In Short – Issue 2 (Winter 2025)

January 31, 2025

Image credit: Garry Knight

Let’s Say It Was Midnight

By Diane Shipley

Let’s say the carriage clock startled her into action and she sprang from the couch, rushed to check I was asleep—hands clutching Funshine Bear, eyelids fluttering, the lightest snore escaping my lips—and then ran back downstairs, grabbed her keys, and darted outside.

Let’s say her fingers trembled as she started the ignition, Dolly Parton’s plaintive vibrato filling her rusted VW as she skipped jealous wife’s lament “Jolene” (too obvious) and blasted “Coat of Many Colors,” about a mother who sacrifices her time and dignity for her family only to be mocked behind her back.

Let’s say in that moment, my mum forgot what she’d told me about a woman needing a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

Let’s say a friend of a friend from the local community theatre had given her the address and, thanks to the deserted streets or the power of Dolly, she made the 20-minute trip in less than 10, breath catching when she saw my dad’s hatchback hugging the curb outside the house of a woman he’d sworn up and down was just a friend.

Let’s say that’s when the image of my face flashed into her head, on one of my regular sleepwalking jaunts, hovering glassy eyed at the top of the stairs with no one to catch me if I tripped, somersaulted, and landed with a crunch.

Let’s say she sped home in a panic, alternately picturing my bloody death and the end of her marriage but didn’t cry for another hour. Let’s say that’s when my dad sidled in the back door, found out what she’d done, and ranted that leaving a nine-year-old alone was “unforgivable” while she eyed the crumb-spattered bread knife on the counter and fantasized, for a second, about pricking his ego, the two of them arguing in whispers as I dozed on, oblivious.

Let’s say that a few days later, the woman who my dad still swore was just a friend opened the door to my mum, offered her tea, and insisted she’d never do anything to break up a marriage, and then two months after that, she opened the door to my dad and his scuffed blue suitcase and they got married and split up and got back together and split up again.

Let’s say that for too long, I used this as a cautionary tale, sure that if I didn’t have kids or get married or let anyone get close enough to hurt me, then I could protect myself from betrayal and pain, as if keeping everyone at arm’s length would make me happier. 

And let me also say—because the rest might be based on conjecture, hazy memories, and age-inappropriate disclosures, but I know this is true—that thirty years later, when I met the other woman’s eyes one Saturday afternoon in Home Bargains, she turned her head so we wouldn’t have to speak, and I considered it a kindness.

Diane Shipley (she/her) is based in the UK, where she's a creative writing PhD student at Lancaster University. Her previous work has been published by The Guardian, The Rumpus, Literary Hub and Longreads, among others. In her spare time, she looks at photos of miniature dachshunds.