I pulled up behind her car, reached over to the passenger seat and took the cleaning supplies I’d bought from Woods Supermarket on the way over, and walked up to her front door.
Apparently, I was starting to remember all I had learned growing up with her. I wasn’t surprised in the slightest when I reached out to turn the doorknob and it didn’t budge. I only rattled it for a few seconds before knowing that it wasn’t simply locked. “Good morning, Rose.” I made my voice cheerful and singsongy. I knew that would make her madder than if I had started yelling. “I see that the front door seems to be stuck. Let me see if I can find an open window. I’ll be right in!” I sat the bag of cleaning supplies on the porch and hopped off, heading left around the house.
If she didn’t want me here, I should go back to Denver. Let her have her little miserable life, whatever might be left of it! Well, of course she didn’t want me here. She had never wanted me. Why should I be surprised at that fact now? Wasn’t that even more reason to simply go back home? It would be easier for both of us. I could be back with Jed. I could be in our home again. I could just go back to work and forget ever coming back here. I wouldn’t even have to come back for the funeral.
I paused in my pacing as I remembered. Mom wasn’t the only reason I was back here. She had just made a convenient excuse to leave without it completely looking like I was running away. Well, I could go somewhere else. Maybe Seattle. Jed would love to be close to his family again. So would I. They were more family to me than Mom ever had been.
I paused as I came to the first window. It was my bedroom window. It looked directly into the forest. I would often sit on my bed gazing out the window and fantasizing of running off into the woods, living like Tarzan or the Swiss Family Robinson, building a house in the trees, making friends with all the forest animals, perfectly content to become part of the wild. Maybe getting helplessly lost in the thick trees and not being able to find my way back; my mom, desperate to find her vanished son, would locate my dad and have him come rescue me. Maybe wander deeper and deeper into the woods and find a hollow in the base of a tree or a little cave in a bank washed away by the stream that I could crawl into, fall asleep, and die.
The window looked like my bedroom door. Hundreds of nails jutted out in a riotous pattern. They were rusted and the wood around them stained with orange streaksthat made their way over the window seal and down the wall. The window was plastered with brown paper grocery bags on the inside. I couldn’t see a thing.
What had she been trying to do? Had she been afraid I would try to sneak back home through the window? Did she have something trapped in there, held captive? Had another one of her boyfriends died, and she threw his body in my old bedroom, certain it would never be disturbed?
I jiggled the window frame, but it didn’t move at all. Struggling to rip my eyes away from the window, I forced myself to continue around the house. Neither Mom’s window nor the one in the living room could be opened. They weren’t nailed shut from what I could see; they were just locked or had welded themselves shut in the years of neglect. I could always break the glass, but I knew that would be one more thing I’d have to pay for and fix later. I’d keep that as a last resort.
Back at the porch, I again tried to turn the knob. This time, after a few moments, I thought I felt it slip. I still couldn’t get the door to budge. “Rose! It didn’t seem like the windows were unlocked, and I don’t want to accidentally break them.” Syrupy sweet. “I don’t want to leave you in there by yourself. What if you fall and get hurt? If you can’t get the door unlocked in a few seconds, I’ll try to see if I can shove it open.”
I waited for her to say something. She didn’t make a sound. I tried the knob again. It was definitely turning now. However she’d secured the knob, it was losing its grip. I pushed on the door around the frame; it didn’t move at all. “Okay, Mom.” I couldn’t believe how calm my voice sounded. Dealing with her was naturally coming back to me. “I’m gonna shove the door. Stay clear!”
I stared at the door for a few seconds. I had never tried to break down a door before. I had seen people in movies do it several times. It looked pretty easy, but I had a feeling that was more a miracle of film and not reality. Should I go in SWAT-team-style and open it with one swift kick or run into it with my shoulder? After picturing kicking the door, losing my balance, and crashing through the rotten porch, I opted for the shoulder method.
I thought it best not to take a running start; it seemed like that would be a good way to end up with a broken collarbone. I planted my feet perpendicular to the door, shoulder width apart. I leaned away from the door and threw all my weight into my shoulder and side, ramming my body into the door. To my surprise, there was a loud wooden cracking sound, and I could see the door had moved a half an inch or so from the doorjamb. I reached over and felt my left shoulder. It seemed okay. I must be tougher than I thought. Judging from the first attempt, I determined it would take four or five more crashes to get through the door. I fixed my feet again, reared back, and threw my shoulder into the door with more force this time.
I heard the cracking sound, louder this time. It gave way and before I could catch myself, I fell through the doorway and landed on the floor. I managed to put my hands out before my face crashed against the wood. After realizing I was already in the house, I looked back at the door. It was swinging back and forth, already slowing down. I could see old two-by-fours still attached to the door and some attached to the doorframe. All at once I felt a stinging on my right thigh. My jeans had a rip. I lifted up the torn piece of denim and saw a jagged cut on my leg. It wasn’t deep, but it was long, and it looked like it was goingto bleed for a while. I glanced back up at the doorframe and saw a two-by-four still attached with a twisted nail jutting out from the end that had been secured to the door. I groaned. How long had it been since my last tetanus shot?
At the sound of a snort, I looked behind me to see Rose, still in her recliner, grinning from ear to ear, or at least as much as she was still capable.
I closed my eyes and let out a slow, drawn-out breath. “Well, it’s good I can make you smile, at least.” Of course me falling and bleeding is what makes you smile, not seeing me walk through your door after all these years. “Maybe this afternoon I’ll accidentally splash bleach in my eyes and can make you laugh.”
Her smile turned back down into its perpetual grimace. She let out a low growl.
“Oh, by the way, I had dinner with the Durkes last night.” I pushed myself up off the floor, careful to avoid the rest of the splintered two-by-fours. “They were shocked to hear that you hadn’t spoken to me yet.” I looked at her to see if there was any reaction. There wasn’t, of course. “I should’ve known it wasn’t the stroke that had taken your power of speech but your pure hatefulness and love of being miserable and bitter.” Her lips drew together tighter.
I always hated when I gave in to my desire to be rude to her. I still remember the first time I’d ever talked back to her. It was in high school. Before then, I had always responded to her with sweetness or silence, hoping indefinitely that she would see how much I loved her. As I did every night, I cooked dinner for both of us. That night, I had tried a new recipe that Aunt Sue had made the Sunday before. I burnt the honey chicken, the honey becoming black and crunchy, and undercooked the wild rice. Rose made a comment about how since I wasn’t suited to be areal man, I could at least cook enough to be a decent housewife, and obviously, I couldn’t even do that right. I retorted that I hadn’t had a very good example of how to be a good housewife, or a man for that matter. Even before I felt the slap across my cheek, tears had sprung to my eyes. I spent the rest of the night shut up in my bedroom in a state of shame and guilt, a new onset of tears with every provoking comment from the living room. I’d wanted to be better than that, live in a way that would show her God through my actions in hopes that she would become a Christian and in turn become a loving mother. I fell asleep begging God to forgive me for speaking to my mother in such a manner, and for Him to take away the dirty desires I was having while he was at it.
However, within a few weeks of that time, I began to offer back hostile retorts to her on a regular basis. Each comment prompted a more vicious onslaught from Rose, even though it became apparent that she enjoyed it when I would give in to my weakness. Not the least disturbing to me was that I could hear her voice and cadence come from my own throat at those times. It scared me more than anything she could ever do to me.
Here I was, over a decade later, and I had already resorted to the same old pattern. This time, however, I wasn’t overcome with guilt or tears. I hated her. I hated that she could make me be that person again, that I could so easily fall back into being Rose Morrison’s son.
At my words, her smile partially returned, the right side creeping up a little farther than her left, revealing a canine tooth. She looked like a mangy, diseased dog.
“Oh, I know, I know. You love it when you get me going. How you must have missed me. Who did you have here to make miserable? I’m surprised you didn’t makeyourself have a stroke a long time ago, just from pure boredom.”
Her sneer crept further across her face. Her voice cracked and caused me to shiver. “Don’t you fucking act like you came back here for me, you ungrateful little faggot. I don’t know why yer back here, but I know it ain’t fer me.” It was obviously an effort to speak. Her voice sounded raw, causing rips in her throat with every word.
I just stared at her. I wanted to rip her to shreds. Even now, she was able to see through me, see things no one else ever saw, or was at least too well-mannered and kind to mention. We stayed like that for what seemed like hours. Me standing perfectly still, blood making its way down my leg and soaking through my jeans, eyes blazing, heart pounding. Rose sitting in her filthy chair, her withered hand clutched even more claw-like in her lap, her jaw clamped so tight her thin skin was stark white around her jaw.
I flinched when she spoke again. “Well, don’t stand there like the limp dick you are. Yer gonna get blood on my carpet, and you need to clean up the mess you made. I don’t need to be trippin’ over any boards scattered everywhere. Not that you wouldn’t enjoy that little show.”
I glared at her silently, using all my strength to refrain from yelling at her. After several moments, I turned away from her. I walked over to the bathroom and pushed open the door.
The state of the bathroom told me about how bad Mom’s condition had become. No matter how bad things got, or how dirty she let the kitchen become, the bathroom was the one area that was pristine and took “cleanliness next to godliness” literally. She would spend hours in there, doing her hair and makeupand maintaining her beauty. On good days, she would let me join her. I would sit on the floor and use the closed toilet as a table to color in my coloring books. Now, it looked as forsaken as the rest of the house. The mirror above the hair-filled sink was so splattered you could barely make out your reflection. The center of it was smeared in a circular pattern that made it impossible to see anything. I smiled to myself; maybe I should start my cleaning there so she would have to see herself more clearly. A stab of guilt washed over me, and I shook off the thought. The bathtub was stained with streaks of brown. The hard water had always made it difficult to keep the tub white, but Mom would scrub it a couple of times a week with Comet so she could enjoy her hour-long baths. The toilet was urine-stained and utterly repugnant. Piles of hair had gathered behind the toilet and in the corners of the room. Empty toilet-paper rolls littered the floor, interspersed with toilet-paper-wrapped tampons. I shuddered and looked back to the mirror. I wasn’t sure at what age menopause occurred in most women, but I figured it had been a while ago for Rose, especially given her health and weight. I hated to think how long they may have been there. I pulled the mirror open to reveal the medicine cabinet behind it. It wasn’t in any better condition. With the exception of hair and dust, it was relatively empty. However, there was a box of bandages, which was my entire purpose. I took the box down and opened it up. It was empty, of course.
I placed it on top of the overflowing trash can and shut the mirror. I grabbed a roll of toilet paper off the floor and ripped off a few sheets. After washing the cut as well as I could, I took another sheet of paper and pressed it to the cut until it stuck there, soaking up the ebbing flow of blood.
When I walked back into the living room, Rose was bent over and searching through the empty TV stand. Turned away from me, her harsh face hidden, she looked even smaller and more twisted than I’d noticed before. A small pang of sympathy and sadness washed over me. It was hard to see her so weakened, so wasted away.
With a few strides, I was beside her. “Rose, let me get that. You don’t need to stress yourself out right now.” Her spine straightened as much as it could, and she shuffled to the side, doing her best to distance herself. In her effort, she fumbled the object she was holding, and with a rumbled curse, she dropped it on the floor.
