Chapter 4 #2
Apparently, he is in there and actively choosing to ignore me.
“I know you’re hiding in there,” I yell over my shoulder as I turn to leave.
More silence. Predictable.
I flip off the door as I walk away. If he thinks ignoring me will make me back down, he’s in for a very rude awakening.
“Mom?” I flick on the switch near the front door, illuminating our shoebox-sized apartment into brightness.
The space isn’t ideal, with questionable splotches of potential mold growing from the windowsills, the neighbors above shouting expletives and throwing things until they pass out at three a.m. It’s about as cheap as you can get living in the city, though, which is why we’re here.
I call out for my mom a second time, and once again no answer. This must be a common theme for the day, seeing as no one responds when I call out to them.
Throwing my dance bag down, I walk down the short hall to her room. I’m always afraid of what I may find. Will today be the day I find her cold and not breathing? A needle in her arm with eyes glazed over? Even as an adult, I have the same constant fear that I’ll be orphaned.
As a child, it made more sense. Going into a foster home was a real possibility every single day as she struggled her way through addiction.
The one time they did find her in possession of drugs after running a red light, I was turned over to live with my aunt Sandy, my mother’s sister.
She had two boys around my age—my cousins, Noah and Levi.
Levi and I never got along well, but Noah has always been like a big brother to me from the eighteen months I lived with their family and beyond.
I was there until my mom got her shit together enough to get me back.
Often, though, I wonder if it would have been better if she hadn’t.
When my mother is sober, she’s my favorite person in the entire world. Full of humor and empathy that knows no bounds. But beneath that wit and light lies a darkness, overwhelming and all-consuming, that takes over like a flick of a switch.
As a child, one day she’d be sneaking me out of school early to take me to the park. We’d pick sweet, sun-warmed oranges from our neighbor’s tree, giggling over something mundane the entire walk back home.
The next, she’d vanish for days. I’d scrounge the cabinets, put myself to bed, walk myself to the bus stop, all while wondering if she was coming back for me.
She always did eventually, waltzing in and kissing me atop my head as she hummed a song I didn’t recognize.
Acting as if it had been minutes since she last saw me and not days.
It made me grow up fast. Taught me to rely on myself. To be okay, even when everything around me wasn’t.
My steps are silent down the hallway as I pad along like the floor is made of thin ice. I push her bedroom door open and find darkness. The only light in the room is the orange salt lamp that I had bought for her on her birthday, right after she moved back in with me.
Ever since I moved out at eighteen, I’ve been her landing pad. A place she returns to when she’s sober again. Her sobriety always starts off promising, until I come home from a double shift at the restaurant and find a note on the counter: See you soon, sweetheart.
That was her way of saying she’d jumped ship on sobriety and her real life. No other warnings. No explanations. Just a see you soon.
Sometimes she’d disappear for months. Other times, years. Frequent long stretches of not knowing if she was even alive. I used to care more when she vanished. But every time it happened again, the worry dulled. Like anything does when it becomes routine.
When your mother keeps rolling the dice on life, you start expecting her death long before it ever comes.
Crouching beside the bed, I stare at her, straining my sight in the darkness to make sure there’s a rise and fall of her chest. I hold my own breath in, as I extend a hand out to touch her. My heart pounds that she’ll be cold to the touch. Instead, she jerks away, startled, at my hand on her arm.
“Oh my god, Marley. You scared the hell out of me.”
“Sorry,” I breathe, relieved. “I wasn’t sure …”
“What? If I was dead?” She chuckles. “Not yet, unfortunately.”
“Mom, don’t say that.”
Brushing the hair out of her face, she flicks on the desk lamp beside her. The sudden brightness has us both flinching against it.
“How was your first day at your fancy new job?” she asks, still half-asleep.
“It was great. Everyone was really nice,” I lie, not wanting her to worry. Any little thing can set her off, sparking that hunger for anything to dull her extreme empathy.
She reaches out, touching my cheek, staring at me like she’s in awe that I’m her own flesh and blood.
“Good, sweetie. You let me know if anyone does give you any trouble though. I may or may not know some people that can take care of them.” She laughs as if she’s teasing.
I laugh back, but it’s not genuine. Because sometimes I’m scared as hell that one of her friends from her troubled past would do something horrible for her.
So, for now, I keep her in the dark, silently praying that her own shadows don’t swallow her whole again.