#FreewriteMadness: My Response to the 'Armband' Prompt

Here we go again: another #FreewriteMadness update! This one is based on @freewritehouse's latest daily prompt, 'armband'. Unlike my previous posts this month, this one is composed of entirely new material that has just been written this evening – so need to italicise large blocks of text. 😊 Let's jump into it without further ado...

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Emma can hardly believe how musty the attic is ... but then again, it's been months since she ventured up here. She can't even remember when it was – it may have been just after last Christmas, when they were putting away all of the decorations.

Today, though, she is a woman on a mission. It's time to clear out all of her old junk: to stop hanging onto all of these old things, carrying memories of happier times between herself and Frank that can never now be recreated. She can't explain why she suddenly feels so compelled to do this. Perhaps all the talk of that Kon Mari method has got to her – a couple of the staff members in Price Watchers were going about it at lunchtime earlier.

She tentatively steps over some loose boards, and a pile of miscellaneous junk just beyond them, to reach the stack of white boxes at the far side of the attic. She lifts down the smallest one. Okay ... 'wedding cards/photos' is written on top. This will be one of the hardest boxes to sort out. Maybe she'll just open it and have a quick look inside – get a sense of just how difficult it'll be – before she decides whether this is a job for today or not.

Oh God. At the very top of the heap is a photograph of herself and Frank in their wedding clothes. She traces a finger over the image of her younger self, barely able to breathe. She can hardly recognise that version of herself now. Who is she: the optimistic-looking young woman with those tight, corkscrew ringlets in her hair, and the gorgeous dress? Her hair was an even more vibrant shade of red in those days than it is now – as a child, she used to be so embarrassed over her hair colour, but Frank had always claimed to love it. Frank. There he is as a younger man – the sharp suit, the gleaming, gelled-back hair, the ice-blue eyes – before it became all about work and his other women.

She feels tears form in her eyes and wipes them away impatiently. For God's sake, she's never going to get all this done if she keeps pausing to cry...

Right. Those cards and pictures are clearly a job for another day. What can she do right now?

Hmm. There's a box of Brian's old toys in the corner. This seems like another one that could bring on the waterworks, but she'll just have to take her chances. She drags it out into the centre of the attic and begins to open it.

'Mam? What are you doing up here? It's way too early to be getting the Christmas stuff!'

She turns around to see that Brian is now standing on the ladder leading up to the attic – his head just visible above the opening. He looks somewhat nonplussed.

'Oh ... hi, Brian. I wanted to do a little bit of a clearout this afternoon. It's such a mess up here.'

'Why now, all of a sudden?'

'I really don't know, love,' she replies with a shrug. 'I just got some sort of mad notion to do it, I suppose.'

'Fair enough.' He climbs into the attic fully, then wanders over to Emma and points at the box. 'What's that?'

'These are some of your old toys, believe it or not.' She smirks a little mischievously at him. 'I don't suppose you'd like to go through them with me? Maybe there are some things you'd like to keep? Sentimental reasons and all that...'

He snorts. 'Hardly. I actually came looking for you because ... you were at my parent-teacher meeting today, right?'

'I was.'

He eyes her a little nervously. 'How did it go?'

'Well, Mr Higgins told me you're doing very well in physics,' Emma begins calmly, as she rummages through the box, 'and he thinks –' She pauses – takes a good look at what she just uncovered – and a huge grin spreads across her face. 'Oh my God ... ah Brian, do you remember this?' She laughs heartily as she holds it out for him: it's a bright green and purple inflatable armband, plastered with pictures of Barney the dinosaur and his friends.

He glances at it and groans. 'Ah, Mam...'

'Oh, I'll never forget it! On your first holiday to Spain with your dad and me, you refused to take these off, even when you were nowhere near the pool ... and you insisted on wandering around Madrid one day with both armbands on! Nothing Frank or I said could convince you to take them off...' She breaks off, convulsing with mirth.

'Well, I was only – what – three or four?'

'Three. You wanted everyone in Madrid to know how much you loved him!'

'Maaam! Stop.' He is starting to turn red.

'I'll be an embarrassment to you all your life, Brian. Get used to it.'

'Yeah, yeah ...'

'When you're accepting your Nobel Prize for physics, you can be damn sure that I'll be at the ceremony, finding some way to show you up in front of all your fancy academic friends –'

'For fuck's sake...'

'I'll show them all your Barney armband.'

'Mam! Would you just stop...'

'Careful now – you don't want to be written out of my will, do you?'

He shakes his head, laughing. 'Whatever.'

She places the armband back in the box with a smile and decides she will definitely hang onto this, at least. She's pretty sure there are photographs of that fateful holiday up here – if she comes across them today, Brian will certainly be hearing all about it. 'Anyway ... Mr Higgins is very impressed by your performance in physics, like I said. He thinks you could go a long way with it, if you keep studying it up to Leaving Cert level.' She glances at him. 'You did say you'd like to do that, yes?'

'Yeah.' He smiles a little bashfully. 'I do really like physics.'

'I'm thrilled to hear it, love, I really am. Ooh, how about this Thomas the Tank Engine figure? Do you want to keep that?'

A withering glance from him is enough to put paid to that idea. She chuckles to herself as she places it back into the box.

'Now, Ms Sheehan – your English teacher – she told me you're having trouble there. But you've never been all that interested in English, have you?'

He grimaces. 'Not really.'

'That's fine, love. Stick to your strengths. All you need to do is avoid failing English, really – and Irish.' She peers at him with some amusement. 'The Irish teacher doesn't seem to be your number one fan.'

'Yeah.' He lowers his gaze to the floor, a little embarrassed. 'She told you I don't pay attention in class, right?'

'She did. Ah, well. You'll never need to use Irish in your life, realistically. It's a dying language. I suppose that is a sad thing, in terms of maintaining our cultural heritage and all that. Blame the Brits, blame colonisation, blame the globalised economy ... but there it is.'

He stares a little strangely at her. 'Why are you acting so weird?'

'What do you mean?' she replies innocently, continuing to scrutinise the contents of his old toy box.

'If you'd heard a year ago that I was failing English and Irish, you would have been so mad at me. And now ... you're just ... you're being weird. Making jokes about the Brits and everything. Why?'

Emma gets to her feet and looks him straight in the eye, her demeanour more serious now. 'You know why, Brian.'

He stares back at her, confused.

'The most important thing to me, above all, is that you're happy. I know I used to be absolutely obsessed with your grades, and I used to go into that old school of yours nearly every single day to fight with the teachers – to fight with you – but now ... I can see that you're so much happier than you used to be, and that means more to me than anything else in the world.' She squeezes his shoulder – those damn tears are threatening to overwhelm her again, but she needs to get this out. 'I just want you to know ... that is all I've ever wanted for you.'

He removes his hand from her shoulder, now looking away from her with an air of mortification. 'Geez, Mam. Okay. I get it!'

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Image Sources
Wedding picture: Colourbox
Barney and friends: Entertainment Weekly

Well, all of that came to 1,448 words. 😳😍 When added to my earlier tally of 741, this gives me a grand total of 2,189 #NaNoWriMo words written today!

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