The definition of love

Where is the fucking toilet paper? The toilet is too small to bend down in with the door closed. Getting down on my hands and knees in the open doorway to clean the floor is not only too obvious, it’s too disgusting, but asking for a mop feels impossible too.

I settle for giving one or two token dabs at the pool on the floor then dumping the soggy, disintegrating clump of paper in the toilet. It is far from obvious where the hand basin is. We have to get out of here.

I’ve got to stop her eating more sweet and sour pork pieces with her bare hands.

Sweet and sour pork, egg fu yung, fried noodles and mini spring rolls from Ming Du Takeawaways are our traditional Friday treat, and a major negotiating chip in our lives.

I want to watch another Paw Patrol mummy! Now!

Well, do you want to get Chinese on Friday?

When I agree unprotestingly to getting Chinese on the way home, the world teeters wildly.

Is it friday today, mummy?

No, it’s Tuesday sweetie pie.

But do we get Chinese on Tuesday?

Not usually honey. This is a special treat because you’re a bit sick.

We’re talking about the person that has rejected everything except milk, lemonade and quarter of a piece of toast since last Thursday. Forget it that I’ve just been to the supermarket to buy everything remotely tempting; roast chicken, mini beef party pies, ‘red pasta’ (cheese tortellini), tomato sauce, chocolate muffins, madeira cakes with pink icing and sprinkles, ice-cream, ice-cream cones, chips, freshly squeezed orange juice, grapes, ‘special’ cheese, bananas.

I don’t know if the anxiety would be less if I had two.

I turn the car around, tell little one to wait, and I run, heavy rain obscuring my glasses. When I get closer I see the note on the closed door about family reasons. My sick child is visibly drooping. She needs to get home. But she wants Chinese.

Where else can I get Chinese food without driving across town? I can’t find a park. Perhaps we could just make Chinese food ourselves? At home? No. Little one wants real Chinese. Might she want some delicious roast chicken? No. She wants only Chinese. Her lips are quivering. We drive some more.

She wants to stay with me, but doesn’t want to walk.

We park a while away and I hoist her our of her seat into the rain.

Walk slower mummy!

Ok.

Mummy, walk slower, now! I’m scared!

Oh sweetie, sorry. I’ll walk slower. We’re just getting a bit wet.

At the takeaway, we have to wait. But little one needs to go toilet. Now. The couple behind the counter are too polite to refuse me, but the man draws his eyebrows together as he gestures towards the back of the shop. The swing door springs back and forth. The bathroom is a dark open door off a damp set of concrete stairs. It’s out of view of the customers, and does not contain any white, or lino, or stainless steel. I have to hold little one out at an awkward angle over the bowl. She’s heavy in my arms.

Go! Go!

Too late, I hear a spattering and feel the dampness seeping onto my sock. I shift her position in my arms until I can hear the ceramic tinkle. I put her down. She stands quietly in her socks, on the wet floor.

I pick her up and put her at the top of the stairs, shouting to wait for me. Meaning not to walk towards the splatter of deep frying chips, raw chicken, cleavers and oil.

—

These days, I enjoy being grateful for small things. Little one is snoring gently on the couch, still wrapped up in her winter coat. I’m slumped beside her. My socks and shoes are still wet. The heater is on.

Happiness is a state of mind. Like that I have a house, and a heater. And a soft couch to lay little one on for a nap after I’ve gently manoeuvered her half-sleeping form out of her car seat. She’s so big now, her head rests on my shoulder and her legs dangle.

My father often gets blown away by how amazing computers are. During my childhood, he’d be working on something, typing bright green letters into the black screen. He’d press enter, sit back and lines of green would generate, snaking back and forth to cover the screen, and he’d exclaim “Aren’t computers amazing, Louise!?”

I feel the same way about my child. I gaze at her and find it unbelievable that what I feel is invisible; it’s so strong it seems like it must have an outward manifestation. This love builds the Taj Mahal in my mind. It’s huge. It’s the whole universe. How could this not be set in stone? How is this relationship built just of what is human and fragile? Do I deserve to have this amazement of love?

And that’s the cognitive path to anxiety, the path I don’t walk.

I take her down the stairs, murmuring into her ear that I’m going to make her a soft little nest on the couch and she will have a beautiful sleep and wake up feeling fresh. Sweetie. Darling one. My baby.

She’s sleeping so deeply that she doesn’t even protest at being called a baby. She is a big girl after all, almost four years old. Which is almost six, the real six. A mythical age at which a person goes to big school, knows how to draw hearts and flowers, and does grown up things.

Little one stirs in her sleep on the couch, kicking out at me and letting out a loud fart. She gives a little cry. Then a cough, throwing her hand over her eyes. I’m feeling lucky.