EPTRemember the time you sang me a song while I was away. Wishing for me to come home now.
Overcast memories of times less complex flicker. Dinners every friday, you, me and mommy. This was before daddy started tagging along. Before he took you away. Always in a tony place, the kind with dimmed lights that rendered a tangerine glow upon your face. That was the only reason why I saw her. Your mother. That’s what your father calls her. Sometimes I’d ask for stuff because, truly, I was there in spite of her.
We’d talk about this and that. Saying a load of nothing. She’d tell me about how you’re so good at the violin or the piano, or how you’re learning some new language, and I’d ask her if she’d wanted to watch Life of Pi or some other movie. Stating stuff to each other. You, with your crooked boy haircut, you’d hold the steak knife, point down, and you’d poke the dining table. Tak tak tak. Or you’d use the spoons and make drums out of the glassware. Us adults, we’d drone on and on. Sometimes, in third person, we’d talk about you.
Me and my big mouth. This one time, Grandma asked me, “Do you have a sister?”
This was when she was still allowed to drive.
And I said, “Yes.”
The next year arrives, and just before her birthday, grandma tells daddy, “I want to see my grand daughter.”
Our friday night rendezvous were crashed around the same time you began to speak. This niggled me, because I avoided this person for the most part. Now there were more people I didn’t want to be around with every friday night.
The way he transformed from a brusque and tetchy to smarmy and complaisant before you. I could just puke.
When this man and I were still living in the old home, he had ascended the stairs with a tak, tak, tak. Belt buckle lolling in the air, striking the lacquered wood of the stair case. Whenever I hear the tinkle of a belt buckle I am reminded of this man and when I try to pin-point why I am reminded of this event. Then, I was crying. Your mother besides me, stick in hand. Not the kind meant for humans, it was longer and thicker, meant for supporting plants and vegetables. Click goes the door. It was locked because I had locked it. My mom’s face was piteous, like she was the good guy. “Please don’t come in,” I said.
BANG goes the door.
“Please go away,” I said.
“Open up or I will FUCKING kill you.”
The bruises sprouted all over as soon as you picked up the violin. Did you know that some famous russian professor wanted to take you under his wing? Cool.
One time when we were about to leave Haagen Dazs, I spot this big mass of purple right above your right eyebrow. A light line of red striked right through the middle.
“You need to stop hitting her,” I said to your mother.
Her eyebrows furrowed and her lips tightened and her eyes narrowed and she shot me her hardest stay the fuck out of my business look.
“So?”
“I hit you when you were young too?"
“So what?”
We stopped speaking for months, but then I got hungry.
One time I was waiting for you as you were having music lessons at a school right next to this frilly tuition center that I used to go to. Kids tumbled forth from an all-white false wall that concealed its entrance. Beyond that, were rooms filled with white tables and white chairs and white boards, and these rooms were enclosed with glass walls. Shiny white tiles in these rooms of bright served as floor and it all felt very cutting edge. You’d pay more than a years worth of school tuition, for a month’s worth over here. Two hour lessons twice weekly.
West of the sham wall was a sheet of glass that shielded an animal enclosure. Wood shavings and miniature plywood shelters styled like real homes with albino rabbits. Hanging over the enclosure were tiny plasma screens displaying their names and breeds and dates of birth.
On my pant sleeve, a gentle tugging. Me, I was trying to decide if these rabbits were the same ones in my youth.
I leveled myself with you and you purred into my ear, “I have something to show you.”
“Okay.”
Rolling up your sleeve, a blackened patch of skin with a large scab on your forearm.
“Did she do this to you?”
“Was it because you broke you broke the violin?”
Remember that time you called me at midnight. You were crying and you said, “I miss you,” and the phone went dead.
When I was a babe, the pewter grey Saab 95 idling outside of our driveway would fill me with delight. I’d swing open the gates and zip onto the porch, hands in the air, skipping along. Sometimes, daddy would stop mommy.
The persian-blue Lexus however, now that was a dreadful thing. So was the red Nissan sunny.
Sometimes, you’d join us for dinner, me, grandma, daddy, and uncle, and your face would be so powdered up it broke our hearts. Not you though, you never seemed to notice it.
For your first birthday I got you a stuffed rabbit from this place where I had to choose it’s eyes, skin, ears, clothes and colour. Before pumping the grey rabbit full of stuffing, the taciturn sales assistant handed me a thumb-sized, blood-red stuffed heart.
“What’s this for?”
“It goes into the rabbit.”
"What do you want me to do with it?”
“Kiss it. And then you make a wish.”
“Is this really necessary?”
“Yes.”
The kissed heart was shoved into the bared back of the rabbit and it was stuffed.
It would be a few weeks after I made that call that I lost a mother and gained a sister. I passed the phone over to daddy and he said no and don’t bother us again.
I thought to myself, this impotent father, he won’t even save my sister!
Do you remember the time he ruined Christmas for us when you said the words, I don’t love you.
It was a sweaty evening when the darkness descended upon the path home. I spend most of my days like this, going places alone. Most people don’t know what I do, or anything about me for that matter. My best friend didn’t even know I was schooling. Solitude self-imposed? Or maybe I’m just running away from something. Afraid. Of what? I tell myself though, I choose to be alone because I am not lonely.
Dark shadows waxed and waned upon the beaten concrete pavement. Street lamps and guard railings and trees. Myself. A person shuffling behind me. Through my peripheral vision, I followed him. And I quickened my footsteps. Listening to the cadence of his. The cicadas and toads chirped their love songs. Memories of a time when I was a little older than you. Alone in a dark house with your mother, staring out into the darkness beyond the windows. Water Spots on my glasses. Hoping that this was just a nightmare.
My smartphone shaking in my front pocket.
“Hello.”
“Where are you?”
“Walking home.”
“Don’t. You need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Your father’s your sister to the station. And we’re staying at my friend’s place.”
“Why.”
“You know what she’s capable of.”
“She can’t do anything to me.”
Silence, and then, “Don’t test me.”
“Okay.”
“Leave now.”
“Okay.”
The worst part about smashing your phone against Macadam is when it still works, screen cracked, frame misshapen, buttons bulging and leaking light.
I will not run.
I will not break my phone.
Light spilled from the windows of the guardhouse, the security guard slumped in the office chair, limbs splayed to his sides.
I entered our apartment and jumped straight into the shower.
I will not break the glass.
Breathe.
I called and said that I was staying at Matthew’s, and I left the apartment for a nearby bar with a time-travel paperback in hand.
Some two hours slaved by and I headed back. The crossroads were filled with nothing but darkness and the sounds of critters awakened. There were no stars here. A streak of persian blue zipped by and called to me, “Hey you.”
Rain stained paint glimmering in the moonlight. Its interiors were blanched almond and hairline cracks crawled all over the dashboard. If you inspected the passenger side handle close enough, you’d note the paint underneath was scratched clean.
Sounds of footsteps pattering the ashen sidewalk getting louder and closer.
I tried to run.
“Don’t walk away from me!”
“Where is she!”
My mother’s voice trembling as she spoke. Her beautiful pixie face had begun to sag. When? Tears trickling from eyes that looked like yours. I loomed over her.
“Where did that..that bastard take her to. Why are you out so late at night?”
I waved the paperback in her face, “I’m reading. I like to read.”
Glassy eyes narrowing upon me, she asked, “Why is he doing this.”
“Oh. I think you know why.”
Lips trembling, your mother said to me, “There’s only one thing he can use against me.”
“Which is?”
She tightened her lips.
And she said to me, “I am going to fight him with everything I have.”
“Okay.”
And I Ieft our mother alone by the sidewalk just outside our old apartment.
And I was smiling and I couldn’t help myself and I felt terrible.
And this was the last time I’d ever see her.
Now things are better with you around. Dad is less overcast. Sometimes he’s actually happy. As I spend most weekends brooding, you’re out with him, seeing things, doing things that children do with their fathers. Like two peas in a pod, I can’t imagine you without him. It’s not perfect though. Sometimes he’s still angry and sometimes it gets real scary. At least he’s not violent.
Me, I’m just waiting for something to happen. I really want to leave. Do you understand that? This place isn’t for me anymore.
Now you’re older and your eyes are sharper and your silly grin has turned into a lovely smile. It irks me how you get your way all the time. How you flick your veggies across the table and get away with it. How you be so rotten some times but in the end always have people give in to you. You’re getting plump too and no matter how much I complain to daddy he still buys you oreos and chips and cupcakes. You’ll probably turn into a princess but at least you won’t turn out like me.
Sometimes I think about her. How can I not? In the mirror face stares right back at me. A cake topper is her facebook profile picture. She’s into baking now. The cake topper is a pale brunette sitting down on a pink cupcake with her hands resting on her lap. Her eyes are closed and her cheeks are rosy. Is she sad? Are you sad?
My mom, she no longer sees you. But when she used to, I’d quizz you. What did she say? Is she going out with anyone? What is she doing now. You regard her with disgust now. You don’t miss her. Why should you?
Is she living in that apartment she had just purchased just before it happened? All her plans, all her dreams crushed by us. Don't pass go, don't collect $200.
And as much as I hate her, I still love her. I’ll never know if she really did love me, or if those memories that come to mind, in my deepest, darkest, moments, were just reflections of what I felt for her, like a child gazing into the eyes of a wild cat searching for its soul. Because it is true that no matter how many times you've hurt me, no matter how many nasty things you've said and done, you still clothed me, and fed me, and raised me in your own way.
Because nothing can change the fact that you're still my mom.
Love is unconditional? Then is this love? Why does it hurt so much?
EDIT: Spelling and formatting.
