At the house, the empty rooms looked at me as though I was a stranger. The sun passed through, blocks of shine on the walls. A blue vase, a wedding present, photos in silver frames: a family, smiling. Magazines, shoes, letters, decks of playing cards. Every object seemed to have its own mind, the stuffed dinosaur forlorn, a stack of dishes in the sink accusing. It had been wrong, I saw now, to get attached to this place, just a building, one I didn’t even own. I wrestled my bike out of the side alley, pedalled down the street as though it was a normal day, into nothing, having no idea where I was going.

I had always loved cycling, the wheels turning under me, as easy as walking should be, idling gently or speeding, feeling almost airborne. Years ago, before leaving my PhD, I had spent whole days doing rings of another, similar town, going from common land to common land, contemplating lying under a cow, rolling in mud. Anything seemed better than going back to the library. I had been feeling my motivation ebbing, had noticed a hope, rather than a fear, that I would fall pregnant, that I could push all those books away.

Now, I realized I was ravenous, the huge hunger still there, despite it all, an engine working without thought, consuming everything. I went to a burger place, ordered a supersized meal, sat in a booth where my legs stuck to the seats. The eating worked, as it had before, all thought blotted out by sensation, by chewing, the morphing of solid objects into a flood of taste and swallow, salt swept down by fizz, meat giving its oils to my fingers.

But when I finished, my stomach taut, the thinking came back: David Holmes, his grey eyebrows moving upwards:

I believe in forgiveness. As do you, I presume?

To forgive is divine, I was taught growing up. So when I first saw my father slap my mother across the face, I decided to forgive him. I closed my eyes and prayed to God to help me, to pour his quiet pastel lights over the image in my mind, the continual replay, the way she fell. And within hours, I noticed my feelings towards my father change. When he asked how I was, I stopped scowling and turning away. I started saying, Fine, thanks. I had forgiven him, it seemed, God had helped me; it was done.

But little by little, I noticed another feeling growing inside me. The image of my mother – on the carpet, crying – was not gone, I realized, but transformed. My anger had been diluted, bleached into a pale trace of its form, a covert operator that I would continually – for months, for years – mistake for something else.

~

In primary school: a boy who fancied me. Who would push me against the brick walls, pretend it was a game, a joke.