The Good Wife (episode 3)

She had been found at the age of 9. She was in a small rowing-boat floating down the Mouton River. A old fisherman had found the boat with a skinny, dehydrated and completely naked girl inside. No one knew how long she had been on the river or where she had come from. Including Emma. She had no memory before that morning when she was pulled out the boat. The old fisherman then became her grandfather. A man who became her entire world. He taught her everything she needed to know. From how to catch her own food, Skin and cook it, to shoe shopping. They would go out on survival weekends into the woods toogether. It was the best times of her life. Just her, her grandpaps, a tent and a hunting knife. They would then come wondering to town looking like hell, and always full of the greatest stories.


The woman would turn up their noses at her and tell her paps how he was ruining her. He would always tell them, and anyone else who asked, that Emma was no ordinary girl. She came from the land and was as wild as it was. Emma felt pride swell up inside her when ever she thought of those days. Paps never doubted her. So when did she begin. It was probably about the time that Paps finally went to his big lake in the sky. She was 16 by then and was devastated by the loss. No one understood her, but that didn’t matter. One of the lessons Paps taught her, one of the big ones, was that she had to do whatever it took to learn from everyone around her. She had to know how to play a part. “It might save your life one day lass.”



Emma was now wondering if may be she was playing the part too well. She had not been out to the woods in years. She had become too busy. School, work, house, PTA, extra lessons, extra-murals, yoga, exercise classes, cooking, sex…….. But that was changing now. Emma could feel her blood pumping through her veins. The sweat running down her back. She could even hear her neighbours arguing. She had never felt so alert, so connected. Her breathing slowed. Her heart slowed to rhythmic thuds in her chest. That was when she realised that she was not crazy, she never was. She just was not being true to herself. She was more than this house, this street, with its little boxes. Where everyone looks and acts exactly the same. Emma stood up and walked down to the kitchen. Pulling her kitchen step ladder under her pantry, she climbed up and brought down 6 old hat boxes. Each was a different size and colour. She opened the Red Oval one and pulled out a stack of bills. She counted approximately 2000 out and put the rest back. She opened the smaller black square box. She took out the plastic zip-lock baggy. Just as she was putting all the boxes back on the shelf her phone started ringing. It was Stacy, but Emma let it go to voice mail. Emma then walked to the guest bathroom and emptied the contents of the baggy into the toilet. The green leaves swirled round the bowl, seeming to cling to the sides for dear life. She had to flush twice before the last of her weed stash finally gurgled away. “Hope I am not going to regret this.” She had started smoking weed shortly after no longer breastfeeding her youngest. It was an escape from a life which was smothering her. But it was an escape she no longer needed.