I Did Not Ask

Mum rings at four. I pick up on the first ring. I do not even let it ring twice.

I have this question in my notebook for three weeks. Did she know. Did she know I was going to be a person who did this. I have been walking around with it like a stone in my pocket.

I stay for nine minutes. I tell her I am fine. I tell her I am writing. I tell her I am working. I make a joke about the cat. She laughs.

I do not ask.

Now I am on the kitchen floor. The tap is dripping. The door is still shut.

In four days the thing I am scared of goes out into the world. She will see it before I tell her. That feels wrong. That feels like me.

I do not know how to say the true thing to the person who made me.