2681. My father’s smile

Apparently I have my mother’s eyes, and my father’s smile. Everyone would say, “Goodness! You have your mother’s eyes and your father’s smile!” Even Great-Aunt Dorothy said the same thing. We called her Aunt Dot which she took to mean an abbreviation of Dorothy but as kids we called her Aunt Dot because she was dotty. She used to have a dopey sister called Margo but she died. Rather suddenly.

So where was I? Ah yes! My mother’s eyes. My mother had one green eye and one blue eye. If people noticed the eyes and nothing else they wouldn’t know if it was me or my mother. “You’ve got one green eye and one blue eye, Gwendoline,” Great-Aunt Dot would say. “Just like Tommy. He has your eyes.” Great-Aunt Margo used to say the same thing when she was alive.

Stupid people. Stupid, stupid people. My mother’s right eye was blue and her left eye was green. Whereas my right eye was green and my left eye was blue. I hadn’t inherited my mother’s eyes at all. I wasn’t the image of my mother’s eyes; I was a mirror reflection. Some people are just plain stupid – especially Great-Aunts Dotty and Dopey.

Luckily I have my father’s smile. I never realized why my father smiled like that until one day after washing the carving knife and putting it back in the drawer knowing that Great-Aunt Dot wasn’t going to bother me no more, I smiled.