REVISING THE FIRST CHAPTER

As I park the car, I can see the garden full of weeds probably at the height of the knee. I walk to the door. The paint broken, frail chips of faint color barely holding on the old wood. The shimmering, glass rhombus in the middle of the door indicates that my folks are at home; my mother and brother, to be more precise. My father just passed away. I’m here for the funeral. If I would ever return voluntarily to this derelict, it would be for a chat with my dad. I ‘ve missed him all those years, living far away, following my dreams, building a career as….a librarian. As I ring the bell, the rush of suffocating emotions remind me that I left because I didn’t want to live here; not because I wanted to live somewhere else. There’s a huge difference that I fail to address, as the door opens and I come face to face with the ragged figure of my mother. She looks much smaller than I remembered her. It could be the mourning or simply the osteoporosis that shrunk her spine and bones.

“Aubrey. You are here.” she says rather indifferently.

She hasn’t seen me in ten years. Yet, she greats me with the old, unsympathetic look that means that she is sick and tired of my existence. I smile unwittingly, while pushing deep down in my gut an ache that threatens to surface at this awkward moment. She steps aside, allowing me to enter. Her eyes are surrounded by red circles. She’s been crying, undoubtedly. I hug her, unwittingly. I just don’t know what else to do. She melts into my arms. She bursts into sobs. Her tiny body, devoid of any warmth, trembles against mine.

I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do that; be a shoulder for others to cry on; offer support to people who ought to support me. Yet, I lean in our embrace slavishly, ignoring a cramp in my gut. Finally she pulls away without a look. She leads me into the living room. Under the dim light of the naked lamp, my brother sits nonchalantly on the old, burgundy sofa, covered with a blanket. My little brother…

“Frederick your sister is here.”

“So I see. Should I do something about it?” He seems angry. I can’t tell if my presence agitates him or if the loss of our father has taken a toll on his fragile mentality. His fragile demeanor that bent under the weight of our parents’ failure to meet the requirements of their roles.

Sometimes, when I think of Frederick, I get overwhelmed by an unbearable feeling of guilt and abandoned responsibility towards him. Perhaps, I should have tried harder. I should have been there for him. I should have lingered a little bit further in the wreckage of our parents’ marriage; to make sure that he would be able to jump off of it at some point in his life. Just like I did.

I approach the sofa and kneel next to him. His eyes follow me. His eyes; two blue pools of devastation. I seek his hand. As my fingers wrap around his, he bursts into tears. The pools are pouring.

“He is gone. It’s all my fault” he says as he leans in my arms and for a moment I’m thinking that I misheard. How could Frederick be responsible for our father’s death? I was packing my food containers in the fridge on Sunday night, when my phone rung. My cousin said that my father had had a heart attack. He had been alone and when they had found him it was already late.

As I squeeze Frederick in my arms, I look at my mother. She stands motionless, her arms bound in front of her chest. Her face radiating resentment and blame.

“It was your fault. You useless cripple . Where were you? If you had stayed with him as I asked you to, he would be alive now” she says. There are words pushed by the cramp in my gut towards my stomach, esophagus, my larynx. They burn my throat, my tongue.

Ten years I stayed away from this emotional cesspool. Six of them I ‘ve been seeing a therapist to rewire the cables of my heart, to contain my wrath, to make friends with myself. Six years of anger management group therapy.

“Ssh…” I whisper as I squeeze him even harder against my chest. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Don’t spoil him, you spoiled bitch. He is old enough to face his responsibilities.”

I breath heavily. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold my wrath. I push back my brother gently and I stand up.

“I need to take a shower, if that’s ok with you” I say to my mother without looking at her.

“Sure. The queen must take her bath” she says and raises her hand scornfully towards the stares. I pass by her, keeping my eyes to my step.

As I walk through the narrow corridor to my bedroom, I can’t stop the flood of emotions that wash over me. It feels as though I step into my childhood body with every step I take. Alone, abandoned, blamed, misunderstood. And then again, the question: How can a person be so brutal? And then …the numbness. The denial to be captivated by the moment, by the harsh, spiking blame. I reach at the door.

I turn around and look at the corridor; the narrow path to my doom. I walk back, passing through numbness into the hell of my childhood perceptions. I’m not a child anymore.

I’m an all grown up woman. A librarian, who sets her alarm at 05:30 every morning; who stacks her fridge with food containers from Sunday evening, for the entire week; who plans her route to the library, so that she is not late, not even for a minute; who always smiles politely and avoids situations that might exacerbate her hidden wrath. A woman who lives alone so that she doesn’t have to deal with the unpleasant possibility of an item being placed or absentmindedly being left at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

What have I accomplished all those years other than build a wall, a fortress to keep out of my life my own feelings? All these time I believed that I was shielding myself from the people, the behaviors, the false blame. I believed that by leaving, I had left behind everything that ever happened. I disowned it. How can you ever disown something that is irrevocably yours?

I climb down the stairs quickly. My mother is arranging my brother’s blanket.

“Where were you?” I say rather rudely.

“What?” she says and, as she turns to look at me, her eyes peer me with a deadly fury. I breath.

“When dad had a heart attack, where were you? You are the one who married him. Only you vowed to be next to him in sickness and in health. Not me. Not Frederick. So? You knew that your husband was sick and that he could have a heart attack. Where were you?”

There is an awkward silence for a a few seconds. Just like the numbness before the thunder. I ‘ve seen the thunder before. When I was a lot younger and far more fragile to withstand the awe that followed its burst. I was a lot younger, defenseless against a pair of adults who supported each other, no matter how badly or unreasonably they behaved.

“How dare you speak to me like this? I’m your mother, you spoiled bitch. You owe me at least some respect, if not an apology for abandoning us; just to chase your foolish dreams. Where was I? Where were you?”

For a long moment I slip back to a familiar feeling of self-loathing. The guilt-tripped scapegoat stares at the huge parental figure, speechless. I breath. Six years of breathing. Six years of rubbing my numb limbs every time I had a flashback of a moment like this.

“I was far away from you, mother. My one and only dream that- as you say- I was chasing, was a life without your complains, your ever-lasting misery that drained every little drop of joy from our lives. This house reflects your apathy about anything that it isn’t your fucking pain. You have never been a mother to me or Frederick. We ‘ve been a mother to you. Frederick a little bit longer than I.”

I ‘ve seen the thunder before. I ‘ve seen it bursting on my parched cheeks with spiky smacks; pulling tufts of my long hair until they would pop out of my scalp; spitting its anger in my teary eyes.

As she heads towards me, I know it’s going to be another strike like every other time. I breathe, I close my eyes, I brace myself to withstand the clash. The air around me swirls menacingly but then, all of a sudden I open my eyes. I don’t want to be the victim of another strike. I’m not a child anymore. I’m an all grown up woman; a respected librarian; a reliable friend; a responsible adult who stacks her fridge with food for the entire week. In a instant, I step back just before her slap clashes to my face. She loses her balance and falls on her knees. She looks at me aghast, as though she was struck by her own slap.

“You pushed me!” she says. I look at Frederick. He looks back at me and I know that I ‘ve never really abandoned him. I was just regaining my strength so that I could return and save him. He throws away the blanket and heads towards me. He grabs my elbow and we leave the house together.