the wall is blue

<p><em>Where’s your mother?</em></p><p><em>Not well today.</em> Said carefully and neutrally as if pretending things were normal would make them so. Transform life into a manageable thing. As if ten year olds everywhere were the ladies of the house the caretakers of the family.</p><p><em>I see.</em></p><p>Mrs Blakehurst their babysitter from up the road was on the stoop. She had brought the youngest two. Kate knew it was important to use her grown up voice through a narrow slit in the door.</p><p><em>Thank you Mrs Blakehurst. Here is your pay.</em></p><p>Father didn’t change the rhythm so that helped make it normal. Though deep inside a much younger Kate screamed that it was not. But Emily Daniel and Sara’s voices were louder. Some inner sense stopped Kate from calling them ‘the children’ as was her mother’s custom. She was even particular that she called them in order of their age oldest to youngest as if by this precision she could push back the chaos that hovered like a patient bird of prey.</p><p>Brooks explores the internal dilemma of a child compelled to become parent to a mentally unstable mother as well as the guardian of her three younger siblings. With fearless candour Linda peels back the layers of a child with adult responsibilities. What becomes of Kate when the years fall by and she reaches adulthood? Can the child within be denied voice?</p><p> </p>