This is how I pick up the pieces of my afternoon, how I hold on to the hope of making it to work on time and thus not losing my job: I nod, wrapping my meekness around me like a cloak.
I change out of my vintage mod dress and into old jeans and a T-shirt, then head out the sliding glass door that leads to the back, picking Sam up on my way. I squeeze him too tight and he cries out and I snap at him, the anger pouring out of me, hot and quick. The guilt is instantaneous. I’m not any better than my mom.
“I’m sorry, buddy,” I whisper to Sam as we get outside.
I help him over to his swing set, then pull on gardening gloves and get to work on the weeds.
Being seventeen with fascist parents sucks. You get to feeling like nothing is yours except the thoughts in your head and these tiny private moments.
Don’t be a martyr, Mom would say.
Look, I’m not this upset because I have to do one stupid chore or babysit my brother for a few hours after school. It’s that things have gotten to the point where everything is bad all the time, so one little thing pushes me right over. Sometimes I wish I had split lips or bruises to show the school counselor—it’s hard to explain the torture of living in this house, the way the constant nagging and housework and yelling grinds you down. Before, when there were welts on my skin from The Giant, I was too young to know what to do about them. Now I’d love to present them to a school counselor and say, See? I can’t live like this anymore. I’m trapped, suffocating. Living in this house is like the time I was in my cousin’s pool and a big raft everyone was playing on covered me. I was stuck underwater with it just over my head and for a few seconds I was certain I was going to drown.
It’s not bad one hundred percent of the time, but if anything good happens, there are always strings attached. I’ve learned to barter. Time with my friends, clothes, movie tickets, a night out—these all cost something. Is having fun Friday night worth a weekend’s worth of chores or babysitting? I remember once how Lys tried to explain that this wasn’t normal, that parents would do nice things for their kids because they wanted to, because they loved them. There was no you owe me, no what’s in it for me? It sounded too good to be true.
I pull weeds, the sun hot on my back. It’s unseasonably warm, even though we’re used to crazy heat in this part of California—ninety degrees even though it’s March. Money’s tight, though, so being inside isn’t much better. On days like this, Mom only puts the air-conditioning on at night. It’s too expensive to keep it on all day. I take a break and look at the sky—the same sky as the one over Paris. I pretend for a minute that I’m there, walking along the Seine. I’m wearing a chic skirt and blouse, and … carrying a picnic basket with a baguette, cheese, and wine inside. And of course I’m holding hands with my boyfriend (Jacques? Pierre?). Or maybe I’m in New York City walking along Fifth Avenue, my hand in yours …
Mom opens the door and shouts at me to pay attention—Sam is climbing too high on his jungle gym. Every few minutes I have to get Sam away from one thing or another: the hose, the garden tools, the grill. I am never going to finish. I check my phone: 4:15. My shift starts at five. I speed-dial Beth and my perpetually busy sister actually picks up on the first ring.
“Hey, little sis,” she says, and I burst into tears.
“Ah,” she says softly. “What’d they do this time?”
I tell her about being on thin ice, how I’m scared Mom and The Giant aren’t going to let me go to Interlochen. I tell her about you and about weeding the backyard and about being exhausted.
“Why does she have to make everything harder?” I say.
“Because … it’s hard for her, too. With Roy. You know?” Beth says. “I don’t even think Mom realizes she’s like this.”
Beth has sort of become the voice of reason since going away to college. It’s like the distance is letting her see what’s happening at home more clearly. I don’t know how I feel about that. I don’t think it’s okay to let Mom off the hook. I liked when we were in the thick of things together, war buddies.
“Are you having the time of your life?” I ask her.
Even though she’s just in LA, it feels like she’s a million miles away. I want gossiping in the middle of the hottest nights, when we can’t sleep because the only air we have is the hot, manure-scented breeze trickling through the open window. I want washing dishes side by side. I want how we’d go from tears to laughing so hard our stomachs hurt.
“I am,” she says. “And you will, too. One more year. Chin up, okay?”
“Okay.”
When I’m done, I run to the kitchen and make the salad and set the table. I glance at the clock on the stove: 4:40. I really hope Mom doesn’t make me walk. It’s a couple miles—I’d never make it in time.
I hurry to my room and throw on the white shirt and black skirt all of us Honey Pot girls wear, then grab my khaki apron and purse. 4:45.
Mom comes in from her room and surveys what I’ve done in the kitchen as she talks on the phone to a friend.
She laughs. “Oh, it’s no problem, really. Grace can watch Sam and I’ll come over and help you plan the party. Saturday night at six? Perfect.”
I hate when she does this, just puts a big X over my weekend. Maybe I had plans for Saturday night at six. But the conversation with her friend seems to be winding down and my heart lifts. She’ll hang up, I’ll be on time—no. Now she’s crossing into the living room, straightening things that are already straight, seeing wrinkles that aren’t there.
It wouldn’t be the first time that I was late for work (or anything else) for that reason. I’m dying inside (I have to go, I have to go!). Why does she always do this? She knows I start at five. She knows you can’t be late for your job. I can’t say anything, even though it’s so hard not to. It’s pointless. She’ll just wave me away like I’m an annoying fly: buzz buzz buzz. It’s hard to kill a fly, but it can be done, if you swat at it enough.
I rush to my room and scream into my pillow, just to let some of this out. When I get back to the kitchen, she’s off the phone and scrubbing the cutting board.
“Mom?” I glance at the clock. 4:55. I should have just walked. “Can we—”
“I’m not leaving the house like a pigsty,” she says. “What have I told you about cleaning up after yourself?”
It’s a cutting board, that’s all that’s out of place. A cutting board I’d already rinsed off after chopping onions and making a salad for a meal I’m not even going to be eating because there’s no time to eat and I’d rather go hungry or eat my left arm, if it means I can get the hell out of here. I’m going to be late because of a cutting board? How do you explain that to your boss? I’m sorry, but there was this dreadful cutting board situation, you know how it is.