Chapter 18
Mireya
Past
Play – Kitchen Fan Lullaby by Claire Boyer
My heart as a map
There are too many shoes by the front door.
I count them while standing at the top of the stairs, my fingers tight around the cup because I’m not supposed to be downstairs when Mom has people over. Especially when dad is working.
I forget the number and start again. One...Two...Three...Four...
The music is loud and the walls shake. I can hear voices laughing and talking all at once in the living room, like no one is listening to each other properly.
Mom is down there somewhere with them. I hear her laugh sometimes, then lose her voice again in the noise.
My throat feels dry, so I take one step down, then another. The stairs creak, and I pause, but no one looks up, so I keep going.
The kitchen smells like smoke; there are bottles on the counter and too many hands moving. Someone is leaning too close to Mom. Another person is sitting on the floor.
I don’t go all the way in. I just reach for the sink; I only want water.
My hand slips, and the cup falls before I can catch it. It hits the floor hard, water spreads everywhere and for a second, everything stops. Even the music feels quieter.
Everyone looks at me, mom's face is sad, she stops laughing when she sees me. My face gets hot and I can’t breathe right.
“What did you just do?” A friend of hers says looking at her socks. They're all wet...
I try to speak, but nothing comes out, then she crosses the kitchen in a few steps. I look at her feet instead of her face, her hand comes up and I feel the slap hard on my cheek.
Mom runs and pushes the woman away from me. "Don't fucking touch my daughter!" She grabs my arm, pulling me away and starts walking back to my room.
“You can’t just behave for five minutes?” she says, like I’ve ruined something that matters to her more than I do.
"I was thirsty mom, I’m sorry.”
She stops in front of my room and smiles, brushing my hair back, “Sorry, baby. I didn’t want you to see them,” she says, opening the door and pushing me inside.
In my room, she sits me on the bed. The mattress dips under her.
“I don’t like when people are here, mom,” I say, but my voice feels small next to the noise from downstairs. “It makes me feel weird.”
“It makes me feel weird too, baby,” she replies softly.
“Are you sad?” I ask.
She pauses and looks at the window, her smile is pretty now, prettier than when she lies.
“Sad isn’t really the right word, Reya,” she says. “I just get… far away sometimes. Stay here, it's going to be okay,” she adds as she starts to leave, but I stop her.
“Mom?”
She pauses in the doorway.
I think for a second, then point at my desk. “Wait.”
She watches me grab a piece of paper and a pen, I fold it once, then again, not really knowing how to do it properly, but I'm trying.
A heart, just like when she makes stars for me.
“If you get far away,” I say slowly. “You can listen to my heart, and then come back.”
Mom doesn’t answer right away, her face changes a little, then she steps back into the room and sits beside me. “Where did you get that idea?” she asks quietly.
I shrug. “You always do that with stars; I always make wishes now.”
She takes the paper from my hands carefully. “If I get far away,” she repeats.
I nod. “You just follow it back to me.”
For a moment she looks at it, then at me, then she smiles. “Okay,” she says. “Then I’ll follow it back to you.”
She folds it once more and puts it on the bedside table and leaves the room.
I should’ve made it smaller.