We Rip the World Apart

Kareela

I reach the bottom step after leaving my mother’s room, my feet warm from where the sun hits the wood. I look to the living room where Gran still sits, her gaze on the yard. If I were to sit beside her, settle my hand on hers, the skin would be soft, smooth, like fine paper. But I don’t. I can’t.

I step through the side door, the sun bright and full, as if it’s trying to offer comfort. My steps take me down the long gravel drive and onto the rail trail up the road.

It’s just as I pass into the woods that I run, pushing my body until I can’t anymore, until my scream reverberates through the trees, sending a flurry of activity from the birds and squirrels. I stop, breath heavy, heart pounding, then pick up a fist-sized rock and launch it, the impact against a nearby stump not nearly a satisfying-enough thunk. I throw another and another, then collapse to my knees, everything I’ve learned in the past hour crashing upon me.

My hands on my head, I sink, wishing Gran hadn’t told me her part in it. Gran—my salvation, my comfort, my only source of uncomplicated love—to have done this.

I breathe. In. Out. In. The memories flashing like bursts of light in a darkened room. Gran. Her touch, her smile, her listening ear. Gran, who loved me when my parents forgot how.

When she told my mom to keep silent, washed away the evidence of the attack, she couldn’t have known what she was doing. How it would wash away my mother, who had come here hopeful, trying to create a second chance for all of us.

If not for this festering secret, if she’d had help to work through the attack and all it brought, if she’d had the resolution of knowing the man was, at last, behind bars, maybe that second chance would have happened.

Maybe my father’s love, his desire to help his wife, if he’d known the reason she needed help, would have snapped him out of his own catatonic grief for good.

Maybe he would be here now.

Another yell erupts, shattering through me—for how broken we all became. My father. My mother. Me. So broken and lost in our pain, our grief, our history, that we lost each other—the one thing that may have saved us.

I lift my head to the sky, then sink to let it fall to my knees, thinking of my family. Not just my grandmother, my father, mother, brother, me, but all the people who came before, who shaped us.

Trying and failing. Trying, and then no longer being able to.

Cotton-candy clouds drift across the expanse above me, guiding my breath to slow, my shoulders to fall. All of these ancestors, doing the best they could with what they knew and had—what strength, what fear, what crippling pain.

The way my Gran did. Because she couldn’t have meant for any of this to happen.

I stand, brush off my pants, place my hand on my abdomen, see again that small form on the ultrasound screen—so innocent, so fresh. So real. Hear, again, that frantic beat, declaring life, fighting for it with every multiplying cell, despite my uncertainty, my inability to commit.

Blood rushes through that life. The blood of my mother, my father, Gran—all the ones before and now gone, who, in their own ways, have tried to protect me. Who, in their own ways, have loved me.

And suddenly, it’s clear: that’s what matters. That’s what life is about. Love. Not hiding from pain, anger, grief. Not trying to protect yourself from all the shit this world has to offer. But love.

In so many ways, my parents, my gran have done life wrong. Succumbing to the pain, letting fear be their guide, keep them silent. I’ve done it wrong. But I won’t anymore. Not like those two women back at the house, who made mistakes, passing on a love that’s fractured, battered, and bruised. Those women I came from—through—the way my child will come through me.

I turn back, the revelation so clear, despite my fear; I am having this baby. Thomas was right. It doesn’t matter if this wasn’t the plan. It doesn’t matter if I’m not ready, if this child will tie me to a man I’m not sure I want to be tied to. If I truly didn’t want this baby, I would have ended the pregnancy weeks ago.

So, I’ll hold her…or him. And, unlike my parents before me, I’ll tell our stories. Let this child make sense of them as best she can. I’ll lay it all out—the good, the messy, the horrible, my whole damn life, and theirs—as much as I know of it. Everything we’ve been trying so hard to forget when, most likely, what we needed was to remember.

My feet fall, one in front of the other, faster, faster, down the path, the driveway, until I burst through the door, breathless.

My mother and Gran sit across from each other, my gran’s eyes wet, my mother’s hands clasped in her lap, working nervously. Their heads turn as I open my mouth. “Gran, I’m taking you in. You’re not going to some home.” Gran’s eyes crinkle, the moisture making them glisten. “And Mom…leave this town, this house. But why not come to Halifax? Find a job. An apartment.”

My mother’s features tighten, just slightly, but she makes no other movement.

“It would be nice”—a smile builds in me, starting deep down and rising—“if you were near your grandchild. Got to know her…or him.” I place a hand on my abdomen. “Let her”— us , I think—“get to know you.”

Gran pushes to standing with more energy than I’ve seen in years. “Oh, KeeKee? For truth?” She crosses the distance between us, cups my face in her hands. “This is wonderful.” She pulls me close, and I sink into her arms, realizing how much I’ve missed her touch, how incredible it will be to see her every day rather than a few times a year.

As Gran releases me, I glance over her shoulder at my mother, still sitting, a hand over her mouth. She rises slowly and stands about six feet from me—as if it’s a habit she’s been unable to break from the years it was required. “A baby?”

I step from Gran, so we make an isosceles triangle in the room, Gran and I still close enough to touch, my mother the far point. I nod.

“It’s Thomas’s?”

My chest constricts. “Of course.”

She smiles, and a glimmer of that essential thing that’s seemed missing for so many years—had been stolen, perhaps—seems back.

“It’s Thomas’s, but…”

“But you don’t know if you want him. .” She steps forward. “Hold on to him with all you’ve got. He’ll give you a good life. Safe. Sta—”

“I’ll give myself a good life, Mom. Don’t worry about that.” The realization from the woods still coursing through me, I step closer and she stiffens. “But it’d be nice if you were around. If we could get to know each other better. Make up for lost time. Even if you don’t report the…what happened, I’d love to see you get help. Support. And I could be part of that.” I pause, meet her gaze. “I want you in our life.”

Mom’s lips quiver. She shakes her head, crosses the space between us, and takes my hand in both of hers. “Congratulations, . I hope everything works out for you.” She pulls her hands away and looks at her watch, her arm trembling. “I have a board meeting. I haven’t given my notice yet, but I will tonight. And I’ll list the house soon. You’ll need to find a new place—more room. I’ll do my best to help. Financially. But you should get started on that. On looking.”

She nods, then backs out of the room, gripping her hand to still the trembling.

“Your ma been through a lot.” Gran steps to me. “So, nuh let her dampen yuh.” She places her palm on my belly. “Dis is gud, baby girl. Dis is gud news!”

I nod, smile, a genuine smile, despite the hurt from my mother’s apathy, which maybe isn’t apathy after all, and meet Gran’s gaze. There’s a lot to figure out. A lot of hard to come. But she’s right. This is good.