Jessica Moreton - Short Story

Daddy says, ‘Draw something pretty on the wall.’

And I do: Jessica Rimmer.

I like my name; I think it’s pretty and my mummy likes it too because she gave it to me. I hope Daddy does cause if my name’s pretty then that means he thinks I am too. 

‘Let’s see how long it takes you to change your mind on this one.’

Daddy laughs like he just said a funny joke. I look at Mummy and she’s not laughing. I put the lid on my felt-tip. Mummy says something but she says it in the voice she uses when Daddy’s in bed and we have to be quiet. 

I grab Daddy’s hand and shake it. It wobbles like my front tooth.

‘Daddy, look!’

‘I don’t ask for much, Keith,’ Mummy says. 

Daddy laughs again. ‘Yeah right.’

‘Seriously?’

‘What?’

He’s still looking at Mummy. ‘Daddy!’

He looks at my name. ‘I said draw something pretty.’ It’s like Miss McDonald’s red pen in my book. I think I’d like that more.

‘I did!’

But Daddy says, ‘Your name isn’t a pretty picture.’

‘It is because I think it is.’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

I think it matters and so does Mummy. I know that because, when I was in little school, I drew her and Daddy a picture and I wrote my name on it all by myself. Mummy hugged me cause of my name, not my drawing and said I was her big girl. And my name is on everything: my books, my pictures, my DS. Mummy even wrote my name in my cardigan for school so I don’t lose it. We sit on them when we play on the field cause the grass is itchy. Maybe Daddy is right, though. We don't look for our names; we pick them up and smell them and our names don’t matter then. 

I guess I’ll have to wait until I’m not little anymore to know. 

 *

I’m not little anymore. 

I know a lot of things now, actually, but I knew things back then as well. Little me lives on the wall, I can see her because the walls are bare and there are no blinds in the window to keep me from peeping. It’s like an open wound; my stomach churns but I can’t turn away. 

Dad’s not here to make a quip about Mum’s indecisiveness or to give me a felt-tip to draw on the wall. Mum’s not here either, but that’s okay because she’s got her own toolbox now, and my gloves make my fingers feel like the nibs of felt-tips.

My breath clouds against the window and I move my finger against the glass skipping the ‘R’ and going right to the ‘M’. Just like Dad, little me’s a memory now. But I still like my name, I do. I think it’s better and my mum does too because she gave it to me. 

Jessica Moreton. 

I guess Dad was right; my name wasn’t pretty then, but it definitely is now.