A DAY OF RAINBOWS

'Asthma never goes away,' I told him, 'Not if you don't use the medication to fight it - fresh air isn't going to do it Musician.'

 

I switched off from his ideas, not wanting to hear the feeble answers for neglect. Thank God the doctor gave him a bollicking, and kept him in; that was a first, along with the canula in his hand; that little tap on his blood. He complained about it, and the time we'd had to wait. I shouldn't still have to be this mother, to a thirty year old man. Why don't I have a son who can cope with his own small space in the world? Another fault of mine, I supposed.

 

Now I had to pick up more medication for him from ward 20, on my way to work. He was knackered, he said, and sleeping the whole incident off because they'd woke him every half hour to take his blood pressure, then took him for a chest x-ray at 5am! Not once did he ask how I was, driving home at 3am last night.

 

And down came the rain - in torrents, behind the sun. I had to switch the wipers to insane! Motorways are dangerous places when there's water thrown about but driving over fly-overs through rainbows is worth every moment of near-death collision. They arrived in front of me, one after another, strong bands of colour being born right before my eyes; I'd never seen anything like it in this city before. God was making me jump through hoops - well, drive, but still an effort.

 

Everywhere I turned, a rainbow waited for me - even as I parked at the hospital. This is a sign, I thought. I'm too good to go on strike, to refuse to be a mother to my son, even if he was fifty! So maybe this is his turning point too; it might be his day, his epiphany - even if he is sound asleep in his dusty flat with his loose-haired cat.