Untitled Memoir

Memoir

Note to the reader: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” Leo Tolstoy.

            I am nine and asleep in the room I share with my sister. We’ve always been roommates even though she’s twelve now and desperately wants her own space.  Our twin beds lie adjacent to each other with a nightlight dividing the space. The nightlight is mainly for my protection because at nine years old the dark still makes me a bit uneasy. That very nightlight nearly ruined our small family before this night even began. You see, my sister accidently placed her blanket over the nightlight while she was sleeping and slowly the little light used for safety became a hazard. The bulb burned a hole through my sister’s green floral-patterned blanket and began to eat its way across the bed. Being a light sleeper I smelled the smoke and woke up before the fire could really take off. After that night we pushed our beds a little further apart but always in perfect symmetry via our mother’s instruction.

            I never really mastered the art of sleeping. I would toss and turn while ghastly creatures would conjure their way into my room and leave me paralyzed with fear. That very night I am visited by a coven of witches who brew up spells in their cauldron while I stare in heart wrenching terror. The night goes on and we sleep through the sound of my parents arguing. The clamor isn’t uncommon and has never caused us any alarm before. But tonight is different. I can hear my mother’s voice; it is coming from the guest bedroom next to my room. Her voice is wrapped in a thick emotion that I don’t recognize as fear until later. 

            My sister wakes up and instinctively I know she’s going to the bathroom. I follow along not really wanting to be alone with the witches in our room. This is why I followed her out into the hallway not because we were conjoined twins and shared the same bladder, but because she was my source of protection.

            I pad out barefoot into the hallway in my long pajama shirt and cotton underwear to find the door to the guest room ajar. Through the opening I can see my mother lying on the bed with the covers slightly drawn. My father is leaning over her and she is muttering something but I can’t quite make it out. I use the bathroom after my sister and the next thing I remember I’m in the back seat of my mother’s best friend’s car and we are in the parking lot of a grocery store. I hear my mother and her friend talking. My mother’s friend keeps urging her to go to the hospital, but my mother keeps refusing saying she doesn’t want to take us there in the middle of the night. My mother says this all in between sobs.

            It’s not unusual for me to see my mother in some form of despair. Usually these moments involve a glass of boxed wine or a well-placed pair of dark shades.  Finally, her friend gives up on the notion of the emergency room and resolves to ask her if she wants some Neosporin from inside the store. She warns my mother that if she doesn’t put anything on them that they’ll scar. My mother must’ve complied because the next thing I know I’m inside the grocery store with my mother’s charismatic friend and she’s explaining that the best grapes are the large purple ones with the seeds inside them and they are even better with salt. I remember my dad always joking that for such a skinny woman she was “always fucking eating.”

            I never thought of my family as unhappy. Sure my childhood came with a multitude of challenges but at that stage in my life I thought they were normal problems. The most hellacious task I ever accomplished in my life was learning my times tables. Now keep in mind I’ve always been a “bright” child but times tables just seemed impossible for my eight-year-old mind to grasp. My father gave me from the time it took him to go to the store and get another beer and come home to memorize everything from 1 x 1 to 12 x 12. Needless to say between my nerves, the fear of gettin’ a beaten, and triumphing third grade math I failed and was ready to meet my maker. I walked into our downstairs den attached to my parent’s room and prepared myself for a one-on-one confrontation with my father’s extension cord. But to my surprise my mother was sitting on the couch. She listened to my pleas for mercy because I was trying my best. For the very first time I cried on my mother’s shoulder and she warded off my impending throttling, as my father raged in the background “can you believe this shit!”

            One afternoon during a routine investigation I discovered some pictures of my mother in a metal box under her bed. They were in a neat stack beneath her gun with its pink grip. The photos were various images of seemingly random parts of her body. As I continued to stare my mind finally allowed me to make sense of the illusion. My mother’s perfectly hued golden skin was blotched by rabid, bloody flesh.

            I learned later on that week when my mother sat my sister and me down that they were getting a divorce. I asked about the photos and she told me, in her unceremonious way, that he wrapped his fist in a washcloth, lit it on fire, and beat her with it. At the time I thought this was an odd reason for my parents to get a divorce because my father doled out discipline unabashedly. Being beaten on a regular basis was as normal in my house as Sunday dinner. 

            As a child I’ve always applauded my mother for having the strength and courage to walk away from a life she so desperately wanted to be functional. But now as an adult I wonder why she waited so long and if there were more details to the events of that night. As the expression says “there are three sides to every story: his, hers, and the truth.

--Jasmine Dawson