens the window. The wind carries in the faint sound of afternoon traffic. On the way back to her seat, she straightens a painting that’s slightly off-kilter.

Everything about her is trim. Restrained. She’s so clean-cut. Something inside her must be clawing to break free. 

Suddenly, she’s less intimidating.

‘Not well,’ I clear my throat, ‘It was Mum’s idea.’

‘Why don’t you paint something else?’

‘It’s not that simple.’

She frowns, ‘Isn’t it?’

‘I haven’t even started yet. It takes planning. A ramping-up stage.’

‘You’re obviously hitting a wall. But you can’t move on. Why is it so important for you to finish it now?’

‘I keep seeing her disappointed face.’

‘Guilt is normal. But it’s important to remember nobody’s at fault for what happened,’ she says slowly and sternly, ‘You aren’t to blame …’ She gives me a long, fixed look, waiting for confirmation I’ve understood.

‘She still thinks it’s her fault.’

‘But how do you feel?’

‘Like I’m eleven again. But I’m trying to say and do the right things this time.’

‘I’m interested in hearing what you think is the right thing.’

‘When I was eleven, Mum told me she was sick. She said it was “serious but curable”. I made the strangest noise. Halfway between a laugh and a caw.’ 

It was so loud Mum flinched. Visceral. My stomach twinged from contracting hard to suppress it.

She looks up from scrawling in her notebook. ‘Laughter?’

‘Kind of.’ 

‘And what would’ve been the right reaction?’

I shrug. ‘Crying, sadness.’

‘Laughing didn’t mean you weren’t sad.’

‘Sure, because everyone laughs at funerals and sad movies.’

She doesn’t take the bait; she’s a fish swimming right past the wriggling worm I wave at her. She sits up straighter, signalling we are above a petty back and forth. 

‘And your father’s reaction?’

‘He’d already left.’

‘And how did that make you feel?’

‘Nothing. He was gone.’ 

The last time I saw Guzmán, I was sure I’d see him again. But it still hurt. He was returning to the Dominican Republic. I was eight, standing in departures, powerless against the hot tears that slid down my cheeks. The night before, he tucked me into bed. Eyes glossed with unshed tears. In barely a whisper, he said he wished things were different. But at the terminal, he made it seem easy. Kneeling on the terrazzo floor, he kissed my forehead goodbye. He hoisted his travel bag on his shoulder and walked away. The back of his head bobbed in the sea of people, growing smaller until I could no longer spot him. Mum stroked my hair and held me as I sobbed, said he’d be back.

‘That was also the summer my friend’s family invited me on holiday. I’d never been camping before,’ I add.

When Keira invited me to the Wiltshire countryside, Mum sat me down to discuss it, her eyes almost pleading with me to stay. Still, she said, Honey, whatever you decide is completely fine. I don’t mind if you go, honest. Don’t worry about me.

‘Are you seeing much of your friends lately?’ 

‘I’m going to a housewarming tonight.’

The clock reaches the fifty-minute mark.

Rose-gold helium balloons sway among the dancing bodies in Catherine’s living room. She handed me a glass of wine and introduced me to everyone. Steve from marketing, the living embodiment of dry toast, latched onto me, droning on about Crypto. 

I slipped away to the cool, pleasant air on the balcony, away from the stuffy heat of the party and the expectation of conversation.

The sky is surprisingly clear for a winter night. Stars unfurl, glimmering in the distance. 

When Catherine answered the door and engulfed me in a bear hug, I almost lost it. The raw tenderness of it, how pleased she was to see me, made me regret not calling her. But time had contracted in my bed, and ‘call a friend’ never occurred to me. Now, she has a flat full of people. I couldn’t tell her ‘fine’ meant I nearly cried into my morning coffee.

Sometimes, I’m short of breath for no reason. I need to stare at a spot on the wall, something unmoving, when the world tilts off its axis, like a ball rolling off into the distance.

Yet, I want to move. I’m too still. Time runs through my fingers like water from a tap. My canvases are collecting dust. I can’t do anything. 

Fat teardrops accumulate on my waterline.

The balcony door opens. 

A tall man in a worn leather jacket comes out. I’m staring, but so is he. We’re negotiating a social contract granting the license to explore each other.

Green specks the amber brown in his eyes. Curls frame brown temples. They speak of Hispanic roots. His bottom lip juts out slightly more than the top. A black cord snakes under his t-shirt. Jeans slung on his hips. 

The alcove of the balcony feels smaller. Our breath, visible in the air, intermingles and dissipates.

Thank the lucky stars that I look hot.

‘Like what you see?’ he says.

My tongue trips on itself, turning dry and stupid, ‘What?’

His lips twitch. ‘Am I interrupting?’

My gaze deliberately scopes the empty balcony, save for a bench and potted plants, with the obvious question of, what the fuck are you on about. ‘I don’t own the balcony,’ I say, crossing my arms.

‘Okay, Princess.’ His lips twitch again.

‘Don’t,’ my eyes flare in warning, a spark of anger mingled with arousal.

‘What are you doing out here, alone?’ 

‘Nothing wrong with enjoying my own company,’ I say.

‘Hmm, normally true but arguable at a party.’

‘What did you come out for?’

‘Touché.’ He sits on the bench but doesn’t answer. His eyes slowly crawl up my body. His gaze feels like dry wine that catches on my tongue.

‘So, you’re just out here contemplating the universe?’ He stipulates.

‘As a matter of fact, yes, you’re interrupting the musings of a deep existential crisis,’ I say, emboldened by alcohol.

My hand wanders to scratch my neck and then runs the pad of my thumb over my bottom lip. He eyes my fidgeting hands and finally smiles in full force. It’s the smile of someone who found a tenner in their jeans doing laundry, the smile of someone fortunate. My heart jumps like it’s grown legs.

‘Maybe we have something in common.’

‘You don’t know me,’ I say.

‘Thanks, Captain Obvious.’

‘So, what are you out here for?’

‘So curious,’ he says.

‘Because instead of answering, you respond with questions.’

‘You first,’ he says with a small chin lift. 

‘This isn’t primary school!’

He laughs. A thrill spears through my body. 

‘Ah, fuck off,’ I tell him, but unable to stop smiling.

He spins a silver band on his thumb, sobering. ‘Nah, I’ve had a rough day and don’t actually want to be at this party,’ he says, surprising me. No more teasing, just honesty.

‘Same, I guess. Just one of those days when everything is heavy. What hap—’

 ‘There you are!’ A blonde woman interrupts, stepping out onto the balcony.

He shuffles closer to me, making room for her. A citrusy musk and sandalwood invade my nose. I try to inhale more of it discreetly.

She looks at me like she’s trying to determine if I’m predator or prey. 

‘I was looking everywhere for you,’ she says. ‘Thought you left without me.’ She juts out a petulant lip.

‘Not everywhere,’ I mutter. Her lips tighten.

‘Well, I didn’t know there was a balcony.’

‘Now, you do,’ he says. ‘Angela, this is …’

‘Marlowe.’

‘Marlowe.’ He nods and smiles like my name tastes good on his tongue.

‘I’m not feeling well,’ she whines, ‘can you walk me out?’

He sighs, ‘Sure.’

He looks back, ‘Bye, Marlowe.’

People are progressively drunker, but the party is dying down. There’s the new addition of shattered glass littering the floor. Catherine emerges, rubbing puffy eyes.

‘What happened?’

Guilt deepens the lines on her face, creasing the skin around her mouth. ‘Accident. I made sure everybody had shoes on.’

I kneel to pick up the pieces.

A balloon pops, making me jump, and people laugh and holler. Something wet in my hand makes me look down. My fist clutches a jagged shard. The fragment glitters, the remnant of an angry star, like the weapon of a scorned lover from a parable.

A loud rushing surges through the shells of my ears. Relief flushes through me, confined pressure finally breaking through a strained valve. Blood pools, a runny lipstick red. There’s an urge to tighten my grip until the world boils down to my hand.

Catherine gasps, a drama queen at the sight of blood, pulling me from my trance. 

‘Don’t just stand there, bathroom!’ 

Carefully, I remove the glass and press my hand to the bunched hem of my top. The sharp sting intensifies, and not in a good way. I wrap more of my top around my hand to prevent a trail of blood. Catherine follows.

She opens the tap, pulls my top over my head, removes my makeshift bandage, and guides my hand under the running water. 

Behind me, she fiddles with the faucets by the bathtub. 

‘I don’t need to shower—’ 

My top lands with a wet smack.

Whipping around, I find my top submerged in cloudy pink water. ‘Catherine!’

She holds a hair clip with her teeth and gathers her hair at the crown of her head, a habit when she has more things to carry than hands.

‘Don’t worry. You’re not going home looking like dead-extra-number-two.’

Cold water gushes, a miniature waterfall. She plunges her hands into what must be an ice bath and starts scrubbing – more pink seeps out.

‘It’s best to deal with these things quickly. Plus, it’s my fault,’ she says.

‘No, it’s not.’ 

The wet, soapy fabric squelches over and over between her fingers. 

‘That should do it.’

She keeps scrubbing. 

‘Catherine!’

The rhythmic squelching stops. She wrings it out, then peers into the sink, worry pinching her forehead. 

‘Still bleeding. Shit. Should we go to A&E?’

‘Calm down.’ I scoff.

‘What the hell am I going to wear?’ I gesture to my bra-clad breasts.

‘Hang on,’ she runs out.

Despite a hot flush, my body shivers, and there’s a wave of nausea.

Water circles the drain with a loud whirring.

Someone knocks on the door. ‘Hey, Catherine said you needed help?’ 

My eyes widen – balcony guy. She’s lost her mind. He probably wants to see me topless.

‘I’m medically trained.’

Scanning the bathroom, a white hand towel and her son’s dinosaur-spotted robe are the only things remotely useful. 

‘For the love of God, Catherine.’

‘Sorry?’

Upon raising my hand for inspection, more red seeps out.

 ‘Come in.’

He enters wearing a small smile, looks at my bare torso and gapes at me. He didn’t know. 

‘I thought you left.’

‘Catherine called. I was still downstairs,’ he says to my face and not my breasts, an acknowledgement that I’m not just a pair of floating tits.

He spots the gash, and his disposition changes to focus and assessment. He’s the type to run towards danger and help others, not away from it. 

‘Does she have a first aid kit?’ 

My clueless face aptly answers. 

He nods. ‘I’ll be right back.’

He pushes through the door quicker than expected – no knock this time – and opens the kit on the counter. Warm hands on my forearms steer me to sit on the toilet seat – my heart pounds.

He washes and dries his hands thoroughly – all incisive movements and efficiency. 

He repositions my arm for better access. I hold my breath, waiting for him to see them – the filmy old slivers, shades lighter than my skin. His gaze snags on them abruptly like a broken zip. If I were paler, he’d see a red explosion of shame in my cheeks. 

He remains silent, but his eyes have a new tenderness.

‘Medically trained, huh?’ 

He smiles. ‘I’m a paramedic.’ 

‘Isn’t your girlfriend going to have a problem with you being in a tiny bathroom with a topless woman?’ 

‘She’s not my girlfriend.’

‘So, where is the blonde?’

‘Angela got in her Uber.’

‘Don’t you mean our?’ 

‘No.’

His even breaths fan my face, wholly focused on his task of sterilising and bandaging with steady hands. 

There’s no relief anymore, it just hurts. Talking was a helpful distraction. My knee bounces. I avert my eyes to a green T. rex in suspended animation, Catherine’s tampons, and bath bombs in wicker baskets. 

‘Angela’s a friend,’ he volunteers, picking up on my restlessness, ‘we work at the hospital together. Nothing more.’

‘Didn’t seem like it.’

He shrugs, ‘Maybe she’d like more. But I’m not in control of that.’

I can’t think straight with his smell and Adam’s apple in my face. 

‘Earlier, you were sad. Why?’ He asks in a way that makes me want to answer, like he cares. 

I glance at my breasts, ‘I think I’m naked enough.’ 

His answering smile is boyishly cute, as if he’d forgotten. He finishes and assesses his handiwork. Ostensibly pleased, he clears the counter. 

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ His smile is a brilliance of white-teeth-sunshine. ‘I’m used to patching people up.’ 

‘Is that why you became a paramedic, you want to save everyone?’

His eyes darken. ‘You can’t save everyone.’ 

I don’t offer him useless words of sympathy.

‘Now that you’ve seen me topless, can I know your name?’ 

He shakes his head as if remembering himself and training, ‘Jude.’

A Beatles joke comes to mind but is too cliché to voice. 

‘Nice to meet you, Jude,’ I say, trying too hard not to smile.