The Rose Francombe Short Story Competition

I entered the Rose Francombe Short Story competition earlier this year and my hope was to be long listed or even...dare I dream... short listed. So you can imagine my surprise and joy when my story came first. I've never come first in anything in my entire life so this was pure magic for me. Sally Odgers, the prolific, talented Tasmanian author, provided advice to strengthen my work and I submitted it.

I can't explain how much this experieince has encouraged me. Behind this one win, there have been countless rejections which sting every time. Now, I finally believe I can call myself an author.

Here is the story if you'd like to read it:

One Imperfect Heart

Her arms are empty. Bones and sinew, skin petal-soft and loose, muscles limp. The purple veins and mottled skin on her hands are foreign to her; like an aerial photograph taken from a great height—a curious vision of a once familiar land.               

She closes her eyes. Her daughters ebb and flow around her, noise and movement—like the swish of gentle rain on autumn leaves. Questions hover in the air, but she lets them float away to settle on the forest floor of her mind. She knows they mean well, her once-were-children, but now, she must remember what had come before. While she can. Her heart quivers, a winged thing in her chest.                                                                                                      They’d moved here after their wedding. Tom was a lion of a man. A hard worker, inflexible in so many ways but at his heart, a good man. They’d been fire and ice, but despite their differences, he had coloured her life like a Van Gogh painting.

Her lips purse as she recalls the first meal she prepared for them, in this very kitchen. Burnt chicken and potatoes that managed to be soft on the outside, hiding a rock heart. Hands on her hips, she’d challenged him to utter one word of criticism. Tom had eaten the food without complaint. She shakes her head, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. He even asked for seconds. She sighs. He’d promised never to leave her, but he’d been gone these last ten years, taking with him the brightest colours of an artist’s palette.                                                                           Then there were the kids. Each longed for and created in this house. Three peas in a pod. A sweet curve of a cheek, the clean fresh-from-heaven scent of soft, downy heads. The first smile. The taste of a jam-smeared kiss. And laughter, bubbling like music from deep inside bodies too tiny for such a momentous sound. School days, first loves, heartbreaks and new passions. A strange contortion of time. Each day stretching longer than its allotted hours, yet the years disappearing in the space of a heartbeat. All the memories nestle deep in the bones of this house.

            Yet, there had been times when she’d longed for freedom. How she’d dreamed of escape, for a time, to regroup, gather the scattered parts of herself, make herself whole. But there was bathing, cleaning, feeding. There was learning, playing, growing.    And there was…

            Her hands tighten involuntarily in her lap. Her eyes squeeze tight.                                      ‘Mum! I can’t believe you still have this.’ Freya, her youngest shakes her gently. ‘Are you sure you want to take it with you?’                                                                              

Slowly, as if awakening from a deep sleep, she sees her daughter holding a simple pine box with a tarnished brass clasp, grown dusty and dark with age. It was the beginning of Freya’s passion. Now, some of her pieces reside in Parliament House and others as far away as Edinburgh.                                                                                                                                          

She opens her mouth to speak, but her voice is a timid thing.                                                 

‘Of course, darling,’ she whispers.                                                                                               

Freya nods, adding it to the pile of items her mother will keep. The old woman looks at them, wishing she could tell her young self that in truth, there are few things needed after all.          ‘You okay? How about a cup of tea? A biscuit? We’ve got your favourites somewhere.’ Freya calls over her shoulder. ‘Claire, where are the Tim Tams?’                                                            The eldest daughter. The first child. Now a grandmother too. The old woman shakes her head. How could time pass so viscerally, and yet still surprise her with the evidence? Claire’s long, dark hair, now threaded with grey is pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail. A frown nestles between her brows as she pushes the mop across the kitchen floor. She points a finger towards the fridge.                                                                                                                           

   ‘In there, I think. But should Mum be eating them now? Since the…’

‘It’s okay.’ Freya squeezes her mother’s hand. ‘One won’t hurt. After all, today’s a momentous day.’ She turns away, but her mother sees the sadness in her daughter’s eyes, a darkness in a sea of blue.                                                                                                                         

Those eyes, so like his. She feels her chest tighten, and she squeezes her fingers into fists. Like phantoms slithering under a door or through an unguarded window, her memories overwhelm her. And for one bright moment he’s there as he had been, her elusive companion, as familiar to her as the lines on her face.                                                                          Her boy. Her youngest. Always a child. His laughter, now silent in the world, echoes in her mind. His scent lingers still, perfuming each moment of her life. She longs to hold him, as he was, one more time. To fill these empty arms again.       Her bright, beautiful boy, gone.                         

   The race to the hospital. Through dim, empty streets, glistening with rain. The urgent prayers mumbled through desperate lips. Please, please, please. The ashen face, smaller somehow than his four years. The uncomprehending stillness of a boy so busy, so full of life. Surely, he will open his eyes, laugh at her saying, ‘Tricking you, Mummy.’ To a room sterile, hostile, alien. Filled with machines, each shrilly tolling the rapidly fading moments of his life.    The doctor’s mouth forms the words, but his eyes dart away, searching for somewhere safer to rest than on her haunted face. Unwilling to witness the first recognition of the last goodbye. To see how the power of his words will break her, molecule by molecule, shattering her so that she becomes air, floating beyond this world. Only to re-form, much later, a traumatic metamorphosis.                                                                                                                                         ‘Here you go.’ Freya pushes a warm cup into her hands and places a plate holding a single biscuit onto the arm of her chair. Her daughter slides down to the floor, knees to her chest, as she did as a child, so many years ago. She rests her head against her mother’s knee. The old woman wonders at seeing the child and woman entwined.                                                               ‘How can you bear to leave it? All the memories within these walls. It won’t be the same…’ Freya begins and stops, clasping a hand over her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. This isn’t about me.’ She pushes her hair away from her face and turns with a bright smile glued to her lips, trembling at the corners. ‘At least the home is closer to us. We will see you every day. I know Frankie and Ruby are looking forward to it.’                                                                                                   ‘They sure are.’ Claire leans on the mop, the tired lines of her face, falling away at the thought of her grandchildren. ‘Frankie wants to show all his paintings.’ She smiles indulgently. ‘Every single one. And Ruby, of course, has started her own collection.’                                                    The old woman’s fingers rest gently on her daughter’s head. ‘I can’t wait to see them.’ And she means it. Joy can be found, if you search for it, beyond the sadness and the sorrow. The challenge is to have the heart to seek it.                                                                                       

Her daughters chat about the children some more, and the woman notices that there is little left to do. Soon, she will leave this place for the last time. A new family will live within its walls, and she utters a silent prayer that they will add their joyous memories to the house’s sleeping heart. She presses a tissue to her eyes, and her daughters are suddenly there, on each side. The three of them, silent witnesses of a circle closing.                                                             And the moment passes, as she knew it would, and she listens, her heart light as her daughters share their memories of the past and hopes for the future. Closing her eyes, she experiences it all. The simple joys and the exceptional ones. The small sorrows and the crushing ones. Each bringing an evocative fragrance, a unique resonance like the many single musical notes unifying to create a symphony. Elements entwining to form this one precious life. And in her mind, they come to her—the ones who’ve gone, the ones yet to come, weaving, blending, binding across time, across space. Family. Her arms are empty now, her hands lighter. But her heart, her broken, imperfect heart, is full. Filled to overflowing.

Thank you if you made it this far and I hope you enjoyed my story.