The Good Girl
It was nearly five when Mia came home from school. She put her shoes neatly beside the door and hung her jacket on the hook.
“Hello?” There was no answer.
She walked into the kitchen. Her mother was sitting at the table with her laptop open, one hand pressed against her forehead while she spoke on the phone. “No, I know. I know. But if we do not send the report tonight, they will push the whole thing to Monday...” her mother said with a slightly irritated voice.
Mia stood in the doorway. She had something in her hand. It was a drawing with a house and garden. She had made it during art class that afternoon, carefully coloring the windows of the house blue and the sky almost purple. There was something unusual about the house, and it almost felt enchanted which Mia could not quite explain herself. Admiring the picture, her teacher had told her she had a very good eye for detail.
Mia would have loved to tell her mother that. She waited. Then her mother looked up. “Hi, sweetheart, you are already home.”
“Already?” thought Mia. It was almost five and school had finished over three hours ago. She had spent the afternoon in the local library reading books and doing homework, but her mother did not seem to have noticed that she was away all afternoon.
So Mia just looked at her mother, smiled and nodded. “Yes” she said.
“Can you give me five minutes?” her mother asked. Mia looked at the phone that her mother had now pressed tightly against her ear. “Of course,” she replied and silently went upstairs to her room.
She sat on her bed with the drawing in her lap, dreaming about the enchanted house she had been drawing earlier that afternoon. Five minutes became ten. Then fifteen. Then thirty.
Eventually, Mia put the drawing into the bottom drawer of her desk. She just did not want to bother her mother with it anymore.
Her mother was still working when Mia came back downstairs.
“Have you done your homework?” she asked.
“Yes,” Mia replied immediately.
“Good girl,” her mother said, with her eyes already turned back to the screen.
Mia stood beside the kitchen table, unsure whether to wait or leave again.
“Did you have a nice day?” her mother asked, while typing something on her laptop.
“Yeah,” said Mia.
Her mother nodded, still looking at the screen. Mia thought about the drawing and what the teacher had said. About her friend Jessy, whose family had just adopted a dog that seemed so cuddly and cute in the photos she had seen today. And about the other girls who had once again laughed at her during PE in the changing rooms, because they had made fun of her legs.
But Mia didn’t say anything else. As always, her mother seemed light years away, even when she was physically so close that Mia could have touched her arm. In that moment her mother’s phone rang again, and while she answered it, Mia was sure that her mother had already forgotten that she was in the room.
As usual, by the time they had dinner, it was almost 9 p.m. Also as usual, her parents had ordered food from one of the local restaurants, and her dad had picked it up on his way home from work. Today they had Thai curry and rice. It was very seldom that her mom or dad would make time to cook something, and Mia could not actually remember the last time she had had a home-cooked meal.
Her father kissed Mia on the forehead.
“Hey, princess. How was school?”
“Good,” Mia replied immediately.
“Anything interesting happen?”
Mia looked at him. He was taking off his tie while scanning the headlines of the newspaper that was lying open on the kitchen counter.
“No,” she replied gently.
Her father laughed as he turned the page of the newspaper.
“That’s my girl. No drama.”
Mum smiled. “She really is such an easy child.”
Mia smiled too. She had learned to smile when they said things like that. And also it made her happy, when her parents were happy.
At dinner, her mother briefly shared some news about a new project at work she had taken on. Then her dad went on to speak about an investor meeting he had attended that day. Mia understood very little of what they talked about, but she understood enough to know that she had to be quiet, and her thoughts drifted back to the enchanted house she had drawn.
She wondered who lived there. She imagined a little girl sitting at the kitchen table with her parents, telling them everything that had happened during her day. The girl would talk and talk, and nobody would look at their phone or glance at the clock. They would listen until she had nothing more to say.
Mia wondered what that would feel like…
After dinner, Mia went to her room. Although she was already ten, she still had a few cuddly toys in her bed. One of them was a big brown monkey she had called Albert for as long as she could remember. She climbed under the duvet and pulled Albert close.
Then she remembered the drawing. She got out of bed, opened the bottom drawer of her desk and took it out. She sat down beside Albert and held the drawing up in front of him.
“Look what I made today,” she whispered.
Albert said nothing, of course. He never did. Mia smiled anyway.
“And do you know what else happened today?”
She waited a moment, as if giving him time to answer.
“Jessy showed me pictures of the dog her family adopted. It’s really cute. It’s a golden retriever, and she says it sleeps on her bed.”
Mia looked at the drawing.
“And Mandy and Cynthia were saying mean things about my legs again in the changing rooms.” Her voice became quieter. “They all laughed.”
She traced one of the blue windows on the drawing with her finger.
“I didn’t laugh.”
A little tear rolled down her cheek. Mia quickly wiped it away with the corner of her duvet. Crying was for babies. And thank goodness she was not a baby anymore, just like Mum always said.
Apparently, Mia had cried a lot when she was little. So much that her parents had decided to have a nanny living with them during the first three years of her life, because her mother could barely focus on her work after Mia was born.
Mia did not remember any of it herself. She only knew the story because her mother had told it to her many times.
“You were such a difficult baby,” she would sometimes say, half laughing. “Always crying when mommy had to work and focus.”
Then she would smile and add, “But look at you now. You’re such a good, easy girl now.”
Mia had always liked the second part better. She looked at Albert.
“I don’t want to be a burden to them” she said very quietly.
Then she pulled the blanket up around herself and Albert, and held him tightly against her chest. For a little while, in the quiet of her room, Mia let herself imagine that the enchanted house in her drawing was real.
A house where someone would notice if you were sad.
A house where someone would look up when you walked into the room, happy to see you.
A house where you could say, “Look what I made,” and someone would take the time to actually look at it.
A house where you did not have to be easy all the time.
A house where you could have needs without feeling that they were too much.
Where you could simply be yourself, whatever that meant.
Mia closed her eyes. “Goodnight, Albert,” she whispered. Maybe we can spend a little time in the enchanted house tonight. 🌙
Sometimes, a story touches something in us before we have words for it. If something in Mia’s story resonated with you, you might want to take a moment and gently notice what comes up for you.
Was there a moment in Mia’s story that felt familiar to you?
What did you notice happening inside you as you read the story?
Did you recognise any of the ways Mia learned to make herself smaller, easier, or less demanding?
What might the younger part of you have needed actually to hear, feel, or receive in moments when you had to be good and easy?
Thank you for taking the time to read.
If you would like to explore your own experiences in a therapeutic space, you are always welcome to reach out.
Julia