Almost Home Again

I could tell by the way my mother looked at me, she thought I had slipped, that I had begun drinking again.  My father always looked at me the same way, as though I were a small animal on the side of the road about to step off the curb into traffic.  He loved me always, as the thirteen-year-old girl because, when I started to drink, he never expected anything more from me. To him, I would always be thirteen.   My mom ranted and raved at me, cried at me, pleaded with me.  My dad was forever trying to fix me, but seemingly missing one small piece.  His eyes darted everywhere else in the room but at me, as if he were searching for that piece.

They were in the kitchen now, arguing.  They used, what could only be thought of as, a stage whisper, (more like shout whisper).  No one should hear them, but everyone, of course, does.  “I can’t take this.  If she’s not drunk, she’s on some other drug.”  I sat in the living room across from my younger brother, Jack.  I sipped the cocoa he was yelled into getting for me.  It was burning hot, but I gulped it down thinking I could speed up the thawing process.

My father reasoned, “We would have gotten a report from Dr. Farber, or the school, if she was acting this way all the time.”

Jack clutched his phone and stared at me exactly the way a little brother would, right before asking, “Are you drunk?”  I shook my head no mid-sip, which caused me to spill and burn my lip.  “Then why are you acting so weird?”

I told him.  “I don’t know.”  He went back to texting, or Tetris or whatever.  “Do you really care?”

He looked at me for a moment, like he really needed to think about it.  “Yeah, I do.  Mom and Dad have their denial, this is mine.”  He indicated his Droid.  “Tetris.”  In many ways he was well past fourteen years.  This was probably my fault too.

“Where’s Lindsey; she out with what’s-his-name?”

“No, with her new one, a real forward slash idiot.”  Mom and Dad came back in with urgency of purpose.  Mom finger-commanded Jack to head upstairs so we could talk.  “I know she’s an alchy, Mom.”

I faked a smile at her, “See, nothing to be ashamed of.  Let him stay.  I’m not drunk.”

Mom was just about to loose it on him, and me too, inevitably, when my father bounded over to the Christmas tree and practically fell into it picking up a present from beneath it.  “Sweetheart?”  He could have been addressing both of us. “Let’s open a present.”  Reading the curl in the corner of my mother’s mouth that surely spoke his name via telepathy—Thomas, he continued, “ Come on Carolyn, it’s one present.  She just got her can’t we just—”  She caved.  “Good!”  He handed a soft wrapped package of yellow tissue; a green silk ribbon securing it in place with a bow, giving it special identification.

“I made it for you.”  My mother beamed as I revealed her work, a long, red, knit scarf. Before I could draw it forth she was helping me unfurl it and draping it around me with tender care.  She cinched a loose fitting knot in the middle but it seemed to tighten as I watched her.  The smile on her face grew broader and seemed, all at once, sinister to me.  The scarf pulled closer to my throat and I clutched at it or did I clutch my throat, I can’t remember.  I began to hyper-ventilate.  I tried to pull away from everyone around me.  I was flailing now, in full panic.  Arms, hands, my father’s, my mother’s, tried to subdue me.  I remember feeling a hard smack on my palm and my brother Jack hit the floor.  I nailed him.  The front door flung open and my sister, Lindsey stood there with someone, a man.  The Man sailed across the room as if picked up by a wind.  He alone was on me now, my family gone, my living room gone.  The red of the scarf was my blood and the man wielded a knife.  He slashed again at my throat and someone yelled from atop the staircase.  “ADA!  ADA!  STOP MURDERER!  HELP!”  It was Rose.

The man spotted her, and without a second thought fled back out of the front door of this other place.  Rose tore down the steps almost in time to catch me as I dropped to the floor. “Oh dear God.”  She ran to the door and called out into the night to someone, anyone.  “FETCH THE BOBBIES!  HELP!  MURDERER!”  The last thing I saw was her face over me as I slipped into unconsciousness.  “Hang on Ada.  I’m here with you. Help is coming. Hang on.”