Written on 29 January 2019
Frozen puddles were Eva's favourite.
She remembered her au pair, Greta, dressing her in a two-sizes-too-big puffer jacket with mittens attached, bobble hat and wellies, and they would walk around Regents Park. Eva would smash every puddle she could see. She'd occasionally take a tumble, but even as a kid she knew that was the risk she needed to take in order to hear that satisfying crack of the ice.
Not much had changed through the years. Eva had grown up, Greta had moved on, Eva's parents still were emotionally absent, but those frozen puddles would still appear every winter, at least three or four times.
And on her walk to school, or on her walk to work, or on her walk to her AA meeting, she would smash every frozen puddle she came across, revelling in the cracking sound as her size 4, 5, 6’s broke through the ice.
And she thought of Greta. Where she could be. What she was doing. Wondering whether she was escorting another over-excited kid on their mission to destroy the frozen puddles.