Winter Blues

The cold is slightly alarming these days and it wraps around Kayla ominously. It feels faintly suffocating, almost like the air can’t quite make it into her lungs. But it’s always been like this. Ever since that one dreadful night in December a few years ago, winter has not been her favourite season. However, being thirty-two with a child limits her options of scurrying into a vegetative state—she can’t just let her brain shut down. Not when there’s a mini-human living in the same premise as her. 

As if summoned by a mere thought, her kid zooms into the room.

“Mama!”

A hum leaves her lips as an involuntary reflex. Being a mother allows her specific superpowers she hadn’t had before—like multitasking while not even being aware of it. 

“Mama, will you tell me about Papa?”

Kayla’s heart constricts. She looks over at her daughter, face carefully composed. “About Papa? Why all of a sudden, Poppy?”

Poppy climbs onto the bed with her, snuggling into her chest. Kayla wraps an arm around the tiny thing: Poppy has always been physically small for her age. 

“Lisa told me about her papa,” Poppy explains. “She asked me about mine, but I don’t know a lot about him. So I told her I’ll ask Mama and tell.”

“Ah,” Kayla debates on whether it’s really worth digging into the memories at the expense of her own comfort. She looks down at her daughter, who’s fiddling with her fingers. There’s only a moment of hesitance, and then she immediately decides that risking her comfort for Poppy isn’t all that bad. “What would you like to know about Papa?”

Poppy—god bless her little heart—squeals happily. Kayla usually doesn’t open up about her lover. Or well…her deceased lover. Maybe it’s the winter blues that have her more willing to dive into the details. 

“Something cool! Was Papa cool?”

Good question, she laughs internally. Poppy’s papa in fact, wasn’t the coolest man around. 

“He wasn’t as cool as Uncle Fredrick,” she replies. “Papa was more of a quiet man.”

Quiet…Loving…Warm…

Poppy’s eyes glitter as she turns around in Kayla’s hold to look at her. “Uncle Fredrick always says Papa was the more boring one! Is that true?”

Trust Fredrick to not let the man be in peace, even after death. But such is a bond between siblings, she muses. 

“He wasn’t boring,” Kayla finds herself saying. “He was cool in his own way. Papa could draw really well.”

“Really? Like Poppy?”

“Like Poppy,” Kayla pinches her cheeks. “My little artist.”

The girl giggles, and Kayla finds her heart beating more freely. David had left behind a gap in her chest, but every day she finds that Poppy finds new little ways to fill it up.

David—Kayla hasn’t called him anything other than Papa for quite a while now. The name brings back a whisper of memories: sweet nights, murmured promises…

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. 

“What did Papa draw?” Poppy eagerly asks. “Puppies? Rainbows?”

Their refrigerator door was filled to the brim with messy drawings of puppies and rainbows, Kayla fondly remembers. Poppy absolutely adores puppies. She’s even begged for one since she could talk. But taking care of a child and a pet while funding the mortgage as well as bills…Kayla couldn’t do it all. 

“A lot of things,” she says. “People, cars, buildings…you know how you keep a diary, Poppy?”

The little girl nods vigorously. 

“Papa used to keep one too, except he didn’t write in it. He drew in it.”

Poppy’s eyes are glazed over with wonder. Oh, to look at the world through a child’s eyes. “Can I see, Mama? Can I? Can I?”

Kayla freezes.

“I can’t remember where it is right now,” False. She knows exactly where. The third drawer on her work desk—the one drawer that remains untouched. “I’ll show you when I find it, yeah? You should go to sleep now, Poppy. It’s past your bedtime.”

Poppy looks disappointed, but Kayla has tread way past her comfort zone today. She needs to unwind. With a glass of wine, preferably.

“Okay, Mama.”

Soon, Poppy’s tucked in her own bed, falling asleep mere seconds after Kayla had kissed her forehead. Kayla walks to the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of wine and plopping down on a chair with a deep sigh.

Oh, David, I miss you so much. 

For nine years, Kayla had restricted herself from feeling too much, which sounds a bit dramatic if she says so herself. Nine years is a long time to stop thinking about something completely. 

She’d lost David maybe a day or two after she’d just had Poppy and the day following it, she’d been in a trance unable to even feed her own child. But there had been a moment where it was just she and Poppy, and the sweet little baby had babbled something. It was at that moment that her resolve had steeled: she’d raise this child—the only breathing remnant of David—as best as she possibly could. 

Which also meant that her own wants and needs came second. 

A tear slides down her cheek. She stares into the red wine in her glass, lips pursed. Of course, she knows that every parent sacrifices for their kids. Her own mother had done it numerous times. But there’s just something about being alone and raising a kid that beats you up mentally. At least her mom had had her dad. She, on the other hand, had no one. She’d tried finding a new partner, but dating after losing her husband hadn’t worked out for her and her interest in it had slowly dwindled. 

She takes a hefty swig of her wine.

For nine years, she was nothing but Poppy’s mom.

Which was lovely of course. She loves Poppy.

But she misses herself. She misses who she was before she became a mom who works a 9 to 5 job and is barely getting by. 

It’s a pity, she muses, that she no longer finds solace in something she once used to love so much, solely because it reminds her too much of her deceased lover. It hurt to pick up a pen to try and rhyme words. 

She remembers a couple of years ago, she’d been on the cusp of a breakdown when Poppy had told her to write a poem. It had been an innocent request, mostly because it had slipped out of her that she used to write poems after seeing one of Poppy’s English books. But in that moment, when she had picked up the pen with the sole reason of writing poetry, her heart had dropped, eyes watering and hand shaking.

Poetry no longer brought her joy; just unwanted masses of ugly emotions. Waves of it, in fact. Waves that were so rogue and brutal that she sometimes felt like she was drowning.

She gulps down the remaining wine before she washes the glass, making her way to her own bedroom. Sitting down on her bed, she takes a deep breath.

Subconsciously, her eyes land on that one drawer in her table. On a normal day, she tries to stray as far as possible from it but today—today, something is drawing her to it.

She gets up, movements unsure and slow as she walks towards her desk. 

Should she?

Her hand moves on auto-pilot, pulling the drawer open. It squeaks and groans as it opens, and dust rises into the air. And right in the middle of it—Kayla’s breath hitches. 

There’s a browned notebook, the cover of it filled with silly little doodles. 

David and Kayla, the title reads, and there’s already a lump in Kayla’s throat. Her hand trembles as she reaches out for it. 

She’d maybe told Poppy a white lie. The diary wasn’t just David’s, it had been both of theirs. It had started as a silly little joke between them back in high school: Kayla had complained that David didn’t get her side of this squabble they’d had. David had asked her to explain herself. But she’d said that she couldn’t and that she’s not that good at speaking up for herself. The next day, David had bought this ugly little notebook and thrust it at her.

“You write poems. At least tell me what’s going on through them.”

It was the moment Kayla had really known that David was the one for her. 

She sits down with the book. Flips to the first page. 

“Maybe this way I’ll get what you mean—” David’s handwriting is a familiar font that she’s carved into her heart. He writes his y’s and g’s a little funny. It makes her laugh wetly. 

The first page is a picture of Kayla herself, drawn by David. It’s a quick sketch, the man had said, but in Kayla’s eyes, it’s the most perfect thing she’s ever seen. She traces the drawing lovingly. 

She feels like she’s eighteen again.

The book is a collection of poetry and drawings: David had illustrated silly little things like hugging her; kissing her forehead and so forth. Unbeknownst to her, a few teardrops slide down her cheeks. 

The very last drawing David had done is of the two of them, and a little baby between them. It’s the final straw for her as she hiccups out a sob, curling up on the bed with the book held tightly against her chest. 

Little Poppy finds her like that in the morning. Her small hands tug at Kayla, disturbing her restless sleep. She wakes up, disoriented. 

“Good morning Mama!”

Kayla looks at the clock. She curses when she realises it’s past eight. Poppy’s probably hungry. She can’t believe she forgot to set up an alarm.

“Good morning baby,” she quickly gets down from bed. “Mama overslept, didn’t she?” Kayla says, giving Poppy a forehead kiss. 

“Yes!” there’s a pause. “What’s this book, Mama?”

She stills. 

“That’s Papa’s diary,” she finally says. “I found it for you.”

“Really?” Poppy sounds elated. “Yay!”

Kayla watches as the girl turns it here and there, observing carefully. “David and Kayla,” she read out. “It has Mama’s name too!”

She flips onto the first page, bursting out in an excited squeal. “It’s Mama! You look so pretty!”

Kayla’s lips quirk up into a small smile. “Do I?”

“Did Papa draw this?” Poppy excitedly asks. Kayla nods her head. “Papa’s so cool!”

She expects the girl to ignore the writing because drawings are so much more eye-catching for kids. But Poppy for some reason, lingers on the first poem. 

“Did Papa write poems too?”

Kayla hesitates. “No, that was Mama.”

“I thought Mama didn’t like poems.”

Kayla blinks, taken aback. “Why would you think that, Poppy?”

Poppy shakes her head, attention already shifted. “Is this Mama and Papa?” she’s pointing at a drawing where David’s drawn them hugging. Kayla hums an affirmation. 

“Come on, Poppy, it’s time for breakfast. Let’s look at the book later, okay?”

The little girl nods. Then says something that has Kayla standing still for a good minute—

“You should write again, Mama. Papa seemed to love it when you did.”

.

.

.

Once Poppy’s safely gotten on the bus to school, Kayla walks back inside to get ready to become an active victim in the scheme of capitalism. Except, there’s some emotion bubbling under her skin, something that nudges her to skip just one day. 

One day can’t hurt. 

There’s something thudding away loudly at Kayla’s chest. Her heart—she realises belatedly. She’s a bit out of breath, head clouded with a cacophony of thoughts. 

She holds a pen in her hand. It hovers over an empty page in her and David’s diary. 

“You should write again, Mama. Papa seemed to love it when you did.”

The words resonate within herself. Poppy doesn’t know, but she’d pushed a button in Kayla. One that she hadn’t known how to find herself. 

She wouldn’t stop missing David, she knows. Maybe she won’t fall in love ever again either. And that’s fine, but she doesn’t need to bottle off all her emotions in order to function. It wasn’t healthy. 

Back when she had been neck-deep in love with David, Kayla had expressed her emotions through poetry. Anger, frustration, happiness—everything she felt was jotted down as a series of words rhyming with each other. And after nine years of rejecting it, she’s finally deciding to let herself feel again. 

She takes a deep breath. 

One word after the other, it all pours out of her again, and Kayla finds herself waking up from a sort of slumber. 

My winter blues, you’re possibly my worst enemy—