Ida

This is wrong.

The car flipped, crushing the driver inside.

This is wrong.

The casket was gently lowered into the ground.

This is wrong.

Mrs Ida Cooper could not breathe as the lawyer read aloud her husband’s will.

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Twenty thousand dollars. Twenty Thousand.

The Cooper family had never been a rich family – modest and comfortable but not twenty thousand dollars in savings rich. For the life of her, Mrs Cooper could not think where her husband had gotten the money in the first place.

She was also trying not to think about why he had it.

“Mum?” asked Aiden. Mrs Cooper’s eyes snapped up to meet her son’s. “I’m going to study at John’s house. Can I take the car?”

Mrs Cooper bit her lip. “Can you take your bicycle instead?”

Aiden hesitated, sensing her fear. “I can but I won’t be able to pick up Rory from soccer practice on my way back…”

“Ah,” Mrs Cooper muttered, rubbing her temples. “Okay, just – drive slowly… please.”

Aiden nodded quickly, grabbing the keys. “I will. I promise.”

Mrs Cooper turned back to the empty fireplace, worry gnawing at her. Aiden was a good driver, she knew that, but he also took after his father in terms of impatience. Both men loved to rush around, determined to get to the finish line before anyone else.

Her husband always had to be first.

Well Love, she thought bitterly, you’re first again – was it worth it?

Mrs Cooper internally berated herself. Of course, her husband had not intended to die and leave her and their two sons alone, and yet she struggled to suppress the horrible instinct. Why was he speeding? Where had the money come from? Why had he hidden it from her? What had he been thinking?!

The Grief Counsellor had talked about the despair that comes with loss and she herself had studied its effects in her psychology degree a lifetime ago. However, Mrs Cooper found she could not tolerate that dark abyss, fearful that the sorrow would swallow her whole. Anger, she had decided, was an infinitely preferable companion.

How terrible that she felt this way towards her poor, dead husband.

She swallowed tightly and gripped her hands. The rumble of the car’s engine gradually faded away, leaving her alone in her cold, empty home.

Hesitantly, she pulled the little, black book from her pocket.

The book did not belong to Mrs Cooper. She had found it hidden in her husband’s sock drawer, a week before, tucked away under a false bottom. What was in it, Mrs Cooper was terrified to find out. Even if she already suspected the awful truth.

Twenty thousand dollars had been inherited from her late husband. Money that Mrs Cooper could have sworn he could never have had, despite his moderate success working at a technology company. Somehow, she knew that the answers to her questions were in the book and yet she had not been able to bring herself to open it.

Her kids were out and they would not be back for several hours. Holding her breath, she opened the book.

A round, chubby face yawned up at her from its well-worn pages, a blue cap covering its dark hair. A baby boy, she presumed. Mrs Cooper felt cold.

Aiden and Rory had red hair.

Mrs Cooper flicked through more pages. More photos of the same child, growing bigger and more familiar with each page turn. Little notes adorned the edges such as ‘what a pretty smile’, ‘first steps!’ and most heartbreakingly ‘he said “Dada” today!’.

The last string of denial that Mrs Cooper had desperately been clinging to snapped.

Pain ricocheted through Mrs Cooper as grief overwhelmed her eyes and strangled her lungs. A scream tore through gritted teeth and nails dug deep into palms.

I’ll be working late tonight Love – don’t wait for me.

Hmm, we don’t have the money for a holiday right now, so sorry Love.

Oh sorry Love, we can’t get Rory that bike because work’s been a bit tight. Next year, I promise.

TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!

Not to mention the thirty years of sacrifice, compromise and pain and always, always putting herself last for sake of the family, for the children, for her husband-!

I love him. I hate him. I love him.

IhatehimIhatehimIhatehimhatehateHATE-!

A moment of clarity broke through the blinding heat of anger.

I loved him.

Breathe, she thought, breathe.

She was on the ground. The baby book was across the room. The evening sunlight was encroaching through the window.

I loved him.

Twenty years ago, Miss Ida O'Malley graduated first in her cohort for psychology and had been accepted into the Honours program at her university. However, while she would have loved to become Doctor O'Malley, a bespectacled man with a charming smile convinced her to become Mrs Ida Cooper instead.

It was the name of a naïvely happy woman; a woman who married her bespectacled man and built a wonderfully dull suburban life. Someone who stayed at home to raise children, cook dinner and clean the house while he went off to work each day. She did this willingly because she genuinely believed that it was worth it. That he was worth it.

Mrs Cooper was a name she had chosen to take on, to identify to others as, so that all the world would know that she was this man’s wife.

Ida, however, was no man’s wife.

I loved him, she thought, wiping a tear away. Loved.

A bitter smile broke out on her face as she gently pulled herself to her feet. For weeks, she had tormented herself trying to fix what her husband had broken in her, trying to soothe the hatred and anger that bled out with tears and misery. But in this moment, Ida felt no guilt and was content to bask in the warmth of her sweet and righteous rage.

The doorbell rang.

A strange sort of acceptance washed over her, and she moved slowly to the entryway, her body feeling light and detached. She was not surprised or angered by the sight that greeted her as she swung the door open.

A dark-haired woman with wide eyes stood before her. Her forehead creased in worry and she was clinging to her handbag tightly. A small, familiar-looking boy with dark hair hugged her skirt.

The woman took a deep breath. “Mrs Cooper-” she began, but Ida cut her off.

“It’s Ida,” she corrected, squaring her shoulders. “My name is Ida.”

Whoever that may be. I’ll figure it out.

Eventually.