‘See, youaren’tlistening. Because Fran has moved home, just when they finally got their freedom back.’
She has never been one for subtlety, but the drama she will always nail.
‘But they are loaded – didn’t they just get a new Audi?’
‘Getting a new Audi doesn’t mean a person is loaded, Nora.’
‘Okay . . .’ It kind of does, though. I feel this is objectively something we should be able to agree upon. ‘And why can’t they still go? Fran is an adult . . .’
Mum observes me with a pained kind of expression: pity or concern or maybe grief.
‘You never stop worrying about your kids,’ she says.
‘You don’t have to worry about me, I’m clearly doing great.’
A little joke. If thiswerea pantomime, perhaps this would be the time the sad trombone interjected.
‘I worry about you the most, Nora.’
Elsie’s insistence that she worries about my wellbeing, which historically occurs as she disregards it entirely in favour of pushing me to appear well enough that she feels she is doing a good job, is a pattern. I like to notice patterns, but I can’t say I am particularly a fan of this one.
When I began primary school, I also began a recurrent habit of slamming my forehead against any and all hard surfaces I could find. Concrete was preferable, but plaster or glass would also suffice. There are still indentations on the walls in my bedroom, though they are hidden now behind frames and photos and drawings. It was anxiety, I suppose. It was embarrassing, Mum supposed. And she was right; it must have been hard for her. So, when my anthropomorphised soft toys disappeared, one by one, I managed to internalise the anxiety enough to stop the head-banging, and then there they were, back on my bed as though they had simply taken a brief and unexpected holiday. See, isn’t that better? And it was, and it wasn’t.
Unfortunately, the condescension now hiding in her tone strikes my anger like the patellar reflex.
‘Well, perhaps you should have worried about me a little earlier – maybe you could have done something to get me more support,’ I kick out in reply.
I don’t want to be this way – insolent, dysregulated, tightly wound, rude. If I could find a way to slow time down, or speed up my own processing of said time, things would be easier. The guilt and shame only doubles the work.
‘Of course it’s my fault, because I’m the worst mother who ever lived. I made you blow up your life and abandon your responsibilities because you can’t commit to anything, is that right? At some point you’ll have to stop blaming me for everything, you know.’ Her voice has gone up an octave and rapidly increased in speed, so I know it is already a losing battle.
I retract my tongue, swallow my words, shake out my wrists, and rearrange myself, trying to hold it all in like lightning. The ease with which I prickle my mother is matched only by the comfort she finds in assuming the most malicious interpretations of my words. Clarifying questions are personal attacks, and the sharing of information that might contradict her in any way is an outright declaration of war. We have walked along this path for so long, it feels natural for things to be difficult, and hard for us to find any ease at all. I must go to a calmer place.
Elsie uses these walks to tune in with me, to ask me about how I am feeling and to tell me about her own experiences growing up.
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t see it sooner. I wish I had been more aware and gotten you the support you needed,’ she says, maintaining a comfortable, ambling pace.
‘It’s okay, it was a different time. Who knows if there even would have been help available, there was so much stigma.’
I have learned that it would not all have been sunshine and rainbows if I had known earlier, and I am trying to come to peace with the divine timing of the universe.
‘Yes, but knowing yourself would have been helpful, you could have given yourself more grace. We all could have done that . . .’
I look over, and Elsie is wiping away a silent tear.
‘Sorry, this isn’t about me. How are you going? It must be a lot to process, especially when you’re so burnt out. Recovery will take some time.’
I take a moment to think about how I am, without pressure for an immediate response. ‘I’m working on it,’ I reply. ‘I’m a work in progress.’
‘Aren’t we all? You know, I do wonder about myself, with everything you’ve taught us. As a child, I was so –’
A car flashes past, too close it feels, and I am in my body again. Walking helps – the rhythm of the steps. The tension eventually dissipates. It is a stunning street to walk down, with the sun only just starting to bite, and when we get to the junction, we can follow farmland all the way to the coffee shop with the view. The Glass House Mountains are in the distance, and on a clear day, the sea as well. It is unsurprising that I took the beauty of this place for granted, growing up, underappreciation being practically a teenage rite of passage, but it feels a waste of something worthy just the same. Time, I suppose.
There is no queue, so I ask for an iced latte to go and join Mum standing to the side as I wait for the stressed-looking barista to get to my order. I feel kinship with her hunched shoulders and tight-set jaw.
‘It’s fine, I didn’t want anything anyway.’
‘There’s still time – did you want something?’ I ask, my own shoulders rising to meet my ears.
