As we stand in the damp kitchen...

As we stand in the damp kitchen I feel disgusted, and then hate myself for it. Thick, sticky grease cakes the skirting boards and soft dust clings to that. I think back to old memories, spot checking the house before friends come over. The red hot embarrassment of opening the oven to find a stack of filthy trays. Thick with putrid white fat, hidden and forgotten. Cat food has dried to the lino, layer upon layer of dead meaty flecks. The cat hasn’t been allowed inside for months, his party of fleas let him down. A fly lands on my cooling mug of tea. If you had a microscope you would see its ugly face vomiting on the rim of the cup. I push it away. I notice a slow cooker on the sideboard and look inside. Through the oil smeared glass lid, weeks old, a rancid beef stew is hiding. “When did you make this?” I asked. “Yesterday” she lied. As I look at her face I see she’s lost weight since I saw her last. Her skin, once red and bloated, is now grey and as papery as the cheap toilet roll she buys. We look similar, my mother and I, or so I’ve been told. I wince at the thought and blink it away through burning tears. She puts her head in her hands, and folds into a heap on the floor. I stare at wrinkled skin around her cleavage and her brittle blonde hair, silver at the roots. My eyes become bleary and I listen to her cry. Quiet and careful sobs fill the small room. She’s crying for what could have been. Her life was wasted on wrong choices. Nothing to show for it, but a dirty kitchen and a useless daughter who doesn’t know how to care.