Varvara wanted only one thing from the day, but it was more than she had ever wanted from any other.
She forced herself, as she moved from her bed to the bathroom and into the shower, to take the deep and centering breaths everyone talked about these days. Stay in the moment, she told herself. Not long now. She stared at herself in the mirror, but not for too long. The time for such things had gone.
She heard Brenton leaving the bed, he would be in the ensuite soon. She hung the towel.
‘Good morning,’ she said as she left the room. It meant nothing that he didn’t reply.
She flicked on lights, made toast, boiled the kettle, fed the bloody dog.
She yelled when they hadn’t had breakfast and she sighed when they still weren’t dressed. She said, of the dishwasher which had to be emptied, ‘I don’t care who did it yesterday, I want you to do it today.’
Varvara dressed herself in expectation of a day gone right. The black jeans with deep, safe pockets, the red boots with just enough heel, the silver ring from Tiffany’s. The story of why she left the earings behind is one for another day.
She would carry an umbrella, not so much for the rain, more for something to do with her hands. She would need things to do with her hands.
Half past seven, eight o’clock. Time was passing, but it would be hours until she would know.
undetermined 