Still Face by Jenni Brooks
Image by Mikotoraw Photographer for Pexels
23rd March 2020
The mother sits down and waves at the daughter and the daughter gives a greeting back to her. The mother cannot hear her. The daughter asks her to turn her microphone on, gesturing to the bottom of the screen. She mimes and points, doing anything she can to allow the mother to understand. The mother puts her glasses on and squints at the daughter. They are working to synchronise their emotions and objectives. The mother presses the camera icon, and her moving face is replaced with her profile picture. The daughter hangs up, and texts the mother with more detailed instructions.
25th March 2020
The mother rings the daughter back after a couple of days, with renewed confidence in her abilities. The daughter picks up the phone and asks if the mother can now hear her. The mother nods. Mother and daughter laugh together, at the fact they can now connect. The mother tells the daughter about her online shopping, and talks about how strange the delivery men look in their surgical masks. The daughter tells the mother about the cat food she’s been stocking up on, and the face masks she’s been sewing for her wife. She talks about her work at the supermarket, and the mother nods along in response. This happens for several minutes, until the mother’s face freezes. The daughter very quickly notices this, and does everything she can to try to get the mother back. She smiles. She speaks. She shakes the screen, until eventually the screen goes black. The daughter restarts her internet connection, and they begin the greetings again.
30th April 2020
The mother and daughter have been regularly calling for over a month. The daughter called the mother to wish her a happy birthday, and the mother called the daughter to thank her for the card she got in the post. The daughter asks the mother if she disinfected it before opening it. The mother says she did. Sometimes, after the mother tells the daughter about the goods she’s been baking, mother and daughter run out of positive things to talk about. This is usually when the daughter will start talking about her worries about the shoppers in the supermarket, and the mother will tell her not to worry. The daughter will say: she knows, and the mother will say: good. After a couple of moments of silence, the mother will ask if the daughter wants her to come over. The daughter will laugh, and shake her head, and tell the mother that she has to keep shielding. After this, the mother will smile, slowly, before leaving to take her brownies out of the oven.
20th July 2020
The mother and daughter have been regularly calling for a few months. At least once during each call, one of their faces will freeze. This has happened when the mother is in the middle of telling the daughter about the television shows she’s been watching, or when the daughter is telling the mother about her wife’s sore throat. Whenever this happens, they will at first react with normal emotions: waving, or talking calmly. When this doesn’t work, they will respond negatively. They might shout, swear or throw their mobile devices. They may lose control of their posture due to the anxiety they are feeling. Most of the time this is rectifiable: if the connection regains its strength, both mother and daughter can overcome it. When they cannot regain connection strength, there is no reparation. They must move on to other things.
15th August 2020
Mother and daughter haven’t called each other in several weeks. Instead they have been communicating in other ways. The mother has been sending texts to the daughter, and sending letters to her wife’s hospital ward. The daughter has been composing texts back, when she remembers, but often forgets to send them. The mother doesn’t take it personally; she reads a lot of books and tries to concentrate on the words. The daughter does the same when she isn’t ringing the ward for updates. Both mother and daughter read the same sentences over and over again.
30th August 2020
The mother calls the daughter after the daughter didn’t respond to her last text. She asks the daughter how she is. The daughter doesn’t reply. The mother talks about the gardening she’s been doing, to fill the silence. Halfway through the mother’s story about the growth of her sunflowers, the daughter whispers the news about her wife. The mother asks the daughter to repeat what she said. The daughter tells the story again and again, at increasing volume, until the mother’s face freezes, and then disappears. There is no reparation. The daughter strokes the mother’s profile picture, with her thumb, until it blurs.
20th September 2020
Mother and daughter haven’t communicated in several weeks. The daughter has been silencing the mother’s calls, and archiving her messages as soon as they arrive. The mother continues to send them anyway. The daughter spends most of her time wandering around the house. Sometimes she sits at her piano, and sings, in an attempt to drown out her thoughts. When this doesn’t work, she drinks gin, and rests her head on the piano keys. Her cat sometimes sits at her feet. The daughter isn’t able to tell whether the vibration is coming from cat purrs, or the phone in her pocket. She doesn’t check.
25th October 2020
The mother drives to the daughter’s house. She gets out the car, and knocks at the window. The daughter walks over to the mother and puts her head on the glass. The mother wipes away the condensation. After a while, the daughter picks her cat up, and the mother begins to laugh as the cat squirms to get away. After a couple of minutes, the mother gets her phone out and calls the daughter. The daughter puts the cat down and answers. They talk about the funeral, jigsaw puzzles, and the amount of time it will take for them to be able to touch each other again. They stare at each other’s faces, in sync with their speech and their facial expressions, relieved that they won’t freeze.
Jenni Brooks' (she/her) short fiction and poetry has been published in Streetcake Magazine, The Phare and others. Her short film, 'Women and Autism', won an Autism Uncut Award, hosted at BAFTA. She is currently working on a novel, Teggies, which was shortlisted for the Book Edit Writers' Prize.