Braids and Promises

“Sometimes when Mum braids my hair, it feels like she's tying a knot in time—so nothing spills out overnight.”

Mum braided my hair after dinner with movements that felt like ritual—like a ceremony passed down through generations, except this version was laced with tension, as if she needed to get it right, needed to finish it, as though we were crossing a threshold and this small, intimate act was her way of marking the passage.

I sat cross-legged on the thin carpet in front of the sofa bed, the rough fibres prickling against the backs of my thighs, grounding me with their scratchy honesty. The room smelled faintly of leftover meat pie and eucalyptus spray, a strange mingling of comfort and artificiality that seemed to define our recent days.

She worked my hair with the old green-handled comb that had travelled with us from house to house, car boot to motel drawer. The teeth were slightly bent, and the handle had a crack that widened every time she gripped it too tightly, but she used it like it still had dignity, like it still mattered. Her fingers moved gently, but not without pauses—times when they stilled mid-motion, her hand resting against the crown of my head as if she’d forgotten what came next. Then she'd blink and start again, the rhythm restarting like a song she was trying to remember from memory.

She glanced toward the door more than once. Not urgently—there was no alarm in her eyes, not yet—but with that quiet kind of vigilance, like she was waiting for confirmation of something she'd already half-decided. No one had come. No one had called. The hallway had remained silent, the intercom mute and inert. And yet she watched it the way people watch the horizon during a storm—calculating how far away the lightning really is.

"Too tight?" she asked, voice low, like we were already supposed to be quiet.

I shook my head slightly, careful not to jostle her hands. "It's fine, Mum. It feels nice."

And it did. I loved the feeling of her braiding my hair. Always had. There was something about being looked after in that slow, deliberate way that made me feel safe in a way nothing else quite could. Like I wasn’t just another part of the chaos, but someone worth tending to. But this time, her touch had an edge to it—still gentle, yes, but threaded with distraction. Her fingers weren't just braiding—they were working something out, weaving strands of hair and strands of thought together, trying to untangle something far more complicated than knots.

She started humming. Not one of the songs from when I was little—not “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,” not the Beatles lullaby she used to mumble half-asleep on long car rides. This one was different. Slower. Older, maybe. It didn’t have a tune I could recognise, just a rise and fall that seemed more like remembering than singing. A sound that might have belonged to a time before me, before even her.

The humming shifted as she worked. Became murmur. Then muttering. Soft words under breath, half-swallowed, rhythm matching the pattern of her hands. I couldn't catch what she was saying. Maybe it wasn’t words at all. Maybe it was just the sound of someone trying to steady themselves, to keep a grip—on something, anything.

I didn’t ask.

Mack was by the window, in his now-usual spot, his silhouette long and lean against the drawn blinds. He twisted the plastic cord absently, letting it slap gently against the wall, a slow, repeating tap that filled the quiet. The slats were angled just enough for him to peer out, though there was nothing out there but darkness and city stillness—the pavement slick from someone hosing it down earlier, and the dull glow of the streetlamp trying its best to look comforting.

There was a flicker of movement. Just leaves. Or maybe a cat. But Mack’s body stiffened for a second anyway, then relaxed just as quickly, like a wave had passed through him and receded.

He didn’t say anything. He never said anything about what he saw anymore. He just watched. Waited. He had that kind of patience now—the kind that only came from knowing you couldn’t stop bad things from coming, only spot them early enough to brace.

The braid was nearly done.

Mum’s fingers moved faster now, with certainty again. She tied off the end with one of those thin elastics that always snapped too soon, but tonight it held. She let her hands fall to her lap, resting there like something fragile.

"There we go," she whispered. "All tidy."

I wanted to say thank you. I wanted to turn around and hug her and make everything simple again, like it used to be when a plait meant bedtime and nothing more. But I didn’t move.

“Tomorrow,” she said, her voice low and lilting like she was casting a spell, “we’ll go to the big park. The one with the flower gardens and proper swings and that long tunnel slide that twists around like a corkscrew. You’ll love it, sweetheart.”

Mack turned to face her, and I felt something flutter open inside my chest. “Do you mean Downey Park? The one with the pond and the ducks?” he asked, a hint of excitement finding his voice.

“That’s the one.” Her smile spread wide, and this time it reached her eyes—the real kind, not the one she’d been practising lately like it was part of a costume she had to keep putting on.

I grinned, the excitement bubbling up almost too fast to hold in. “Will our cousins be there? Will we finally get to see Aunty Amelia?”

The words left my mouth like birds released into the sky—hopeful, fluttering. I watched her face as they landed.

Her expression changed—not quickly, but gradually, like clouds gathering over sunlight. Her smile faltered, then held, too firmly, like she was clamping it in place with invisible pins.

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe it’ll just be us. Sometimes the best adventures are the ones you have with just your family.”

Something about the way she said “just your family” made me pause, and Daddy came into my mind so suddenly it felt like tripping over something that had always been there but hidden in the grass.

“Is Daddy coming too?” I asked, the question escaping before I could weigh whether or not it was a safe thing to ask.

The muscles around her eyes tightened, just for a second, and that wide smile didn’t move, not even a twitch. But I felt something shift, like we’d both crossed a line.

She leaned in and kissed my forehead, soft and cool and deliberate, the way you do when you want to make a memory stick.

“Something even better than Daddy,” she whispered.

Her voice was full of mystery, the kind that sounded like magic in a fairy tale but tasted strange when you tried to believe in it. Something in the way she said it made me think she didn’t really mean better. Just different. Just what we had left.

Later, after I’d brushed my teeth—minty foam that tasted too strong but left my mouth feeling clean—and changed into my soft star pyjamas, I curled up beside Ribbons on the narrow mattress and listened to the flat’s quiet sounds.

The fridge hummed like it was talking to itself. Somewhere behind the walls, pipes shifted and sighed like they were tired too.

I rolled over and closed my eyes properly, my hands curled around the glittery notebook beside my pillow, like a secret I could carry into dreams.