Broken (A Story)

Broken

I don’t remember the exact date my world changed, but I do remember the minute it changed, like it was yesterday.  It was the day I walked out of my parents’ bedroom, after being sent in there to fetch something for my mother, and saw her kissing a man.  A man who was not my father.  I was twelve years old.

Stunned, I stepped back into their bedroom before they spotted me. I felt myself shaking.  Like always, their bedroom was cold as it was the farthest from the living room, and the wood stove.  Despite the chill, though, I felt my temperature rising, my emotions exploding, heating me from within.  Not sure what to do, I sat at the foot of their enormous bed and looked at the headboard my dad had made from an old wooden door. He was always so resourceful. My mom’s book lay open on her nightstand, a pencil keeping the pages apart.  She would never dog-ear the pages like a normal person.  She said it was because when she was young a librarian told her that if she did that, it would hurt the pages.  It was waiting for tonight when she’d pick it up and read a few pages before sleep overtook her.  She had started going to bed early, retreating to her bedroom not long after dinner, while we lounged on the floor and watched TV until my dad woke up from his nap and ordered us to bed.  I thought about throwing that book at her, at him.  But not until I’d bent each and every page down into a perfect little triangle.  It was just some stupid Harlequin Romance anyway.  That’s all she and her friends ever read.  Passing them back and forth like they were treasures to be savored.  

I don’t know how long I sat there, but unable to stand the cold any longer, I stood up and with the magazine my mom sent me after in hand, the magazine that was just an excuse to get me out of the room, I walked out. I didn’t get far.  Just outside the doorway I saw them again, still standing too close, saying goodbye. I lightly fingered the piano keys to my left.  I didn’t want to make any sound.  I had plunked away on this piano for several years, before I became bored with lessons, practicing, and asked my mom if I could stop.  Without hesitation, she said yes.  Finances were tight and piano lessons were just another expense.  They must have heard me, for he leaned around behind my mom and quickly waved goodbye.  I hated him.  

My mom closed the door behind him, gave me a quick wink, which I returned with a gaze that could only imply that I knew, and returned to the basket of clean laundry on the couch.  This is where all of the laundry folding took place, in front of the TV.  Neat little piles of socks and underwear, jeans and my dad’s t-shirts lined up on the back of the couch.  Crisp and clean in their own rank and file. 

How could she just turn and dive right back into our ordinary life, our ordinary chores?  Our life was no longer ordinary! She had just changed it; I had seen it.  And if I could have, I would have told her so.  I would have yelled these words to her.  And more.  But that’s not how I was raised.  I didn’t sass my parents and I, certainly, didn’t “make scenes.”  Instead, I tossed her the long-forgotten magazine.  It landed on the coffee table in front of her, nearly knocking her half-smoked cigarette out of the ash tray when it landed.  Then I walked to the attic bedroom I shared with my  sister, leaving her on the couch to wipe up the scattered cigarette ash, my dad’s socks and underwear at her feet.

A few minutes later, armed with our clean laundry, she climbed the stairs to my room.  There was no door at the top of the stairs.  No protection.  No way to keep her out.  No way of signaling to her that I never wanted to talk to her again.  So, of course, she walked right in and sat down on my bed.  Even though I was turned away, facing the wall.  And then she asked me the question I have never been able to forget: “what do you think about going to live with him?” I guess she thought the direct approach would be best.  Did she really expect me to answer that?  I guess she did, for she tried again.  “It might be fun, a new adventure.  And we could bring your sisters.”   She sounded like she was trying to convince me to go to a party! Although I couldn’t see her, I knew she was wearing her  “I promise to ...., if you agree to...” smile.  

What she wasn’t offering was an apology, or, at least, an excuse.  I guess she thought I didn’t need one.  I guess, in her eyes, I wasn’t the one she was hurting.  But it didn’t matter. I wasn’t interested in her apologies, her promises of happiness, or, even, a brand-new bedroom to call my own.  I didn’t need anymore happiness.  I’d had enough.  When she, finally, realized I wasn’t going to  answer her, or accept her promise of a shiny, new life, she rose and headed for the stairs.  As she walked away, through silent tears, I said, “you’ve broken us.”  She kept walking.  

A little later I heard her on the phone.  With him.  She wasn’t even whispering! It was as if she wanted me to hear. “She knows...she saw...I don’t know...I still want to.”  While I only heard snippets, it was enough to make me realize that it wasn’t just a mistake.  Or just a one time thing.  And throughout the call, there wasn’t a touch of shame in her voice.  

So much time has passed since that day.  I don’t even remember his name. My mom never got her shiny, new life with him.  She did move out, though, leaving us with my dad.  A dad who, at the time, was in no condition to be raising three girls.  Leaving me to take over dinner, laundry, watching my little sisters, all jobs that used to be hers. I never told my dad about that day.  For all I know, he already knew.  But I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him, to hurt him.  That was her job.

Eventually I saw him again.  I was sixteen and my parents were long divorced.  I had grown taller,  wore makeup and drove myself to work.  I was a grownup, or so I thought.  He came in to the drug store where I worked making milkshakes  behind the lunch counter for out of town tourists and after school kids.  He was picking up a prescription for his wife, who was with him.  Everyone else was busy.  It fell to me to help him.  

He looked the same, ordinary.  His hair was still brown.  He still wore glasses.  He still knew me.  Knew what I knew.  With the exception of the polite “thank you” from his wife, at the end of his transaction, his purchase occurred in complete silence.  I had no smiles, no have-a-good-day wishes to offer him.  So they turned and walked out of the store. As I returned to my regular post, behind the soda fountain counter, I watched them walk away with that comfortable familiarity that only comes from spending many years together. 

I still hated him.