Mum called it Suicide Sunday and had done so since she was a girl.      

‘A day so boring you wanted to kill yourself,’ she told me. I wondered if other parents said similar things to their teenagers. 

Throughout her childhood, she’d adhered to the Sabbath traditions of duty and no play, though this was more under her parents’ guidance than God’s. Post church, she would sit on the stairs in her best clothes and listen to the heathen neighbour children through the wall, blowing recorders and laughing. She’d been round there once for tea. The mother had given them sugar sandwiches and let them gouge holes in the lawn with sticks. 

‘Mind my bloody azaleas,’ the mother had told them. Mum had repeated ‘bloody’ to her mother and had never been allowed back.

When my grandfather died, Mum was a freshly divorced, single parent. With grandfather gone, Nana expected Mum to attend Suicide Sundays again with me in tow. The new criteria no longer required Mum at church, though we were told it would be nice if we came along once in a while. Only knitting, reading, and watching Songs of Praise were permitted in Nana’s chintzy sanctum. Watching other programmes risked a brazen ‘hell’ or ‘bugger’ slipping into the atmosphere to sully the day.   

One late autumn Suicide Sunday, I pivoted round and round on my backside in front of Nana’s gas fire, hoping that, like a rotisserie chicken, I would eventually cook on all sides. Nana worked her knitting needles. Mum stretched so that her feet almost touched the fire’s orange bars, the heat making her tights give off a plastic smell. I watched Mum nodding off, imagining having to grow up here every day. A new family lived next door with the sounds of computer game music, squabbling, and giggling coming through the walls.   

As the gas fire reddened my cheeks, I suddenly stopped pivoting as I remembered the crumpled piece of paper in my schoolbag. 

‘Mum?’

‘Hmm?’ 

‘I’ve got cookery class at school tomorrow. I’ve got to take ingredients in.’

Mum’s eyes flicked open. Nana’s needles stopped.

‘What have you got to make?’ 

‘Apple crumble. Sorry, I forgot.’

Both women were on their feet.

‘What’ve you got at home?’ Nana asked Mum.

‘No apples, that’s for sure.’ 

Nana went to the kitchen, Mum close behind. Cupboards banged over notes of infuriation.

They returned, Mum carrying a bag. 

‘Nana’s only got Braeburn apples. We’ll have to see if we’ve got the other ingredients at home.’

‘Can we go to the shop for the rest?’ I asked.

Nana shook her head.

‘You should’ve told me yesterday,’ Mum said to me. I’d always wanted to leave Nana’s before Songs of Praise, but not like this. Mum apologised to Nana.

Nana shrugged. ‘Sometimes life throws us trials.’

The drive home was quiet. Intermittently, I apologised. Mum said she knew I was sorry, yet there was no talk of forgiveness. 

‘It’s always up to me to sort these things, never your father,’ she said. After that, I stopped apologising. 

I couldn’t picture where my father was or who he might be with, and I didn’t know when I would see him again. Even though her father was dead, Mum had the same dilemmas, but the similarities didn’t unite us. 

When we got home, Mum put the butter, wrapped in its golden foil, on the kitchen table.   

‘We need oats too,’ I said tentatively, ‘because it’s a healthy crumble.’ 

‘Bring me the recipe.’

I brought her the forgotten list, which she read while I brought Nana’s bag of Braeburns to the table. Mum weighed and decanted ingredients into plastic tubs. Little white clouds billowed; granules were spilt. She banged the cinnamon jar on the counter. The clumps wouldn’t burst, so she threw it in the bin. I put the tubs into the bag with the apples. The butter remained unweighed on the table. Mum put away the scales and muttered as something tumbled from the cupboard. 

‘Where shall I put the butter?’ I asked. Mum rounded on me as more clutter fell from the cupboard. 

‘Up my arse!’ she yelled. 

‘Okay, but you’ll have to come to school tomorrow.’

My words floated precariously into the air. They’d been a gamble, particularly on a day we didn’t laugh. Mum said nothing as she put her face in her hands. The silence built over the hum of the fridge. I wanted to cram the words back into my mouth and fill my cheeks with the trouble they’d caused. Then her shoulders shook as her legs folded. Her hands dropped. She was laughing, shaking all over.

*

Rebecca Klassen is co-editor of The Phare. Her work has featured in more than forty publications including Mslexia Best Short Fiction, Popshot, Ellipsis Zine, Burningword, Barren, and The Wild Word. She has won the London Independent Story Prize, and was shortlisted for the Oxford Flash Prize and the Laurie Lee Prize. She regularly performs her work at Cheltenham Literature Festival and Stroud Book Festival.