"Watching Lucy" by Matthew ShepherdContentment has been eluding me for some time, but its first vestige is creeping through me now. I’m laying back in a comfortable chair, the sun is warming my cheeks and I have nothing to do except watch Lucy.
She is lost in her own thoughts, joyfully playing a game, enjoying her independence, wandering around the garden. In that floral dress, the resemblance to Rebecca is unnerving. I have learnt to deal with such reminders and I am pushing this one away expertly. Lucy appears to be conducting a symphony by waving a dandelion in the air. The stem gets limper with each movement until the sticky white sap on her fingers becomes too much and she tosses the weed onto the grass. A whisper of wind distracts Lucy from inactivity and she ambles her way to the flower bed. She picks up a stone and mutters to herself before placing it back very deliberately at a new angle. She accompanies it with a clod of parched soil, a twig, a dried leaf and an empty snail shell before heading towards the old railway sleeper. It’s too heavy for her to lift so I jog across the lawn to help out. Together we raise the wood. “No, it’s not there either,” she says. “What’s not there, special girl? What are you searching for?” Lucy looks back at me, apparently surprised by my need to question her. “Mummy’s love, of course, daddy.” The narrowing of my brows encourages her to explain. “Before she died, she said her love for me would always be everywhere I go. I can’t find it, daddy. Was she lying?” Happiness begins to drain through the soles of my shoes and I wonder how to start.
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