“Well, I don’t need to care what you think, Mama, because this has nothing to do with you,” Mary spat.“Just leave me alone.I’ll be gone in a week, and then you and Rachel can both get back to your perfect little life together without me.”
“Sounds good to me,” Rachel growled.
Tears filled Mary’s eyes now, and Rachel didn’t think they were forced.Mary turned and pounded upstairs to her bedroom, where the walls were still stubbornly papered with the posters of her teen years, unchanging and immature.
Dora and Rachel both remained seated, staring at their plates, at the half-eaten omelettes that had grown cold during the argument.Finally, Dora spoke.
“I’m so sorry you have to go through this every time, Rachel,” she said, sounding defeated and resentful.Like ugly debris swept up onto the beach after a crashing wave, the drama of the fight had receded, leaving weariness in its place.“So often I wish she would just stay away.I feel awful saying it, but I do.She’s exhausting.”
Rachel watched her grandmother.She always looked older in these moments, her shoulders more stooped, eyes dull with fatigue.“I get it, Gran.I do.”She paused.“Do you think she’s really pregnant?”
“Well…if she actually is, she’ll probably have gone off the medication.But I doubt she is.”
Rachel saw the lines around her mouth deepen as she bit her lips.She was holding something back, and a chill crept up Rachel’s arms despite the warmth of the kitchen, knowing both she and her grandmother were thinking of the miscarriage in the bathroom all those years ago.The one Rachel wasn’t supposed to know about.The one Dora might have induced.
Dora shook her head then, not meeting Rachel’s eyes.“I suppose it’s possible.Though she could just be saying it to spite us.”She glanced toward the staircase.“That girl never seems to run out of ways to self-destruct.”
It was seven-thirty in the morning, two days after the argument, and Rachel was standing in the dim scullery off the kitchen in her tank top and pyjama bottoms as the kettle rumbled on the stovetop to her left.She’d slept poorly the past couple of nights, her dreams full of darkness, and she needed one of Dora’s energizing tisanes, a blend of ginseng, ginger, holy basil, and spearmint.She’d woken to Dora already in the scullery, grinding up her own morning blend.She was now out in the yard, harvesting some herb she’d run out of.
“Something calming for Mary,” she’d said.Chamomile or valerian, maybe.
Rachel reached for the jars one at a time, measuring them out with the set of silver spoons Dora kept on the counter.Rachel placed the herbs in the marble mortar and began to grind, pressing and twisting the pestle as her grandmother had taught her years ago.Dora had ground up nearly a year’s supply of this particular blend for Rachel to take to school with her.It had come in handy during exam periods and the mornings after inexperienced and regrettable nights at the bar.
“What are you doing?”
Rachel jumped, the pestle knocking against the rim of the bowl with a clunk.Mary was standing in the little pocket doorway, one hand on each side of the frame.She scrutinized her daughter.
“Making tea,” Rachel said, as the adrenaline drained from her hands.“I’ve been tired, and I have to work today.It helps with my energy.”
“You shouldn’t trust her with any of this shit,” Mary said, scowling at the shelves of jars, the bouquets of dried lemon balm and lavender that hung upside down from the ceiling with brown twine.
“It’s just tea,” Rachel said, looking away from Mary and back to her hands.She finished grinding, the grumble of stone on stone unnaturally loud as Mary stood there silently, watching, like a bird of prey on a wire.
The past two days had been uncomfortable, but Mary had seemed surprisingly upbeat despite having been in tears at the end of the argument.But when Dora asked, she still maintained that she was pregnant, and Rachel had even caught her running her hand over her flat abdomen once or twice while she was watching TV.Rachel didn’t really know what to do with this news.Either Mary was pregnant or she wasn’t, she was lying or she wasn’t, and only time would tell.Rachel was sick of trying to figure her out.
She transferred the herb blend to a small lidded Mason jar and stood awkwardly in front of Mary until she finally stepped aside to let Rachel through.A bubble of tension pressed between them.She wondered how many other girls she knew felt their mother’s presence like an existential threat.
She stood at the nearby stove with the tea leaves in her favourite ceramic mug; a handmade, expensive splurge she’d picked up at one of the local summer craft sales a few years ago.It was a little chipped now, but the size and shape were perfect, and she’d bought it with her own money, which always made something feel more valuable.Rachel liked to earn her keep.
Mary was in the scullery now, looking at all the rows of jars, eyes squinted the way Rachel’s got when she was working out a math problem.
“What’s this?”Mary demanded a moment later, lifting a small open glass jar off the counter.
“Oh, uh, probably Gran’s,” Rachel said.“She was…” She trailed off, losing her voice as the penny dropped.
“Making metea?”Mary snarled, her eyes burning, unblinking.“Did she think I wouldn’t recognize this shit from last time?”She shook her head in disgust.“Always trying to ‘cure’ me.And the joke’s on her because I’m not even pregnant!I knew she would try this.Iknewit.I wanted to hope she wouldn’t, but…” Her eyes were shining now, and she looked at Rachel intently.
“Mom—” Rachel was frozen in a state of wretched realization.
“She’s my own mother, and I can’t even trust her,” Mary whispered, her eyes imploring Rachel to understand, utterly ignorant to the spectacular irony.“That fuckingwitch!” she screamed, and threw the jar to the floor where it shattered, leaves and shards flying in all directions, narrowly missing Rachel’s legs.
“Mom!”Rachel shouted.“That could have cut me!”
But Mary never cared who got caught in her crossfire, didn’t concern herself with who might get hurt, or who would clean up the mess afterward.That the shards of her own malevolence could lacerate someone else’s skin, settling in for a lifetime of pain.
“Where is she?!”Mary screeched.She looked crazy.
“Don’t, just don’t!”
