The parked cars

Something I have been avoiding noticing and am going to write down. The car in the driveway, eleven minutes, most evenings. The car outside the pottery studio last Tuesday, ten minutes, and then home. The car in the Ingles car park, four minutes, crying about a furniture advert. The car on Haywood by the bank after the four o'clock, engine running. The car outside the practice after I said no to Dale, which was a good one, but still a car. I appear to do all of my actual living in a parked vehicle. Every single one of those is a moment where something real was happening and I pulled over, physically, into a sealed box where nobody could ask me anything, and then got out and resumed. I do not think it is sinister. I think it is the only place in a day that has no role attached to it. In the house I am a partner, in the office I am a clinician, at the studio I am a beginner, on the phone to Greenfield I am the daughter who is fine. In the car I am nothing at all and nobody is waiting for a response. But five separate occasions in one journal, and I had not seen it until I listed them.

Somebody who was not going to do anything about it. That is the actual requirement. Danny would act. Mum would worry and then ring Hannah. Tess would be fine, actually. Tess is already the one place that is not a car.