Mom! What Are You Doing Here?

“Hey you, wake up. It’s time for breakfast. Everyone’s downstairs.”

“Mom? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

“Get your uniform on. It was all over the floor.”

“But Mom?”

“Yes, love?”

I sink back into my pillow. My bed is high, and soft and so warm. I can’t move. I can’t rub the sleep from my eyes. In front of me is only a smiling haze. A feeling of rest, like I haven’t felt in months.

“Come on, we’re all running late. I have to give the baby her bottle.”

“But Mom…”

She gives me a nudge and pulls the blankets back.

“What’s with you? You’re always the first one up.”

“Mom,” I confide. “I’ve been so tired.”

“I know. Good morning love. Get going. I’m not sure I’ll have time to do your braids.”

“But I can’t do them. They never look as good,” I try to remind her.

But she has scooped up the clothes on the floor and is off to some other mission.

She doesn’t hear me.

I smell pancakes downstairs. Pancakes!

And I hear the voices of my brothers and sisters, with their laughter and complaints.

I feel so confused. I feel so good. A weight has lifted from my chest. I slept. I really slept.

I slide out of my bed, ready to throw on my ugly uniform, ready to go downstairs, ready to eat pancakes, ready to convince her to do my hair.

But there is no uniform, just a pile of the same careless clothes I’ve been alternating for four months. Every day I promise to do the laundry, but I don’t.

This is not my room; I rub my eyes into less forgiving vision. She would never let me get away with this mess. The scattered books and papers, the plate of lasagna I ate in the middle of the night. The mismatched shoes and socks. Oh no. This room would have been vacuumed and dusted, folded and put away. And the lasagna, well we would talk about it later.

There are no stairs to go down. Just a few flat rooms where I live alone. One disaster after another, with the kitchen layered with days and days of food uneaten, mountains of crusts and crumbs. You said, “Always clean the kitchen first. After that you can cope with anything!”

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“But mom…”

There are no pancakes. Only this cruddy box of Cheerios. I hate Cheerios.

“Mom, nothing is where it’s supposed to be.”

“You just have to look.”

“You’re going to have to wear your hair straight today. You can do it.”

My eyes are wide open.

I stumble into the bathroom. My silver hair is so short. It’s sticking straight up. I can’t do braids. I can’t do straight. I don’t even have brown hair.

“Mom, Mom, I’m so confused. You’ve been gone,” I whisper. “You left me alone and I can’t remember anything. I can’t do the things you taught me. Don’t go away again. Promise me. Mom, I’ve been so lost.”

“Sweet girl I have to go away again. But I’ll never leave you. I live in your memory, in your imagination, in your sloppiness, in your wicked jokes.”

“And I know something else. I will live on in the wide eyes and the toothless smile of the coming miracle of a child that will bring you joy that you can’t even imagine right now. You will become more of yourself when you cradle the child of your child.

I feel smooth and safe. For the first time in months, we have been together. My mom and me. It was weird and magic. I am not so sad.

“Good morning, Mom,” I tell the air.

“Thank you for coming.”

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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