I do remember crying at this point. Crying because the woman who had been living in my mother’s skin and didn’t want to talk to me was gone, and our real mother was back. Flaws and all.
Again, hindsight is a useful thing, and looking back, I should have known that this was too abrupt a recovery. Emotionally, I mean. I should have known at that point that she was planning something. In any case, I simply rejoiced as she set down steaming plates of eggs in front of us. They came with cold glasses of orange juice, condensation beading on the glasses, and sides of hot, freshly buttered toast.
I sort of recognize that eerie calm now, the peace after the storm.She’d grabbed onto a lifeline, the only one she could find, and it had a dangerous edge.
The house over the next few days was the most peaceful I remember it being. The three of us stayed at home, Mother’s wounds slowly healing. She read to us, we built forts in the kitchen and the garden, we ate okra and banku and all the other things Dad said he couldn’t stomach when he was around. But he wasn’t, not for a whole week.
I’m not sure if Mother called around to ask where he was. I’m not sure exactly where it is that he stayed. All I know is that a week later, he came stumbling into the house, a faint whiff of whisky wafting over the perfume of the obscenely large bouquet of flowers in his hands.
There were no harsh words from either parent, simply a wary sizing up as they locked eyes until Dad eventually grunted,
“I’m sorry.”
More silence. The flowers were placed on the dining table and then: “I’m going to bed.”
The festivities ended then. We didn’t quite cower in his presence, but we all tiptoed around the land-mine-infested soil of his feelings. He was still somewhat contrite, it seemed, so it was easy enough not to set him off. How long that would last, however, was uncertain.
One evening, a couple of days later, Claire and I sat cross-legged in front of some cartoons while Mother and Dad lay on the sofa behind us. Mother was feeding him whisky, one glass at a time. With each glass, his mood turned more and more sour, and his words became meaner and meaner.
“Off to bed now, darlings—it’s past your bedtime,” she said.
It was rare for us to give up TV time in any hurry—it was a real treat—but with the storm clouds gathering, we were only too happy to comply. Mother followed us upstairs, tucked us into bed, and kissed us on our cheeks.
“Everything’s going to be okay, promise,” she said.
We both let our eyelids close and our minds drift to sleep with that promise echoing in our ears.
It was the loud crash that eventually woke us. Our room was still dark, so I knew it was still nighttime, my body eager to get back to sleep. But little Claire was scared.
“It’s okay. Wait here, Care. I’ll be back.”
It’s a big sister’s job to look after her little sister, no? Even when you’re just as scared as she is. Even if you just want to get back under the covers and chase the thought of nightmare monsters away.
But I was going to be brave.
I inched out of the bedroom and slowly made my way to the landing. Mother was standing at the top of the stairs, back pumping up and down with heavy breaths, fists clenched tight by her sides. She looked at once ready to spring into action and frozen. Totally frozen.
“Mommy?” I asked.
I walked my little legs over to her, small hands reaching up into the folds of her nightdress and yanking. “Mommy?” I asked again.
When no response came, I followed the track of her eyes, staring down the narrow hallway into the near distance. As I followed her line of sight, I realized that we weren’t alone. Dad was sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, one arm and his neck at an unnatural angle. His eyes were staring, unseeing, back at Mommy. I wonder if she was the last thing he saw, or if he was already dead when his gaze fell that way. In any case, he never saw anything else again.
20
Now
I wish I could say that my sessions with Dimple are sewing me back up, stitching my torn pieces together into a beautiful, sturdy quilt. Instead, it feels like old scraps of trauma are being dredged up and assembled into an ugly, unwieldy thing.
It’s just weird how much stuff comes up when I think too hard about it. It sounds fucked-up when I say it out loud, but we were okay, right?
I hardly remember that time. I was too young. But I think we’ve always had very different definitions of “okay.”
Claire. I consider sending her more messages about it, about what it’s like reliving all this. But when she can’t really remember it in the way I can, when I’ve seen before how upset it makes her talking about it, I don’t know what good it will do.
Instead, I send her inane memes and TikToks I think she’ll like inour chat. It takes all my willpower to actively avoid Self-HelpTok as I hop between skits. Ex-boyfriends aside, I don’t tend to hyper-fixate, but there’s something addictive about the promise of better mental health packaged into neat thirty-second clips, presented by pretty people who don’t acknowledge they have a beauty filter on their videos, but you know they have a filter on and aren’t admitting it, which makes you feel a bit superior as you scroll with Kettle chip crumbs down your front, and you realize that maybe everyone is a little bit messed up and maybe you’re not that special.
Okay, so I’ve watched some videos.
