Damage

Chapter 24

“Mia.”

“Mom.”

It’s hard talking to my mom now, but it wasn’t before. My mother, who smells like fresh cut flowers that she grows in her garden and hard times. My mother, who would braid my curly hair and make tortillas on Sunday mornings, who dances and laughs to cheesy Mexican music and cries on the back porch.

“How are you?”  She sounds beat, but happy to hear me and I’m glad. It’s hard for her (especially now that I’m gone) and I’m actually surprised she even answered when I called. I wouldn’t be surprised if she never wanted to talk to me again. 

“Good. How are you?”

 “I’m fine.” 

 Michael’s coming at 6, I think, and I still haven’t even taken a shower but I felt like calling and knew that if I didn’t do it right now, I would lose the courage to do it later.

 “Is everything okay?” she asks, worry lacing her voice. 

I take a deep breath before trying to answer.  

“Mija, qué pasa?”   

I think about answering truthfully but don’t. I’m calling for a different reason and my mother doesn’t need to worry about my problems.

Anyway, how am I supposed to just tell my mother, or tell anyone, how broken I feel sometimes? That it feels like every few days I’m crying in the shower or before I go to sleep and that those frequent crying fits that seem to never end leave me feeling shipwrecked. That it’s such a regular occurrence I’m starting to think these storms of depression are as normal as rain.

“Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine, no te preocupes.”

I sit down on the chair at my desk before getting the conversation back on track. 

“I was actually calling to see how you’re doing. I worry and I talk to Jake a lot and…” I can practically see the image of what Jake told me: my mom crying in front of the toaster while she waits for the bread to pop up. It’s hard on her. It’s always been hard on her.

“I’m okay. We’re doing okay.”

My mother and my father are both strong people. But they’ve been worn down. My mother who doesn’t cry when our bank account is almost empty, but whose cold hands shake like mine when she’s scared that it’ll be empty forever. My father with dark skin like coffee and ink on his fingers, who wakes up weary in the dark at 3 am. 

“I miss you.” 

“I miss you too.”

Loss is palpable – it’s melancholy and rage and questioning and hurt and belongs to whoever’s experienced it. Flowers and cards and hugs from fake friends who don’t understand can’t fix it and the only thing that will heal the dull ache underneath your ribcage is time.

 “How’s school?”

“Amazing.” I say, and feel like crying – from guilt or joy, I’m not sure which.

“I’m happy you got out of here.” My mother says, and I know she won’t admit it again. She misses me and needs me and hates that I left, but I needed to get out of that town. Leaving was my only hope. I’d drown otherwise.

I don’t mention what she said, because I know it will only make us both hurt more. “How’s money?” 

I can almost see my mother hold her breath, not sure how to answer. Her heart is big, but full of pride. “Don’t worry about that.” 

“I do worry, mom.”

“We’re okay.”

“Mom.”

There’s a pause and a sigh, before she answers, reluctantly. “El dinero no alcanza para llegar a fin de mes. But I’ll figure it out, I always do.” There’s shuffling and I can tell that she’s probably sitting down at the small table in the kitchen. “Mia, don’t worry.”

But I do worry, and Jake’s told me that the $20 I send helps but now I can see that it’s not enough.

“Let’s not talk about money.”

So I hesitantly tell her about school and my job at the library and Emily and how I’m going to a poetry reading tonight, but I leave out Luke and Michael and everything else that might worry her.

 But eventually, stories about what I’m learning and what New York’s like start to make her sad and I can hear soft, hushed crying on the other end of the phone.  My mother, intelligent and gorgeous with a singing voice that’s so beautiful it’ll make your heart break, who dreamed and lost, who watches her daughter live the life she could’ve had.

Who almost resents what her daughter did, leaving her alone to pick up broken pieces.

You can’t leave like this.

 I can feel a tear start to trickle down my cheek and I want to plead over the phone “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you, I miss you, I’m sorry” but it won’t do anything and it definitely, won’t fix what’s happened.

So I don’t say anything and just listen to her sniffles on the other end, trying not to cry along with her.

 My mother normally doesn’t cry often, even in the hardest times she’d let one tear trickle down and wipe it away before focusing on how to deal with the problem at hand - no matter how big or small. But since what happened, she’s not the same. It’s hard being strong for so long.

The crying stops and she quickly steels up and hides what I know what was a few seconds away from sobbing and instead tells me she has to work the night shift at the hospital and mutters a quick goodbye. 

There’s a soft ‘click’ on the phone and I hang up, feeling confused and hurt and like everything is falling apart.

I open the window of the door room and stand behind it, trying to get fresh air because it feels like I’m suffocating and I grip the frame of the window until my knuckles turn white. I’m too numb to cry but I desperately want to talk to someone, tell someone everything. 

For some reason, there’s one person I can think of and I impulsively reach for my phone with his name echoing in the back of my mind. Luke. 

I shouldn’t even think of it, not when there’s Michael and other options that are more sane and less reckless and stupid. But the thought is there, nonetheless, and I unlock my phone and go to his contact before I can overthink it, like running up to the edge of a cliff and hoping that the momentum will take you over the edge.

 But just as I’m about to call, I get a wrenching feeling in my body and everything rushes back. Instead of feeling the momentum help me plunge over the side of the cliff, it feels like I’m digging my heels into the ground, my tip toes pushing precariously towards the space where rock becomes thin air and my body stops. 

I need something safer, something where there’s no chance of me getting hurt, and cliff diving isn’t it. I pull my finger away from the phone and quickly set it down, powering it off before I can do anything stupid. Michael is coming in an hour and it’s better like this.

He wouldn’t even have answered anyway.

***

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