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Olives<\/strong><\/p>\n The symbolism was as mashed as my nerve: the table set with a chipped and stained antipasto bowl filled with pimento olives drowning in oily marinade. It looked like you were making an effort. This time I didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n The sweat leached from my back and armpits, sucked at my t-shirt even though it was a cool March afternoon, a pretend taste of sub-tropical autumn before the city melted in a final hurrah to summer.<\/p>\n \u2018You know Ally Lewis\u2019s son went to a kinesiologist,\u2019 you said, settling yourself opposite me, the olives between us. \u2018Had his body temperature tweaked half a degree. You should do that. You\u2019d be more comfortable.\u2019<\/p>\n I knew you meant you would be more comfortable. I\u2019d never worked out why you found sweat so offensive.<\/p>\n I\u2019m fine most of the time, I wanted to say. It\u2019s only you who does this to me.<\/p>\n But my tongue languished unresponsive in my mouth. I swore I felt it swell to fill the emptiness left by the unsaid words.<\/p>\n You read my t-shirt with brows sewn together. Anything you didn\u2019t understand you automatically labelled rubbish and I\u2019d got the feeling in the last few years you\u2019d slipped me into that category too. And somehow I minded.<\/p>\n Your quizzical expression gave way to mild exasperation and in turn became mild disgust. You were infinite layers of wilting dissatisfaction. Being with you was like choking on insulation fibers.<\/p>\n I took an olive to occupy my nervous hands before you launched a monologue on the psychology of restless fingers. Rolled it between my fingers for a moment, an unintentional mimicry of you with grapes, before popping it into my mouth and chewing carefully.<\/p>\n \u2018You eat olives. That\u2019s new.\u2019<\/p>\n I hated olives but kept an impassive face. It gave tangible form to the sourness in my mouth and I wish I\u2019d just left without saying good-bye.<\/p>\n \u2018Why not go to Sydney?\u2019 you asked. \u2018You love Sydney.\u2019<\/p>\n Loved. When I was ten and the highlight was an Opera House snow dome and a Harbour Bridge ruler. Exotic souvenirs from travelling grandparents. Something shiny for show and tell on the first day of term.<\/p>\n \u2018We have friends and family there,\u2019 you said.<\/p>\n We? Aunty Sue and Uncle Vic were hardly family. My friends who moved to Sydney had moved again. You didn\u2019t know anyone else there. Ever. Besides, I wasn\u2019t travelling for us. For you.<\/p>\n \u2018You\u2019re going so far away!\u2019<\/p>\n You said it as though I\u2019d got hold of an atlas and ruler, worked out the furthest place from here and decided on that as my destination. Maybe you were right to think that.<\/p>\n This time I didn\u2019t care what you thought. Or if you were right.<\/p>\n \u2018I just don\u2019t understand. Why Morocco?\u2019<\/p>\n Food. History. Architecture. Culture. Adventure.<\/p>\n Things you would never understand. Though you would\u2019ve hit Google if I\u2019d let you know yesterday what I was planning. I\u2019d have spent this afternoon listening to you, the armchair expert on Morocco, tell me all about my destination. That\u2019s how you worked. You who have never ventured beyond the state you were born in.<\/p>\n \u2018You can\u2019t stomach chilli. It gives you the trots. Remember the time…\u2019<\/p>\n And I tuned out. I imagined being there: the veiled women, the bearded men, the dusty marketplace, the smell of spiced meat cooking, the call to prayer, the bray of goats and camels, the hand of Fatima on the doors. I imagined myself in a dozen other places too. I imagined being so far away from you I could breathe. I saw the umbilical cord still lashed around my neck snap as the plane rose above the tarmac.<\/p>\n You see, I\u2019m not like you, I wanted so badly to say. I\u2019m not afraid to be alone.<\/p>\n \u2018Are you going to just sit there and say nothing? Tear your old Mum\u2019s heart out and not even say sorry?\u2019<\/p>\n What\u2019s the point of talking? You haven\u2019t listened to me once in twenty-five years and I don\u2019t expect you to start now. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour, you used to say, parroting Dr Phil.<\/p>\n I relish this moment, to be your anomaly.<\/p>\n \u2018I raised you better than this.\u2019<\/p>\n You raised me to believe actions speak louder than words, though you always just talked louder, at me. Like now.<\/p>\n So I stood and pushed the bowl of olives toward you. The squeal of the wire door igniting the pyre of your disappointments.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n