Swimming Through Clouds (A YA Contemporary Novel) (6 page)

Mom forgot. Forgetting costs dearly in our house. Somehow,
the details will always remain between the walls of my seventh grade math
class, but somehow Mom got too involved in Mr.
Beakman’s
story about how he uses math to perfect his shot when he goes deer hunting. All
we heard when the fit hit the
shan
was that Mom asked
him if he knew any women who hunted for sport.

They barely reached the house when Dad pushed Mom through
the door and up the stairs, simultaneously screaming at her. “You’ll pay for
each word of disrespect, Gita! You hear me?”

We all heard him. Jesse and I watched from the bottom of the
stairs as Mom repeatedly apologized, her words as effective as candy flavored
placebo.

“You could get me fired if people start snooping into our
lives. That’s why we keep people out! Were you planning to invite her teacher
over for personal hunting lessons next? What were you
gonna
do if Mr.
Beakman
asked to give Talia private
shooting lessons? You of all people should know what men do when they’re alone
with little girls. Or are you thinking of running off to the woods and leaving
the children? You just don’t get it. So today, I’ll make sure you get it and
you’ll never forget it! You hear?” Who didn’t hear his fiery bellow?

Next thing we knew, he shoved Mom into their bedroom and
into the closet, latched it, and then a warning echoed through the house. “Now,
spend some time thinking about how you can make sure that it never happens
again!” Neither Jess nor I knew when Dad had installed a lock on the closet door
in their bedroom.

 
Completed our
evening lists without speaking to each other, my brother and I knew to stay
clear of the hurricane. I sobbed as I scrubbed down the bathroom floor. I
wanted to rescue Mom, but knew, as always, we had to wait it out.

Jesse moved around the house to close the shades and
curtains, and I could hear his eleven-year-old fists punching the drapes when
he reached my room. Glanced up from the tile floor into my room to catch
Jesse’s gaze, his eyes chained rodeo bulls. We heard Mom banging on the closet
door, my parents’ bedroom across from mine, saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m
sorry,” over and over and over again.

I went to bed that night hating Dad more than ever. I don’t
actually know when I fell asleep. I gripped the sheets of my bed and pummeled
my pillow in anger, listening to Mom’s pleas late into the night. Eyes drained
from weeping, arms weary from punching—I slept. I knew I slept, because I
remembered my dreams when I awoke. I dreamt of slaying a dragon, slicing a
snake, and beheading a rabid dog.

When my alarm clock sounded, I jumped out of bed, wanting to
run to Mom’s room to see if she was okay, but Dad hadn’t left for work yet. The
scent of coffee didn’t permeate the air. I didn’t hear the morning news on the
kitchen TV. Something felt strange. Only after I started my morning routine and
read my list on the vanity while brushing my teeth did I understand. Partially.
Taped next to my note from Dad, Mom’s list stared back at me. Which meant...

Guilt-riddled and heart heavy, I left for school with Jess,
but I walked through my day like a zombie. Each time I passed Jesse in the
school halls, a glance between us said it all: we only had each other. When the
last bell rang, just before walking home, I pulled Jess into a stairwell alcove
(away from student traffic), dropped my books, and held onto him for dear life.
As I wept hard into my brother’s shoulder, the sound of his grinding teeth
grated in my ears.

Terrified to face Dad, yet unable to abandon Mom, we marched
home, the weight of textbooks on my back feeling heavier than ever.
How
long did he plan to leave her in there?
Always
aware of the hourglass, we picked up the pace and ran the last block, resolved
to never allow Dad to break our bond. We built a wall around us. No matter how
many times Dad knocked down, we vowed to rebuild and rebuild. Right now, we
needed to get to Mom and let her know. We’d help her rebuild as soon as Dad let
her out. Maybe, just maybe, she was already out. We didn’t realize that even
when he released her, she would stay stuck inside—trapped in her
hopelessness like a fly caught in a web.

When I unlocked the front door, Jesse ran past me, up the
stairs, to Mom and Dad’s bedroom. I walked into the house, listening for Mom’s
footsteps somewhere around the house. Nothing. Jesse banged on the closet door.
“Mom? Are you in there? Are you all right?”

I darted upstairs to join him. The stench of urine and feces
and vomit permeated the room.

“Mom?” I repeated his words. “Mom, are you in there? Mom!
Talk to us. Dad’s not home yet. Are you okay?”

“Mom!” Jesse pleaded again. “Please talk to us. We just want
to know that you’re alive. Mom. Please. Say. Something.”

Then we heard her faint voice. She said the same two words
she had been saying all night. “I’m…sorry.”

I started crying again.
What a lie!
She had done nothing wrong. And she sat
in jail.

“Mom, I love you. We love you, Mom. We love you,” I said at
first and then Jesse said the words with me.

“I’m…sorry.” Her faint whisper came again.  

“I’m sorry too, Mom.” I put my lips near the door. “I’m
sorry we can’t get you out. I’m sorry Dad is so mean. I’m sorry we’re too
little to fix this. I’m sorry we can’t save you.”

And that was all we had time for. Our lists called our names
while passing minutes taunted us. Dad left Mom in the closet for two days. Two
whole days. Two of the longest days of my life. I feared she would die in
there. I begged Dad to let her out with all the pleas a twelve-year-old could
muster.

I made all kinds of promises to him. From me. From Jess.
From Mom. “We’ll be perfect, better than perfect for you, if you would just let
her out.”

Nothing. Not even a hint of bending. Then, on the evening of
the second day, I think the stench of bodily fluids overtook him and a number
eleven appeared on my list that evening to clean the closest.

Shortly before 8:00 p.m., Dad walked into my room and tossed
a key on my desk while I finished my homework. “I’m running out to do
groceries. Make sure the house and your mother are cleaned up before I get
back.”

I sprinted to tell Jesse, and we raced back to Mom’s room to
unlock the closet. I promised myself that I would not let her see anything
negative in my eyes. I knew that my response would either help or hinder her
getting into the shower and back on her feet. As I fiddled with the lock, my
shaking hands failed to draw out the simple process of turning the key.

For a fleeting moment, I thought Dad tricked us, giving us a
key that didn’t fit. Teasing us with counterfeit hope. Suddenly, a faint click
preceded the forceful opening of closet doors, and Mom fell out onto
us—the fetor of mom’s soiled clothes triggered my gag reflex. I looked
away and winced while trying to inhale only from my mouth. Jesse picked up an
empty bottle of laxatives near Mom’s legs. Dad had his warped ideas on
“cleansing us,” but this was a new one. And here we stood again, Jess and I,
the
clean-up
crew.

Hearing the second hand clicking on the wall clock like a
time bomb, Jess and I frantically went to work, having learned at a young age that
tears bore a price tag we simply could not afford. “Or else” there’d be more to
cry about than ever. After he helped me half-carry, half-drag Mom to the
shower, Jess ran to the supplies closet and ceaselessly gathered, wiped, and
wet-
vacked
all of Mom’s insides that spilled out of
her over the past two days.  

I had never seen Mom naked, but somehow knew as I peeled
back her wet, caked-on layers that what lay beneath only scratched the surface
of my mother’s wounds. The grocery store was less than fifteen minutes away,
and each second I stalled moved us one second closer to Dad’s return.

I thought if I talked through the process, I’d bring a
sliver of dignity to the situation. “Mom, I’m just
gonna
undress you so that I can help you clean up.
Dad’ll
be back soon, and I need to get you showered, dressed, and in bed.”

At first, she sat in the bathtub in a trance-like state, and
I felt so ashamed for her, for us, for the situation. As suspected, once I
unbuttoned her shirt, her skin exposed multiple bruises from Dad’s daily
“reminders” of his authority. Much worse than I had imagined, nearly every inch
of her body was covered with scabs, cuts, blisters, and bruises. Her body
looked sickly, and now I understood why she always wore sleeves and pants. She
never wanted me to see this. I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer, and as I
wiped her down, gently using a washcloth over all her hurts, I bawled over my
mother’s broken body.

I threw all her clothes into a kitchen trash bag and placed
the sack outside the garage to contain the stench. Returning to my mom, sitting
on the edge of the bathtub, wrapped in towels, she robotically allowed me to
guide her to bed where Jess finished up nearby. He gasped when he saw her legs,
black and blue, certain cuts still oozing. Scooping up the cleaning products,
he wiped over the closet door, and left the can of
Febreze
near me as he fumbled on the carpet and out of the room.

Mom stayed quiet, but as I dressed her into clean, cotton
pajamas, tears began to slowly slip down her cheeks. I wiped them with my
kisses and told Mom, “Everything’s
gonna
be okay,”
knowing it was a promise I could not keep. I was twelve years old. I did not
even know what
okay
looked like. I tucked her into bed under the covers and
Febrezed
the room, closet, and hallway until the bottle
shook empty, then headed downstairs to join Jesse in the kitchen.

When Dad came home, Jess and I clicked on autopilot, putting
the groceries away and holding our tongues, hoping Dad would approve. Back to
normal, Dad’s version of “normal” was the closest thing to stability we knew,
and that was the best we could hope for. But normal didn’t return overnight.

Mom had her first nervous breakdown in the closet. I
understood this a year later when she had a subsequent breakdown, and the signs
resonated unpleasant familiarity. Two months passed before Mom spoke again.
Somehow, she found the physical strength to get out of bed the next morning and
pick up her list and check it off, one task at a time, as if the last two days
had never happened. Her robotic, emotionless activity introduced new terror and
confusion. Had Mom crossed over to Dad’s side now? Jess and I walked around on
eggshells all day long now, whether or not Dad was home. Until one day in May,
some two months later.

It was May 12, Dad’s birthday. Mom woke up, and like a toy
with fresh batteries, she waltzed into the kitchen and cooked up a huge
breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and bacon, all before my alarm went off. In the
center of the table, a homemade card for Dad leaned against the Cheerios like a
paper menu at a restaurant. The cover contained the words
I
Love You
scrawled in red
lipstick. I imagined they were written with her blood, and I dismissed this as
part of Mom’s new insanity. Mom’s demeanor shifted from somber to chipper, and
it felt strangely worse than the silence.

“Good morning, Talia. Good morning, Justice. Come sit for
breakfast.” My jaw dropped at the choice of her words. One word. “Today is a
wonderful day. Do you remember that today is Gerard’s birthday? It sure is. We
should all be on our best behavior as a gift to your father.”
Weren’t
we always?

And why was she calling Jesse “Justice?” Yet another
suggestion she was on Dad’s side? Ugh! What was wrong with her?

“Sit down now. What can I get you? Eggs? Pancakes? Toast?
Bacon? Milk? Juice?” And she carried on until we ascended the school bus, and
she waved to us like we were leaving for summer camp, wishing us a great day
and telling us to do our best in school and shouting that she’d have milk and
cookies ready for us when we returned home. All the kids on the bus stared at
Jess and me. Nothing unusual about that.

As I looked back at the house, I saw my dad kiss my mom
goodbye on the driveway before he opened his car door, got in, and backed out.
The bus driver stopped only two blocks from our street while we waited for
Joey, who nearly missed his ride as he ran down the hill every single morning.
I looked back at Mom, wondering if an alien had invaded her body, because I saw
her kiss her fingers and blow on her hand in the direction of Dad’s car. I
nearly vomited right there in the bus, swallowing to keep breakfast down and
turning to face the front of the bus. Life shifted back to a new kind of
normal, and I adjusted my heart’s rudder to the wind of the season. A wind that
blew in temporary peace, intermittent with the usual disappointments and
punishments of life as I knew it.

CHAPTER
SIX

My arm
reminds me that the list comes first. I race around after school to get
everything done well before Dad reaches home. Jess’s eyes shift left and right
as he watches me zip back and forth, from room to room. By the time I wheel my
brother into the kitchen, his face displays a mix of guilt and disappointment.
I don’t slow down to chitchat about my day at school, and I know that’s unfair.
I am his only connection to the real world, and Jesse lives for the stories of
teenagers dressed in trendy threads, teachers who make goofy blunders, even
assemblies regarding new school policies.