Clemence the Insomniac Duckling - part 4

Irma awoke at dawn, panicked at the idea of having slept. She’d had an uneasy night. Herons had visited her in her dreams haunting her with reminders that her ducklings wouldn’t reach adulthood.

She’d sped off to the shelter where they slept and counted. This revealed 6 little bodies, alive and beating. She counted again, unsure of herself.

Had she really slept? Or had she had tea with aging herons over at the Lyons tea room in the city center? She’d immediately thought of waking Doug. Perhaps he’d know where Clemence had gone. But decided against it.

Instead she scanned the area thouroughy, questioning the ants instead of eating them, she didn’t have the stomach for breakfast. She was gone all day. When she returned to their settlement in the evening she had fabricated a story to tell Doug and the children. One that would neither put the blame on her bad parenting, nor on her distrustful genes.

She told him that Clemence had been attacked by a wild cat, that she had sustained serious injuries and that the Doctors at the clinic had been unable to save her. He was distraught, asking to see his daughter, his eyes spilling with tears.

As a pedagogue and parent, Irma had decided that nobody would talk of Clemence. They would be a family of 6, and the 7th, if ever mentioned, would be put down as a figment of the children’s imagination. She thought of herself as a modern Mum with none disclosure parenting techniques. She thought she was protecting her children and herself from undue sorrow and regret. And yet she sensed her daughter was alive. She knew she would never have been able to tame that mischievous spirit, nor, truly, had she wanted to. Clemence represented the duck she had never dared to be.