Missing Peace

CW: Child abuse and suicide.

It taunts me.

The frilly white décor under the tight clear plastic.

Even several layers beneath and despite the plastic being more cloudy than clear, the white still comes through and makes it clear what it is.

I can even see the detail of the ornate flowers on top—its endless swirls and ridges.

I flinch as I hear his voice in my head, clear as if he were standing right behind me.

“Don’t…touch it.”

A bitter chill against my face quickly reminds me where I am, and I quickly yank my head out of the freezer.

I walk over to the window above the kitchen sink, lean over and stare out, trying to let the sun outside thaw me.

“Three years,” I sigh. “Three years, and I still can’t bring myself to do it.”

“Happy Anniversary, hun.” My husband Eric walks in, kisses the back of my head, and embraces me from behind.

“Thanks,” I said softly and with a half-smile.

“How are you feeling?”

“Eh. About the same as usual. Great. And terrible.”

Eric squeezes a little tighter. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Throw it away.”

Eric chuckled. “Nope, nope. Not my baggage. You want it thrown out, you need to throw it out.”

“But you know I can’t.”

He kisses my head again. “You can.”

Easy for him to say. This isn’t his parent’s wedding cake—a cake it was scorched into his head most of his life not to even touch—let alone eat, let alone…throw away.

Forty-seven years. Forty-seven years, that wedding cake has been in that freezer.

The same freezer my dad did everything he could not to have to replace…just so he wouldn’t have to risk the cake having even two seconds of exposure to room temperature.

The last time I touched it, I was nine.

I’d been writing about it in my diary for weeks, trying to hype myself up.

I was so grateful for my little red diary, one of the last things my mom bought for me, as often times, it was the only thing that would keep me sane.

Through those pages, I’d finally worked up the nerve to pull it out. I was curious—what does a nine-year-old wedding cake taste like?

But just as I began to pull it out, I froze stiller than the cake when I heard footsteps behind me.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?!?” My father’s thunderous voice yelled out.

I couldn’t speak. I definitely wasn’t wanting to turn around.

“Hey!” he yelled again. “Little girl!! You hear me?!? Turn around and answer me!!”

I squeezed my eyes as I began feeling the warm moisture building behind them.

I really didn’t want to turn around.

But alas.

“I—I—” I quivered through tears as he sailed across the room and slapped me, sending me flying across the kitchen floor until the dishwasher intervened, before I could squeeze out a second word.

The sting of the slap hurt but not as much as that crash.

“Get up!!” he yelled.

“I’m s—s—sorry,” I sobbed.

“Yeah, you’re sorry. Get up!!!”

I pushed myself off of the floor, ignoring the fresh aches at my side and on my cheek.

“What have I told you?!” He roared.

“Don’t touch the cake.”

“Don’t what?!?”

“Don’t touch the cake!!” Tears streamed across my hot face.

“Don’t touch the cake. Then why the hell did I just walk in on you…touching the cake?!?”

“I—I don’t know. I wasn’t going to—”

“Don’t lie, Raya…because then, either you’d be lyin’ or my eyes would be lyin’, so which is it? You gonna stand there and say my eyes were lyin’ to me?!”

“No, sir,” I whispered.

“What?!”

“No, sir!”

“Okay, so then you were touching the cake.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But if you know you aren’t supposed to touch the cake, why the hell were you touching the cake?!?”

“I don’t know, I just wanted to… Just wanted to see.”

“But it’s not your cake to see… Now, is it?”

“No, sir.”

A few moments passed as it seemed he was standing trying to think of the next best thing to say and do to further drive his point home.

“Get out of my face, go to the shed,” he finally directed.

The shed. His dreaded back shed where he built things, worked on things, and where he always felt his strongest, his toughest.

I slowly walked past the refrigerator and tried to close the freezer door.

“Don’t…touch it. Leave it. Get upstairs. I’m going to deal with you,” he said as he stared at the freezer while I walked off.

And boy, did he deal with me.

My father dealt with me a bunch of other times about a bunch of other things, but after that day, I made sure it was never again about that cake.

I would just have to go on wondering about that cake.

And wondering…if he blamed me.

I knew he did.

I did.

So, of course he did, too.

Eventually, I stopped wondering about that cake. I stopped being curious.

Even in my diary.

Instead, I came to stress over it. I came to fear it.

And as I came into my adulthood, I came to resent it.

It’s just a motherfuckin’ piece of cake, I’d often think to myself. And that was so long ago—like really, what’s the big fucking deal?!

And yet, I would still go on not knowing. Not touching it. Not doing anything with it.

Even as the years passed.

Even as I moved out of the house, got married, and came back home occasionally to visit.

Even when my husband and I eventually moved in, so I could help take care of my father who’d been diagnosed with a terminal disease. As weird as it was seeing someone who had long been so mighty and tough now appear so frail.

Even after my father passed away.

Even three years after…

Today.

An hour later, I find myself weary from the weight of the day. I lay on my bed, hoping it will carry me into a nice, long nap.

It doesn’t take long.

Unfortunately, just as I has been the case for years—for decades—I have no more peace while asleep than I do awake.

My mind soon drifts off to the first time.

The first time I touched that cake.

I was seven.

I’d heard my father tell his friend that since his and my mom’s one-year wedding anniversary was coming up in a few days, they would soon enjoy that cake, to celebrate.

It sounded exciting.

Cake? I’d wrote in my diary at the time. Mmmm I bet it’s good.

As I’d also wrote, I couldn’t figure out why, despite my father’s excitement, my mom seemed so sad.

The morning of their anniversary, I pulled a chair to the refrigerator, reached inside and pulled the cake out.

Just as I did, my parents happened to walk by the kitchen.

While my mom remained silent, my father yelled for me to put it back and don’t touch it.

Thankfully, he didn’t strike me that first time, but the bass in his voice and expression on his face told me everything I needed to know about leaving that cake alone. So, I put it back.

My mom was in the living room at the time, so I know she heard.

A few hours later, he found her passed out on their bathroom floor, with an empty pill bottle in her hand.

When I walked in right after, my father looked back at me with an anguished face.

He didn’t say it, but I felt it.

I did this.

In my seven-year-old mind, I had caused mommy to swallow the pills that ended her life. Because I touched the cake.

The amount of guilt was enough to take me out with her.

Enough to jolt me out of my sleep, gasping to breathe again.

“Mommy!!” I cry out as I jump up and my eyes fling open and vaguely see a body hovered over me.

“Babe!? Are you okay?!” It’s Eric, as he gently rests his hand on my shoulder, and I flinch without thinking.

I can barely register what he’s saying.

You would think that day just happened.

My sadness, my confusion, my guilt from that day and for many years after hit me like a bulldozer at full speed.

But unlike many other times I’ve awakened with this feeling, I feel an unfamiliar surge of raw anger.

Rage.

Fury.

Anger for that little girl.

For the load she had to carry for so many years.

For my father. For many things, but among them, not doing anything to lighten that load.

He never wanted to talk about my mother.

Not anything about her. Neither her life nor her death.

I had to later learn from other people what exactly had happened to her that dark, fateful day.

A day made even more painful when, hours after we got back from the hospital, he’d trashed my room.

I couldn’t understand why he would do that other than more confirmation. He thought I did it.

Even when I’d worked up the courage one time at 13 to directly ask him if he thought I had something to do with her taking her life, his response?

"Anything's possible. I guess we'll never know."

That’s the kind of load my father made me carry.

As he made me preserve and leave be his precious little cake.

A cake, by the way, that didn’t only belong to him. That was my mom’s cake. One of the few remaining pieces I still had of her.

And I couldn’t touch it.

Today, I’m going to touch it.

I jump up and run past Eric.

“Babe? Babe!!” he futilely calls out.

I nearly fly down the stairs and head straight to kitchen and right for the freezer.

I reach in and grab the plastic-wrapped mound.

I’m surprised to find it a bit more loose than I would’ve expected. But it’s heavy. Nearly like a block of ice.

My face feels as hot and wet as it did that last time my dad struck me across the kitchen floor.

With the pretty white block, I speedwalk outside to that back shed.

I stand there for several minutes with tears violently streaming down my face.

And then, with all of my might, I chuck that big white block of frosted ice towards the shed door.

I throw it so hard that it makes a large dent in the wood.

It also busts partly open and then fully once it hits the ground.

Decades’ old dry cake batter and shriveled frosting lay scattered in front of the shed door.

But also, something silver.

I reach down and grab it.

It’s a wedding ring.

My mom’s wedding ring.

As I inspect it, I also notice in the stale crumble mound a sliver of paper.

I reach down and grab that.

It’s a full, notebook-sized sheet of paper, folded six times.

I carefully expand it, my hot tears dropping and blurrying some of the ink as I do.

“Raya” It reads at the top.

It’s from my mother.

Raya,

Hey, baby. I’m glad you found this. I knew you would. You and that diary are inseparable. I just want to let you know I love you. You’re truly the best thing that ever happened to me. And I hate so much that I have to leave you. Please don’t ever think I wanted to or that it was because of you. There are things you won’t understand now but I hope you will one day. I know you’ll be in good hands with your father. Even though things with us haven’t been great, I know he loves and will take good care of you. Please take good care of yourself. And know that I’ll always love you and be with you.

Love,

Your mama

The words appear almost blurry as they nearly take the breath from me.

It takes me several minutes to comprehend what I’ve read. And to put the pieces together.

This note. Who it’s for. Who it’s from. Where it’d been.

Where I’d found it.

Suddenly, the painful memory of my trashed room after her passing revisits me.

My diary.

And realizing that’s why he hadn’t wanted me to touch the cake.