Daisy Chains
written by: Jule Moser
She loathes this tablecloth. Its colors made her nauseous – or was it the broth simmering on the stove smelling of brussel sprouts? She was sick of being checked on when she came home late, intruded by nerve-racking curiosity. The awkwardness of being walked in on during her first date. She never got to tell her that she liked girls. An inner reluctance rose in her throat in response to the unexpected touches, which were certainly meant to be affectionate. She swallowed the feeling and attributed it to puberty.
The simmering evolves into a boil, and she realizes that there is no more unexpected touch, just the pot on the stove, its steam above in the air. The tablecloth still sits there, like a relic. She tries to hate it now but always ends up smoothing its wrinkles instead. She hadn’t lost her when she got the call. She had lost her when her brain softened, and she forgot to turn the stove off, and her own name and words seemed to blur into an intangible fog.
She usually came to visit right after school and was in a hurry to leave again, slurped a few spoons, and thanked her for the food – because that’s what her mother told her to do. Sometimes she tried to explain what she had learned at school, a few years later what she studied at university, but all she got was a distracted smile. Her eyes were already distant, so she quit trying. She never came back, never really.
She’d visit sometimes in the care home, which smelled of disinfectant and wilted flowers. She looked at her with blank eyes, polite but bemused.
“Are you my nurse?” she asked once.
“Yes,” she answered. It felt kinder not to confuse her more.
She thought about the last visit often. It was her birthday. She came with her mother to sing Happy Birthday. She knew that within her helpless mind, she managed to get through to them for one last time. She had realized that they were there and started to cry. They were communicating with her through a muffling glass wall. When she received the call two months later, it was like she had already been gone before.
She goes through the front door and enters the garden brimming with spring air, bees whirring through the grass embellished with daisies. She is older now and wishes someone would check in on her. Wretchedness spreads through her, thinking about how she was tethered to her in ways she couldn’t see. How the barging in was love, and the meals she hated so much were a way of feeding her care.
She looks back into the house through the chain curtain; the kitchen is quiet and empty. It’s been quiet since that day in spring, the day she last saw her whole.
- Daisy Chains - May 27, 2025
