Yvvette Edwards

“My relationship had ended and Red had taken my son. My life was my own and I could do anything I wanted, yet I felt nothing. As I stood staring at the walls, searching inside myself for some kind of emotional response, the nothingness suddenly welled up inside me, like a physical mass, so vast and empty and infinite I was terrified. The very first time I went running, it was from that terror, from the possibility of being sucked down into emptiness for ever, and as I ran I discovered I was able to feel; pressure in my lungs, pain in my legs, my skin perspiring, the pounding of my heart.
My routine was erratic, I ran when I felt like it, usually five or six times a month. So was my style. It was nothing like that of the runners I grew accustomed to seeing, the ones who regulated themselves, jogged two or three times a week, who did a warm-up first and stretching exercises afterwards, the people for whom the activity was a hobby. I ran like my life depended on it, as fast and as hard as I could. Sometimes, passers-by would look beyond me as I ran towards them, with fear in their eyes, trying to see who or what was pursuing me, trying to work out whether they should be running too. As long as I was feeling, I didn’t care.”
― Yvvette Edwards, A Cupboard Full of Coats

“Hello, little man,’ I said and kissed his cheek.

‘Urgh.’ He wiped the kiss off. ‘I hate lipstick.’

I laughed as if he were joking and kissed him again. ‘You’ll love it when you’re older.’

‘When I’m older,’ he asked, ‘will you be dead?’

Though there was nothing in his tone but interest, the question floored me completely. Stunned, I opened my mouth to reply, but could think of nothing to say.

‘The mum of one of the kids in Ben’s class is dead,’ Red said, his tone neutral. ‘Ever since he found out, he’s been obsessed.’

‘Will you?’ Ben pressed.

‘Mummy will die when she’s old,’ his father answered, and I had to bite my tongue, because I knew better than anyone that death did not pre-book appointments decades in advance. Its approach was random, based on whimsy, often violent. I came from a line of women who bore a single child and were dead before its eighteenth birthday. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about,’ Red said.”
― Yvvette Edwards, A Cupboard Full of Coats