One day, I would escape and never return.
The walls here were too thin, the air too thick with all the things we never said. Some days, I dreamed the drywall would collapse beneath the pressure of our secrets, bring the whole house down in a pile of splintered remains.
Then, maybe, we could start over and get it right.
But the world doesn’t give second chances to families like mine.
The tears came slow and silent. Not the racking, gasping kind,but the ones that slid out without permission, soaking the threadbare carpet under my cheek.
When the shouting dulled to a low, guttural moan, I snuck out of my room and padded down the hallway on bare feet. The carpet was sticky from some spill; I had long ago stopped asking what it was.
The living room looked like a crime scene.
Mom sat slumped on the arm of the couch, mascara smeared. Lillian lay on her stomach, clutching a throw pillow with white knuckles, lips pressed tight to keep in the animal noise.
Mom caught me in her periphery and jerked upright. “What’re you looking at?” she spat, dragging a sleeve across her wet face.
I shook my head and shrank into the wall, wishing I could melt through it.
She staggered to her feet, swaying, then advanced on Lillian, voice cracking like a whip. “I gave up everything for you ungrateful shits.”
It didn’t sound like her at all. Barely human. She was somewhere else behind her eyes, watching the scene on a busted projector while her body moved on autopilot.
Lillian rolled over, not even trying to wipe her face. There was blood at the corner of her mouth. “You never gave up anything. You just took and took.”
Mom’s hand lashed out, catching a fistful of Lillian’s hair and yanking her upright. Lillian didn’t scream, just stared back, daring Mom to hit her again.
For a second, I saw the whole past play out in their locked stares. The way Mom used to stroke Lillian’s hair and sing to her, back when warmth was still possible.
“Don’t touch me,” Lillian sobbed, flinching away. Mom’s shadow blotted out what little light leaked in from the kitchen. She bared her teeth, the shape of a woman stretched so thin that bone glimmered beneath the surface.
“I should have left you both at that hospital,” she howled. “You and your goddamn sister are leeches, every last one, just like your father.” Her fingers flexed, trembling with some animal urge.
For a moment, I thought she might strike Lillian’s bowed head, but instead she spun and hurled the nearest mug against the far wall. Porcelain exploded, shardstinkling over the floor. “Look at me!” she shrieked, words slurring into one another, language unraveling with her self-control. “I could’ve been something. I could’ve had a life. But you—both of you—just take and take and take?—”
Lillian lifted her face, eyes red but cold. “That’s enough, Mom. You’re high.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that, you little?—”
“Enough!” Lillian’s voice had the sharp edge, and for a split second, Mom reeled back in surprise.
Somewhere in the kitchen, a faucet dripped. The smell of wine, sweat, and bitter narcotics filled my nose.
I felt myself floating above it all, watching from the cracked paint of the ceiling, like a ghost haunting the wreckage of the only home I’d ever known.
Mom let go of the fight and stumbled into the kitchen, just barely missing the doorframe.
I wanted to follow her, to see if the monster had eaten her whole or if there was a scrap of my mother left in there, but Lillian curled a hand around my wrist and pulled me down next to her on the floor.
I let her, my body loose and numb.
We listened to the sounds of pill bottles being shaken, cabinet doors slamming.
The refrigerator opened, then shut. A glass fell and shattered. The kitchen light flicked off and on, off and on, in a sick little rhythm.
A scream built behind my teeth, but I buried it and let my eyes burn instead. Someday, I would scream until the world heard me, until someone came to dig me out from beneath all this ash.
I waited until the house fell into a dead hush.
