Surprise, Surprise
At the sight of Mom in the kitchen, I stopped dead in my tracks. Last time she made us dinner, it had been take-out. Three weeks had passed since. Yet, as if she hadn’t been missing for days, she hummed some song to herself, slightly swaying her hips, while she stirred in a pot on the stove. Mom didn’t notice I stood staring at her from the doorway, and I couldn’t find my voice to speak. I was too stunned at what I witnessed that I couldn’t even bring myself to say hello.
“You’re home!” The sound of Tommy’s cheery voice made me snap out of my thoughts. From behind, he threw his arms around my middle. My little brother was happy and his enthusiasm was audible in his voice. “Mom’s back!”
“I can see,” I replied when Mom turned around. She sent me one of her big smiles, the kind of smile we didn’t get too see very often. At the same time, this smile didn’t warm my heart. In fact, her smile had the very opposite effect.
“Good!” Mom chimed while wiping her hands clean on her apron. “You’re home.”
Before I had a chance to tell her I could say the same about her, she shocked me even more. She walked over and kissed me on the cheek. To most people, this didn’t seem an odd gesture but it was to me.
As much as I wanted to ask her where she had been, what she had been up to and why she was unnaturally cheery and what brought on the perfect mother act, I didn’t want to start a fight with her as soon as she got home, especially not while Tommy was in the room. I had some very not-so-nice things to say and I didn’t want Tommy to hear any of them. As long as Tommy was within hearing distance, I would have to play nice.
“You look nice,” I complimented her appearance. I hadn’t missed the up-do of her hair, the borderline subtle make-up and the cornflower blue dress she never wore unless it was a special occasion. “You’re cooking and you’re all dressed up, what’s the occasion?”
“Does there have to be an occasion? Can’t a mother spoil her children, make them a nice dinner to show how much she loves them?”
“Of course,” I muttered disbelievingly and bit back the sarcastic remark that burned the top of my tongue. “I just wondered.”
Mom turned back around and silently, she started stirring in her pots again. Seeing her behavior for what it was, the silence before the storm, I took in a deep breath and braced myself for what was to come.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” I offered half-heartedly. Pretty sure that all hell would break loose in only a short matter of time, I convinced myself it wouldn’t kill me to play along. This nice mom act wouldn’t last long and for Tommy’s sake, I wanted to make it last as long as possible.
Over her shoulder, she smiled at me. “No darling, it’s nice of you to ask, but why don’t you go ahead to the living room and have some fun with your brother and sister. Maybe there’s something on television that you could watch.”
Going against every instinct, I ignored the alarm bells that went off in my head. When things turned south, I would deal with it then and not a moment sooner – or so I tried to tell myself. In the end, I did as told and joined Jessie and Tommy on the couch in the living room. Declan wasn’t downstairs, but showed up half an hour later when Mom called him down for dinner.
Just like any normal family probably did on a daily basis, we all sat together at the dining table instead of the smaller table in the kitchen that barely fit four people. We never ate at the dining table except during holidays or special occasions like family visits or birthdays. Yet, today Mom had set the table in the living room and that was another sign that nothing good would come from this unexpected family dinner.
We weren’t very talkative as we passed the potatoes and cauliflower around while we each held out our plate to Declan, who was assigned to serve the chicken roast.
“There is something I would like to tell you,” Mom broke the silence as soon as everyone’s plate was filled and we were ready to dig in.
If by miracle, I had any appetite at all by the time I sat down for dinner, I lost whatever was left of it at my mom’s enthused announcement. Involuntarily, I looked over at Declan and saw my worries mirrored on his face. Even Jessie couldn’t form more than a wry smile as we waited for our mom to fill us in on her big news. The only one who seemed remotely excited was Tommy, who beamed at Mom as he waited for her to say more. He was so easily fooled by her charades and I didn’t have the heart to rip that away from him. One day, he, too, would learn the unstable and impulsive ways of our mother, and if I had any hand in it, that time wouldn’t come anytime soon.
“I haven’t seen you much lately, but getting away for a bit was something I needed to do. For me.Not only did this leave me some time to myself to think, it also provided me one of the best things that has happened to me lately. I know this will feel a little out of the blue to you, and I wanted him to be here, by my side, to tell you together –“
“He?” I asked, afraid that my worst case scenario would become a very unwanted reality. “What do you mean?”
“I ran into an old friend of mine and we hit it off, again. This time, it felt right and we realized that life was too short to waste even a minute of it to spend as much as a day apart. That’s why we decided that it would be best for him to move in with us.”
My mom’s excitement sickened me and I failed to hide it from her. I had hoped to keep a straight face for Tommy’s sake, but I couldn’t bring myself to stick to that plan. With a grunt, I planted my face in my right hand, making a pained face.
“Can’t you just, just this one time, bring yourself to be happy for me? This is a good thing. After everything I’ve been through, I deserve some happiness.” Mom’s cheery façade had traded places with a saddened one. After years of practice, I could easily see she was faking it. She was exaggerating things and intended on making me dwell in guilt. Well, she could think again.
“How about…” I began as I removed my hand and faced my mom. “How about you do what’s best for us, you know, just this one time.”
“Don’t you begin, Cassandra! It’s not because you’re eighteen that –
“Nineteen.”
“What?”
“I said, I’m nineteen. For the last four months, I’ve been nineteen. This just shows how much you care.”
“That’s not what this is about. Maybe you’re an adult, in theory, but you’re still my daughter. You’re not the parent in this house!”
“I might as well be,” I muttered under my breath. I didn’t intend for Mom to hear. I knew how that was one of the things that would set her off, ignite the explosives that lay buried under her charade. Nevertheless, she heard. Her reaction was exactly what I knew it would be. Questioning her parental authority, or her credibility of loving mother, always had, and always would result in a loud scene. She yelled a lot of things, things I never could tell if she really wanted to say them. A lot of her breakdown-vocabulary wasn’t appropriate for Tommy’s young ears. She shouted them nonetheless. Besides the verbal attack, Mom tended to crowd your personal space when she lost it. She’d come up really close, pointing her finger right at your face, and shower you with the most explicit profanities. This time wasn’t any different.
Mom leaned sideways over the table, hadn’t bothered to stand up, and had her index finger pointed at me. Her face had colored a nice shade of red, and as I absently ate my potatoes, the occasional drop of spit ended up on my cheek. I didn’t bother wiping them off. No. That would mean I actually acknowledged her outrage and I wasn’t about to give her that satisfaction. From experience, I knew that by not paying any attention to her when she had one of her episodes, it wouldn’t take too long for her to just give up and pretend nothing ever happened.
Chewing on my potato, just to have something to focus on, I caught Jessie’s gaze.She seemed about ready to speak up, but I shook my head once. Mom’s rage would end soon, and I didn’t want her to take it out on Jessie, or Declan…or god forbid, Tommy.
Breathe, I told myself. Just breathe…
And then, just as quick as it had started, everything quieted down again. Mom leaned back in her chair, looked anywhere but in my direction, and picked up her fork.
“Declan, can you hand me the salt, please?”
My eyes fell on Tommy’s pale face, and the sad and somewhat scared look in his eyes tore at my heart. Under the table, I nudged Tommy’s foot.
I smiled at him, and mouthed, “It’s okay.”
While everyone else continued to eat, I just rearranged the food on my plate. I wouldn’t be able to get another bite down my throat, not even if I wanted to.
Even though Mom had had her say, gotten everything off her chest, my own anger still raged inside me. To distract myself enough not to speak my mind, I pushed all my cauliflower to the left and all the potatoes to the right on my plate, and then I moved it all back. I kept pushing my food around until the doorbell sounded.
“He’s here!” Mom announced ever so cheerfully. She didn’t say another word, didn’t give us another glance as she jumped up from her seat and practically skipped to the front door, to let her boyfriend in.
"No…" The second I saw that all-too-familiar face, the world stopped spinning. I wanted to run but couldn't move. I wanted to shout but couldn't find my voice. I wanted to forget but every bad memory I had ever suppressed was back and my cruel mind replayed them just as vivid as if they were happening in real time. I balled my fists, digging the nails deep in my palms. As if that bit of pain would distract me even the slightest bit. I couldn't breathe and before I knew it, my stomach turned. I barely registered the feeling in time, but I managed to get up, rush past the happy couple, and to the bathroom before the contents of my stomach ended up on the living room floor.
I held onto the toilet for dear life and wished I was stuck in some bad nightmare. I didn't want this to be real. I didn't want him back in my mom’s life. Our life. My life. I didn't want to have to relive all of it again. Years of trying to forget everything, and just one look at him and I realized it had been for nothing. There was no forgetting what happened.
I retched again at the memory of his touch.
With my eyes still clenched shut, I felt for toilet paper, or a towel, something to wipe my face clean. I felt dirty enough already.
"Cassandra?" my mom called from downstairs. I couldn’t quite make out if she sounded angry. For a split second, I thought she was concerned about my well-being, but I quickly dismissed that thought. The second I heard Mom come up the stairs, I jumped up from my spot on the floor next to the toilet, and locked the door. At least, in the bathroom I'd be safe. With my back against the door, I slid down to the cold tiles once again. Amidst the washing that no one had bothered picking up that morning, I felt like I belonged. Perhaps if I stayed in the bathroom long enough, my mom would send him home. Surely she'd be worried about me, right? I huffed at my own foolishness. She wasn’t going to send him away.
"Cassandra!" My mom tried to open the door. When it didn't open, she knocked twice - hard. "What's wrong?"
I ignored her completely. I blocked her out. I pulled my knees up and hugged myself. I was the only one who knew, the only one who cared. I was also the only one that had to live with the haunting memories for all these years. Vaguely I registered her shouts, her angry banging the door, but I refused to acknowledge her tantrum. Instead I fought the tears I had bottled up at the time and over the years that followed. I couldn't give him the satisfaction of finding out just how much he screwed me up. I wouldn’t give him that pleasure.
It took me several hours to calm myself down, and only when the house had turned absolutely quiet again, did I sneak out of the bathroom. However, when I entered my bedroom, Jessie's bed light lit the room. She sat on her bed with her back against the wall; clearly she had been waiting for me. She didn't speak right away and I was glad for that. I tried to pull my lips into a smile, but I could feel how it didn't quite reach my eyes. After that sad smile, I just crossed the room and crawled into bed. I didn't bother changing into my pyjamas.
"Cassandra?" Jessie whispered after a while. "Cass, are you okay?"
I didn't reply. I was facing the wall, not my sister’s side of the room so maybe, just maybe she would believe I fell asleep. After all, the only thing I wanted to do was to sleep and if it wasn’t too much asked, I wanted to forget about my life.
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A/N: I didn't really edit this chapter, so if you spotted any (major) mistakes, feel free to point them out.
Thanks for reading :)