Kate Frost

We ate in silence. The frogs were still splashing in the pond, on their own now Ella and Ken next door had turned their TV off. Mum groped for her champagne.

‘You should slow down on the champers,’ I said, glancing at the empty bottle.

She shrugged and took another sip. I felt her watching me over the rim of her glass. I took another strawberry and looked up. Her eyes were searching my face. She reached across the table, brushed a loose hair from my forehead and tucked it behind my ear.

She gave me a weak smile. ‘Elliott would be so proud.’

‘Who?’

‘Your dad.’

Elliott. The name tumbled around my head. Dad. The word, unfamiliar, unused. I held her gaze but didn’t say anything because she wasn’t making sense. I didn’t know my father, had never known him. I’d never had the chance because Mum said she couldn’t remember his name, said she wasn’t sure if they’d even exchanged names before exchanging bodily fluids. She remembered he had green eyes like mine.

‘So proud,’ she slurred.

‘You know his name? You said you had no idea who he was.’

She looked at me through half closed eyelids and shook her head slowly. She reached her hand across the table and found my arm. ‘That’s not strictly true.’