Emma Was Here

A (very) short story about the confusions of our time.

“Did you get that?”

Will’s gaze rested on his laptop screen, not on me. He was a man accustomed to receiving nods.

“You’ll please those whiners, Emma, you’re good at that. Moving on. Abigail?”

The female body next to me sprang into action, relaying coverage for her clients at a remarkable speed. I sensed a dull headache settling, no doubt escalated by the stale meeting room air. Too many shattered expectations in too small a room. I wasn’t even sure how the thought got into my head. Surely, I had wanted this, had pursued my career passionately from the onset.

Back in my office, the task to call Eddie’s school and book a doctor’s appointment for Mary kept moving further and further down my post-it as I doled out advice to my team, took calls from clients and summarised targets met in preparation for this afternoon’s management meeting. I glanced out the window, phone squeezed between my cheek and shoulder. A cloud was moving aimlessly across the sky, looking like it had nothing better to get on with. Unexpected annoyance surged inside of me. How could it just float there, when there was a million things to do?

Once I resurfaced from the management meeting, my phone silently informed me that I had a missed call from James. I prepared myself for the onslaught of accusations. No, I hadn’t called school. No, Mary was still no closer to receiving her third round of vaccinations. Yes, I did know we absolutely had to get it sorted before we left.

“Coming for a pint, Emma?”

I spun around, my laptop half packed up, and came face to face with one of my youngest team members lingering hesitantly. A few of the other more fun-loving creatures hovered in the background.

“No,” I responded curtly though it had not been my intention, “I’ve got a world war to deal with at home.”

He laughed politely, not realising that the joke was the truest thing I’d said all day. I dreaded coming home, dreaded the sense of failure residing in the walls, dreaded the guilt that mounted as I snapped at the children and rushed them through bedtime. Most of all, though, I dreaded my own bedtime. Laying down next to James, a perfunctory kiss before lights out being our only kind interaction these days, I could never find rest. When the bleak morning light finally beckoned my lids to open, I was a shattered, tired mess that rose only on command.

It will be better in the Seychelles. Mary will sleep like an angel and Eddie will love being in the children’s club. You and James will unite in the bliss that descends once you’re surrounded by serenity and beauty.  

“Remember today, Emma.” James kissed both children on the head, taking care not to step within touching distance of their sticky hands. The door closed behind him before they had finished breakfast, before Maya had arrived with her hustle and bustle and assertive ways, before my looming departure created mayhem in the house. Variable annuities and exchange-traded funds carried more gravitas than flimsy public relations. Forty-five minutes later, I made my own ungraceful exit to the sound of Mary bellowing for mama, Eddie protesting his school uniform and Maya grappling with both. A brilliant suggestion came to me. I would ring Maya from my office and brief her on the phone calls she needed to make in my place. Maya was resourceful and reliable. Suddenly, the thought of being without her for ten days in the Seychelles seemed unbearable and an operation destined to fail. I must book another seat for Maya.

As I re-emerged from the underground, my phone told me something unusual for this hour. My mother had called. With a tightening chest, I pressed the dial-back button.

“Hello, Emma,” her voice was sombre. “Listen, I’m afraid I’ve got some sad news.”

I waited, bracing myself for whatever lay ahead.

“Grandma just passed.”

I kept walking, phone pressed to my ear. A thought rose unchecked. A funeral, now?

“Emma?”

My mother’s voice was came at me from another solar system. The human body of commuters rushing to clock in was still carrying me forward, making my movements mindless and automatic.

“Sorry, mum, I guess I’m a bit shocked.”

“Yes, well, it all happened very sudden.”

She proceeded to relay the factors that had conspired to cause grandma’s hasty departure, the steps she would take to organise a worthy send-off and the practicalities of the four of us coming to stay.

When she had rung off to call my brother, my feet finally came to an abrupt halt. I looked around, feeling like I had just risen from the underworld. Had that bench always been there? And what about that tree?

I sat down, slowly, my shoulder bag resting on my lap. The clock kept ticking forward, feet kept rushing past me, shoulders kept bumping into each other and taxi horns kept honking but I had escaped the dimension of time. I sat there, watching it all unfold, taking no part in the collisions and interactions, an isolated island with a rushing bloodstream and a fiercely beating heart. I’m alive.

My fingertips felt splintered wood and my gaze travelled downward, making out the letters ‘was here’. Someone had carved his or her name underneath my thumb but wear and tear had slowly erased it. I stared at it for a while before finding my keys and picking out the one with the sharpest edge. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was carve. I needed to carve. I wanted to carve my name, right here on this bench.

So I did. When I left, much later, a small but unexpected sense of satisfaction broke through the sadness. The next person to rest on that bench would know, and perhaps they would wonder.

Who, might they ask, was Emma and what, might they wonder, was she doing here?