THE PACKAGE

“Lana, Ali get up now or you’ll be late for school!” it’s always like this the first thing in the morning, getting the girls out of bed is always a little bit of a nightmare, I think I can definitely say they are not morning people. We thought once they got bigger it would be easier, but the reverse seems to be happening. They are almost twelve now and it’s still very much a struggle, in fact a slightly harder one at that. So mornings have become even more chaotic than before…, Claire and I in the past use to always divide the morning tasks between us. We would always tease the girls and say “aren’t you lucky to have two mommies” being the naughty little munchkins that they are, they would simply mutter under their breath, “yeah and twice the headaches!”. Claire would just laugh and say that it was important to remember that kids never truly appreciate their parents until after they’re gone. So just know that they will be wailing at our funerals! I would laugh in response and say that this thought was definitely not comforting! Not comforting at all. Claire would laugh too and say that it was her cryptic central European sense of humor. She’s always been like that, she can see humor even in the darkest situations. She said since the part of Europe which she comes from, has seen so much tragedy, they have responded by developing a kind of weird and dark sense of humor, one that people who come from outside definitely don’t understand. She’s not like that now though, not since the package arrived. Now she just seems to spend all of her days in bed, broken.

Lana, Ali!” I still don’t hear the shower running will you get a move on please!” At last finally footsteps. The twins are just like that, they like to push it to last possible minute and then finally get out of bed. It’s odd since they both really like school or did maybe until recently. Lana still does, Ali though has started to have a few problems. Nothing serious just bullying from one particular pupil. When the girls insisted that their teachers call them by their abbreviated names instead of their full names one student in particular thought they were getting special treatment and picked on Ali for some reason in response, an argument started in the classroom and escalated outside into a fight. I am going to have to go and speak to their head teacher later today. I wish Claire would come with me but I know she won’t…

Getting the girls’ breakfast on the table, I can’t of course avoid looking at all the photos on the fridge, they are these lovely little snapshots of our life together. All the key stages. That one there was a selfie we took together on our first date. It wasn’t even meant to be a date, a friend who knew me after I broke up with my last boyfriend and the mess I was in emotionally, set it up without me knowing it. He just said that he wanted to see a particular film that he felt I would quite like, and asked if I would come. I said yes and then he asked if it was ok if he invited another friend. I said of course it was fine. I went but he never showed up, instead this luminous woman was there. We got to talking, I found out she was a filmmaker doing a psychology PhD, and I just found her fascinating. And something seemed to click, we have been pretty much together every since. I have no idea why my friend even set us up since I was most certainly then not at all interested in a same sex relationship. Somehow though he just knew we would connect. Claire has such a big, open heart that she just pulls you in. I think he was also just worried about me as well. I was so heartbroken when Peter, my ex left. Now if I saw him today I would drop to my knees and thank him sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, for leaving, since by doing so he gave me my life. We never got around to seeing that film, we just seemed to talk all night, I remember asking Claire for god sake why was she not studying film instead of psychology. She just said films she knows, but her native country has had this long strange history and she just wanted to better understand maybe why it had all happened, that way it would make it less painful looking back. But I asked why not then do a PhD in Central European history, she just responded that she knows all the dates and the key events. But what she couldn’t understand was sometimes the people.

That one there was taken on the day she was awarded her doctorate. I was so proud of her. Although I remember asking her if she did now indeed feel that she somehow understood her homeland’s history better. She said in a strange way maybe she did. She said that she started to realize that maybe when tragic events happen to us it’s a human tendency to blame ourselves and maybe countries do that as well collectively, but maybe now she realizes that small countries do not have the power to affect how they are treated by others but simply how they respond to it.

I miss that Claire. The one who could always see the best in any situation.

That photo there was taken the day the twins were born. I said after a thirty hour labour I looked a mess but Claire said I didn’t, and insisted on taking it, she said that I looked just beautiful.

“Ali, Lana I expect you downstairs in five mins!!” A collective “Yes mummy” I hear them arguing “Will you give me the hairbrush, you’ve had it for ages!” I shout upstairs “No fighting girls!” Again a collective “Yes mummy!” About a year and a half ago we both noticed that the girls started doing that spooky twin thing now of answering in unison. Claire would of course just laugh and say well it looks like we have given the world a pair of baby witches. I miss that Claire right now.

It’s funny how the photos here stop when everything started. Somehow, I just didn’t want to take any more. I started to notice anytime Claire would get a text message or read an email. There was something inside me that told me it was more bad news. A friend missing, another one presumed dead, another now maimed with no hope of a normal life. She though seemed pragmatic and said that one day she would make a film about it all, which would tell their stories and as long as she did that they would live on. I remember one story in particular she told me which broke my heart, a folk duo made up of two of Claire’s school friends who insisted on touring the country despite everything that was going on there. They just wanted to cheer people up. They died in random bombing miles away from the fighting. Seeing her reaction to that news reminded me of what a tree cutter once told me about chopping down trees. It can appear that it is the final blow which causes the most damage but he said what’s not seen are the tiny cuts, which have gone before. Each cut makes that tree just that bit weaker, more broken. It took days for Claire to recover after she got the news about her friends’ death but after a while the light inside Claire did return, I noticed though it was now much dimmer.

Once Claire received the package, that light finally went out, that package acted as the final cut in the tree, which seemed to destroy her. It was around that time the girls asked that we stop calling them by their birth names and start using Anglicized versions. This made me sad. Since we had named them after Claire’s grandmothers on both sides, grandmothers who adored them but who had always lived in what they themselves called the “motherland”, with what’s happening now the girls felt they no longer wanted to have them. It’s ironic how when Claire was born her parents in naming her wanted to look westward, they felt that would be where her future lay. It’s ironic how that has turned out to be true in a way.

“Finally there you two are. Now you know you are not leaving this house until you have both had your breakfast so sit down and eat and we leave in fifteen minutes.” “Will mummy Claire ever drive us to school again? ” Ali asked. ” Maybe not for a while Ali, mummy Claire isn’t feeling well right now.” I responded “Don’t worry I can take them, I’m better now”. I turned and there was Claire, standing in front of me, showered and dressed, something I hadn’t seen for a very long time.

She poured some cereal and milk, and then sat at the breakfast table and ate in silence. She then turned to the girls and said finish up so they wouldn’t be late. Which they did. Putting their breakfast bowls in the sink, they then ran to the front door and started to put on their jackets. As Claire put hers on as well I noticed she had with her a large package, the same size as the one which had arrived over two months ago. As she opened the front door and the girls ran out to the car, she said she was going to pop by the post office on the way back since she needed to post it. I asked her what it was. She paused for a long moment and then said, as she picked it up, that it was Sasha, her brother’s boots which had been sent to her after he had been killed in the fighting on the eastern front in Ukraine. His Ukrainian regiment had sent them to her since their parents lived in Russia and were technically now on the other side. Claire had cleaned and polished the boots and wanted to post them back to his unit there in Ukraine, for someone else’s brother to use now. Looking Claire in the eye I could see that magical light she had always carried inside her had now gone out and in its place was a steely resolve to carry on.

The End