Sleeping Awake (22 page)

I threw back my head back and
laughed. “You
hate me?
You have no idea what it means to hate someone as
much as I hate you right now!"

"Stop it!" Cienna
was beginning to look very much like the baby of the family as she screamed in
the background. She resembled a toddler who was about to mess herself from
fright.

"Whatever, you stupid
freak
!"
Camelea started kicking.

Before anyone knew what was
happening, I had her pinned to the floor again.
Maman
had fallen
back onto a sofa. “Do not call me a freak.”

For every word that was
uttered, I slammed her head against the wood floor. Camelea howled. Her eyes
were screwed tight as if to block out the pain. I slammed her head again. I
wanted her to suffer.

Fucking self-righteous shit.
Who gave her right to judge the rest of us? She dressed up like a coquette and
went prancing about New York seducing men. Did she think that she was better
than us because her sins were forgiven every Sunday?

Cienna and Philippe tried to
separate us, but I could not be stopped.

“I hate you!” I yelled,
slamming her head again for good measure. Swatting Philippe and Cienna out of
the way, I went over to the armchair and sat down. 

Camelea didn’t dare come after
me. She lay in Philippe’s arms moaning about her head being on fire. Her face
looked as if someone had taken a razor to it. I looked down at my hands; blood
and skin were under my nails. I closed my eyes and tried to assuage my rage.
For almost five minutes, no sounds could be heard save for Camelea’s low moans
and Maman’s coughs.

“You are a freak,” Camelea
said.

I opened my eyes in time to
see Camelea pull away from Philippe. My eyes narrowed.

“A freak who doesn’t take her
medicine and drowns herself in alcohol,” she continued.

“Camelea,” Cienna whispered,
begged really.

Camelea just stared at her. “A
freak who’s smoking away her life.” She slouched onto Philippe then, exhausted
from her speech.

Cienna opened her mouth to
speak again, but I cut her off.

“Are you finished?” I asked.

“Do you want to hear a story,
Camelea?” I asked, flashing her my most dazzling smile. “It’s one that you’re
very familiar with.”

“Noira,” Cienna begged.

“It’s the story of a girl
named Camelea, who dresses like a whore to attract men. Instead of taking money
for her services, she lets them buy her pretty things.”

Philippe stopped stroking
Camelea’s hair.

“Are you that starved for
attention, Camelea?” I continued. “You’re pathetic.”

Silence followed. It wasn’t
because another angel had passed through the room. Cienna kept looking back and
forth between us. Philippe looked as if someone had told him that they were
freezing all of his assets. As for
Maman
… Poor
Maman
.
She looked like Death had come to claim her.

I closed my eyes and waited
for the earth to swallow me whole.

*~*

For about an hour after the
confrontation between Camelea and I, Maman sat on the sofa. The only movement
that she made was to accept the glass of water that Cienna offered her and to
take her medicine. Philippe walked back and forth the room as if being
manipulated by an unstoppable force as he muttered under his breath. Every few
minutes or so, he’d pause and glance at Camelea and I before recommencing the
pacing.

"Noira,"
Maman
eventually said.

I
looked up.
"Oui, Maman?"

"How long?" Maman
asked.

"The beginning of July.”

"Do you have them with
you now?"

“Yes,” I shook my head. “I’m
seeing a new psychiatrist who put me on different medication.”

Maman raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll explain later,” I
replied. “It’s not what you think.”

She didn’t reply.

“Perhaps one of you can
explain to me what just happened,” Philippe said. He’d stopped pacing and was
standing beside Maman’s armchair.

"I..."

"It was..."

Camelea
and I started at the same time.

Philippe
raised his hand for silence.
“Don't bother. What happened isn't the issue here. Let’s move on. Noira…”

“Yes?” I replied.

"You
smoke?"
Philippe
asked.

It's clearly a rhetorical
question, but I nodded anyway. "Yes."

"And not only do you
smoke, but you
drink?"

“No. Part of my treatment is
to stop.”

Philippe turned towards Camelea.
“You’ve been lying to your mother?”

Camelea glanced at me before
answering. Like me, she looked resolved to her fate. "Yes."

And so my interrogation began.
I might as well have been naked and asked to dance for them for how
uncomfortable and embarrassed I was.

Once Camelea and I were
finished answering his questions, Philippe turned towards Cienna. "You
knew about all of this?"

“Some of it,” she replied.

"And yet you never
thought to tell your mother?"

Cienna began to look annoyed
again. Speaking to Philippe hadn't been in her plans either. "No."

Philippe must have sensed that
she was going to offer no further information, and nodded in conclusion. I
thought that he and Maman would have deliberated for a few minutes, but seconds
later, Maman spoke. Throughout the entire proceeding, she hadn’t so much as
flinched.

“Get packed.”

**~*~*~**~*~*~**

The hurricane had descended,
and we were all spinning out of control. For the past month, I had watched as
my life swirled around me and allowed myself to be pulled into the eye of the
storm, far out of everyone’s reach. But no more. The Dominican Republic was the
catalyst for me. We hadn’t been home for a day before Maman called us out of
our rooms into the upstairs sitting room. She suggested a refresher course at
Golden Ridge for me.

“For Christ’s sake, Maman,”
Cienna said. “Stop trying to put a Band Aid over everything and instantly fix
our problems!”

I opened my mouth and spoke my
first words since leaving the DR. “If you send me to Golden Ridge on a Monday,
you’ll be burying me that Tuesday.”

Silently, I turned and went
down the hall. The only sound that was heard was the faint tick of my lock as I
barred them from entry into my room. I didn’t need to listen to hear Cienna and
Camelea follow suit. 

Somewhere along the line, we
had all made unspoken truces of silence. Maman liked to make solitary
decisions. Philippe thought that he could just reclaim his position as head of
the household without involving us in the matter. Camelea was forever obsessing
over something. Cienna wore pretty clothes and smiled for the camera. I became
so accustomed to depression that I couldn’t recognise happiness when I was
experiencing it. Enough was enough.

*~*

It was just Maman, Cienna and
I at breakfast the following morning. Camelea had wolfed down toast and marmalade
in record time before excusing herself to go to Axel’s for the day.

“Girls, I think that you
should be nicer to your father,” Maman said.

Cienna and I stopped eating
our breakfast. I looked at Maman, expecting to see her smiling and ready to
tell me that it was all her twisted idea of a joke. Her face was solemn.

How could she ask us to just
forgive him after everything? Was she not the one who told us that Cienna would
not go to sleep as a baby if she wasn’t in Philippe’s arms? Had she forgotten that
if she couldn’t find me, she just had to go to Philippe’s office and I’d be
there snuggled in his lap? I had no need for walking when my father was home,
he was all the legs that I needed as he carried me about the place, squealing
and clapping on his shoulders.

“I’m not asking you to love
him,” she pressed. “Just accept the fact that he’s trying to be a part of your
life now. Learn to forgive him.”

Cienna put down her spoon. “I
just don’t understand how you expect me to forgive him after he tossed me aside
like a pair of old jeans. Maybe you can just jump back in love with him, but I
can’t.”

“Who said that I fell back in
love with him?” Maman asked.

I sighed, not wanting to hear
a speech about a love like theirs being unable to die. “I get that you never
stopped loving him, but I don’t know how you can be trying to make a
relationship work after all that he did to you.”

“I already explained why the
situation was complicated,” Maman said. She began to rub her temples.

“And so I’m supposed to accept
that he was just scared and rekindle the flame like you did?” Cienna asked.

Maman giggled softly. Slowly, it
turned into a smile. “No such thing happened, Cienna.”

“Well then explain what
happened this year then? I know that Philippe feels that it’s none of my business,
but don’t you think that we deserve to know?”

“Philippe only said that
because of the way that you had handled the situation. I’ve told you time and
time again that you need to work on that attitude of yours before it gets the
best of you.”

“Fine,” Cienna said. “I’m on
my best behaviour right now. Will you please tell me what’s going on?”

Maman smiled softly. It made
her look less like the tired cancer patient that she had become. “You really
are a little pixie; always showing the face that is necessary to get what you
want. You get that from Philippe, you know.”

Cienna rolled my eyes.

“Okay!”
Maman said.
“Vos
questions.”

 “It wasn’t suddenly
la
vie en rose
like you assumed,” she began. “And even though I never told you
girls this, I always knew about Philippe’s whereabouts. He didn’t just pack up
and leave like a thief in the night as you and Noira like to say. He told me
that he was leaving and where he planned to go. Even though I never thought
that it was important to tell you girls, he deposited money into our joint
account every month for his part of your expenses. He even kept the same mobile
number and still lives in our house on St. Honoré. When I found out that I had leukaemia,
I called him.”

“So you’ve spoken over the
past few years?” I asked. I felt slightly betrayed.

“I never said that. I said
that he told me that he’d be living in Belgium and deposited money into our
bank account for you girls. I only emailed him our address after we moved here
in some pathetic hope that he’d one day show up at our door.”

As she said her final
sentence, Maman’s voice lowered significantly. I could feel her shame as she
struggled to not cry. I reached across the table and took her hand into mine. I
wasn’t used to seeing Maman as anything but a force to be reckoned with. This
new, vulnerable Trischa, who never got over her first love, was a bit
startling.

“Anyway,” Maman continued. She
smiled weakly and wiped away a lone tear before it could escape. “I called him
when I found out that I had cancer, and I told him that there was a possibility
that I might die and that he owed me one final request for everything that he
had done to us.”

“What was the request?” Cienna
asked.

“I asked,” Maman began. Her
voice was cracked. She sniffled slightly and smiled again. “I asked that if I
died, not only would he come and help you girls settle the final affairs, but
that he would play an active role in your lives... I didn’t want to leave you
girls alone, you see...”

This time, when the tears
began to fall, Maman made no effort to stop them. Maman had always been the one
to comfort us. I tried to summon the words to slow her tears, but I couldn’t. I
squeezed her hand. I wasn’t exactly sure what else there was to do. Cienna did
the same. After another minute of hiccups and our awkward silence, Maman
managed to control herself.

“It wasn’t easy at first,” she
said. “I wanted to lunge at his throat when he showed up unexpectedly at my
office a few days later…”

I snorted. She’d have saved us
a lot of trouble if she had.

She pinched my nose. “I also
felt an uncontrollable urge to run into his arms…”

“Please tell me that you did
not,” I said, sitting up.

“No,” Maman replied, slowly
shaking her head. “I cried instead.”

Cienna rolled her eyes. “He’s
a real rain man, isn’t he?”

For the first time since my
fight with Camelea, Maman laughed. She laughed so much that tears began to run
down her face and she had to hold the edge of the table to steady herself.
Despite my efforts to resist the urge, I began to laugh as well. Soon, we were
clinging to each other and I could no longer tell whether the tears belonged to
her or me. It felt good.

Cienna pushed her chair closer
to Maman’s and snuggled into her chest. Underneath the Number 5, I could smell
the faintest waft of the lavender shampoo that Maman used. I sighed.

“I don’t want you to die,” I
whispered.

“Neither do I,” Maman replied,
kissing my forehead. “But if I go, I won’t be happy knowing that there is still
a rift between you girls and Philippe.”

Cienna sighed again. “Maman,
how can you expect me to get over what he did?”

I sat up and turned towards
her. “I’d like to know the same. It was easy for you, because you were in love
with him. It’s not the same for me.”

“But it wasn’t easy,” Maman
contested, taking my hand. I struggled not to look away as she looked into my
eyes, imploring me to believe her. “I won’t get into the details, but it was
very hard. I struggled to the point of self-torment over whether or not I
should allow myself to believe him when he said that he regretted what he had
done and wanted to start over. He stayed away out of shame and because he
thought that he didn’t deserve a second chance. I also had to think about you
girls and what you would think of me. I didn’t want you to think that I had
betrayed you.”

Had the situation not been so
sad, I would have laughed. I had in fact thought that she had betrayed us. I
knew that Cienna had felt the same way.

“What made you decide to believe
him?” I asked.

“I woke up one day and realised
that I had two choices. I could either hold on to the past and let it define
me, or I could move on and hope for the best.”

I didn’t reply. Instead, I
leaned over, kissed her cheek and got up to wash the dishes. I wasn’t sure if I
could take the same stance on the matter as Maman had. She was in love with
Philippe and had never gotten over it; I had let my anger at being abandoned
fester and consume my life so much that I could no longer remember a time when
I wasn’t either upset or miserable. Maman came over to the sink when I was putting
away the last dish.

“I’m going to run a few
errands,” she said. She pulled me closer and kissed my cheek. “I should be back
in time for dinner.”

“I’ll be here,” I whispered. I
didn’t bother to ask where she was going.

I thought about calling Bryn,
but that would have meant discussing Nicolaas. As much as I missed him, I
wasn’t ready for that. I decided to clean my room. I cranked up the volume on
my stereo and began dusting the furniture.

I sang along as Alanis
Morissette sang about everyone making up for things a little too late. She was
right. Philippe only got the courage to show up when Maman was dying. Maman
knew where he was, and yet only called him to get him involved in our lives
once it seemed as if she’d be exiting stage left. I pushed Nicolaas away when
he finally told me that he loved me. He, who knew my flaws and still found
perfection; he loved me. Was it too late? Bryn claimed that it wasn’t, but what
did he know? Who was he to give advice when he had his own mess to clean up?

Maman wanted me to be nicer to
Philippe? Fine. I’d be civil to the bastard. I was tired of letting my anger at
what he did control my life. I played
“Forgiven” on repeat and screamed
along as I bailed ship.
I had no anger left in my veins, no energy left
to lash out and let him know what I thought of him, and my tears were all dried
up. I felt as if I’d been sleeping awake. Once I decided to absolve Philippe
from his sins, I became lucid.

When I was completely
satisfied that there was no possible way for a dust mite to have survived my
attack with the duster, I vacuumed the carpet. By that time that I was
finished, I was on a roll. We’d been gone for well over four weeks, and I
hadn’t changed my bedspread. I was on my way down to the laundry room, Alanis
Morisette blasting my declaration of independence into the hallway, when I
heard the front door open.

Not surprisingly, Philippe
stood in the doorway. Cienna rounded the corner. I stopped shy of being in their
view and waited to see what would happen.

“You’ve got keys to the
house?” she observed.

He had absolutely no remorse
on his face as he looked her in the eye and replied, “Yes.”

“It’s you,” she said.

He closed the door and turned
towards her. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s you,” Cienna repeated.
Her voice seemed to rise higher with the strength of her conviction. “You’re
why all of this has happened.”

Philippe’s shoulders hunched
as he rubbed his exhausted eyes. “What are you talking about, Cienna?”

“I don’t care if you’re tired.
I’m tired as well. Noira hates herself, did you know that?” Cienna continued.
“She doesn’t think that she deserves love. She pushes us all away and likes to
pretend that she doesn’t need anyone, but I think that she’s scared to need us.
I don’t even think that she knows how to love.”

“Cienna.” Philippe took a step
forward, as I sank to the floor under the gravity of Cienna’s words. Though I
knew that she was right, hearing that someone else had been in on my secret
made me realise how foolish I was to think that I and I alone was invincible and
in control.

Cienna backed away from him.
It was as if she was a leaky pipe that could hold no more—everything was
spewing out. “And Camelea … She won’t admit it, but she has abandonment issues.
That thing that she does with the boys, it’s because she runs in the direction
of any form of attention. She strives for perfection so that people will notice
her, and yet she does everything that she can to blend in so that you won’t
notice her. It’s because she’s scared that people won’t like the real her; she’s
like a chameleon...You turned her into a chameleon.”