The Weight of Keeping

Trigger Warning:

This story contains themes of addiction, emotional neglect, self-harm, and postpartum depression, which may be distressing for some readers. It explores complex family dynamics, including intergenerational trauma and mental health struggles. Reader discretion is advised.

Brooke is 12 and she reaches for the glossy pamphlet the guidance counselor is distributing to the class. It’s Red Ribbon Week, and Brooke and her peers have been listening to various adults discuss the dangers of drugs and alcohol for the past three days. They talk about how drugs alter your brain chemistry. They warn them of impairment and brain damage and legal consequences. “Just Say No” the slogan of the week, Nancy Reagan the heroine of the hour.

Brooke flips through the pages. Pictures of pills on one page, in every color you can think of, even some with cartoon characters on them. A set of what appears to be postage stamps, but depicting cute hearts and flowers instead of an American flag. A green, leafy plant that looks as if it could be plucked from the underbrush of a lush, green forest. A small tray, a line of white powder trailing along the edge, a small piece of pink plastic straw lying alongside. Heat rises to Brooke’s cheeks. The sound of her blood pumping through her body is magnified in her ears. She quickly closes the pamphlet and shoves it among the rest of the crumpled papers lining the bottom of her backpack.

Later that night, Brooke sneaks into her mother’s bedroom, not for the first time. The light coming through the curtains is dim, the room barely lit. Brooke walks to her mother’s dresser and switches on the lamp. The light brightens the dresser with a soft glow. The smell of stale cigarettes clings to the air. The carpet is stiff and worn under her soft, tender feet. She grabs the wooden knobs of the middle drawer on the left and pulls. The drawer catches and sticks, and Brooke gives a small yank to free it from its bind. She shifts a few t-shirts to the side, revealing a small, frameless mirror. She shifts a few more items and a small, zippered pouch peeks from between two worn sweatshirts. Brooke pulls the pouch free from the shirts and unzips it, peeling it apart. She looks into the shallow depth of the bag, and sees what she knew would be there, what she had already discovered months ago. What she didn’t have months ago was the pamphlet she had received that day, a glaring confirmation of what she had suspected but didn’t want to believe. She balls the pamphlet up in her hands, and the images crumple and crease and tear. She passes through the living room and notices her mother on the sofa, a glazed look in her eye, staring at the TV. Brooke doesn’t say a word. 

Brooke lies in bed and it is almost impossible for her to focus on any one of the thoughts darting around her young mind, unaware that this is a weight she was never meant to carry. She considers her next move, how to unburden herself— should she call her grandparents? Her dad? The police? Each option is more impossible than the last. Whether she was meant to carry this weight becomes irrelevant — the weight is now hers, and she will carry it, and for much longer than she could know. In the moment before sleep, between waking and dreams, she hears her heart whisper, “Don’t tell anyone.”

Brooke is 14 and she walks toward her home with her best friend in the cool, crisp air of autumn. They walk together, laughing about the movie they just saw and talking about the boys they like. The warmth of summer still lingers in the pavement of the sidewalk. As the years passed, her shock and anger have been replaced by a quiet, persistent resolve.  She has carried the secret with her for two years now. She’s glad she kept the secret. After all, her mother was still working. They had a roof over their heads and food to eat. Brooke had new clothes before the start of each school year. It didn’t really matter to Brooke that her grandparents were paying for these things. All that mattered was that her mother wasn’t in jail and she wasn’t living with her dad and she was with her friends. And after all, Brooke was a good kid. She made A’s and B’s and had never even been sent to detention. So no one could really say that her mother was doing a bad job, could they? If she was, Brooke wouldn’t be doing so well. 

The secret had only made her stronger. She knew how to cook a bit now. She had grown tired of having to wait on her mother to make her meals. It was exhausting to have to push and prod her limp body, strung out across the sofa every day. It was easier to just do it herself. She could churn out a grilled cheese and instant mashed potatoes in 30 minutes, one for herself, one for her mother, leaving enough time to study. That is, if Brooke didn’t have to spend too much time persuading her mother to eat just a few bites.

Brooke unlocked the front door with her key and stepped into the cool, dark apartment. A thin slice of light lines the floor, a path leading to the door of her mother’s bedroom, opened just a crack. Brooke walks along the line of light as if it’s a tightrope strung between two skyscrapers, measuring each step carefully and cautiously.

She pushes the door of her mother’s room open and sees her mother sitting cross-legged on the bed. There are tears trailing her face, but she’s not making any noise. Her arms are crossed tightly across her abdomen, each one wrapped in a towel. Splotches of red have seeped and bloomed into the bedspread. A sharp gasp escapes Brooke’s lips and her mother looks up suddenly, terror shining in her eyes. 

“I’m so sorry, Brooke,” she whispers shakily. 

Brooke runs for her mother’s cell phone and dials her grandmother.   Her mind felt blank, empty of all sense. What she wants to ask is, “What do I do?” But finally she manages to squeak, “Mom is hurt, she cut herself, please come as fast as you can.”

Brooke’s grandmother arrives in less than an hour and they dial her grandmother’s pastor. Never mind that Brooke’s mother is anything but religious. It was more of a comfort to her grandmother than anyone else. But the pastor took control, which is what they all needed. He packed Brooke’s mother into the front seat of his clunky car, the rough fabric seat leaned back, and Brooke’s grandmother in the backseat rubbing her mother’s hair. Brooke chose to stay behind. She couldn’t bear the thought of what her mother’s arms looked like under those towels. She watches the car turn out of driveway, one taillight refusing to shine. She goes back into the apartment, turns out all the lights, and crawls under her sheets. She lies awake for hours. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees images of her mother lying lifeless, the blood draining from the slits in her arms. Eventually, Brooke dozes off to sleep. 

While she sleeps, her brain is rewiring itself. The neurons and synapses firing, chemicals shifting cells, altering her perception of her mother, of herself, of her life in general. When Brooke wakes up the next day, her burden will be heavier. She will handle her mother with care. She will make sure her mother is always happy. She won’t do anything at all to upset her, to make her sad, to make her feel like she needed to end it all. Now that she knew how fragile her mother was, she could be more careful. She could keep her alive. 

Brooke is 16 and sits a warm, stuffy conference room, snow falling lightly outside. Winter was settling in, the nights stretching longer. Chairs are lined in a circle around the half-filled room. Brooke is younger than them all by several years. In this room, they learn words like “co-dependency” and “enabling.” They share their grief and their frustrations. How desperate they are for their loved ones to be whole and healed. During one session, they share the moment that brought them to this place. Brooke doesn’t share anything. She knows it wasn’t one moment that brought her and her mother her, but several moments—days, weeks, even years of them. Moments in her mother’s life that compounded on each other—the abuse she suffered as a child, her tumultuous marriage to my father, surviving as a single mother. The moments had replayed over and over in her mother’s mind, picking away at her brain and her strength until her body was desperate for relief, any relief, even if it was against her better judgment. 

Rather than sharing, Brooke listens and learns. She learns to be supportive without enabling. She learns to set boundaries. She learns the language of addiction and recovery. But sometimes, her thoughts drift. She thinks about her friends, and what they are doing at this exact moment. While she’s sitting in a cold, plastic chair, they are at home, snuggled up on the sofa with their healthy, whole parents, watching a sitcom. Maybe they’re doing their homework, or studying for the algebra mid-term, or thinking about their prom dresses. Her friends had no idea that this was how she was spending her time. You don’t tell anyone when your mom is an embarrassment, when she’s hardly a mom at all, when she doesn’t love you enough to quit.

Her mother sits in an adjacent room, which Brooke imagines to be similar to her own, but with different stories being told, different lessons being taught. A list of twelve steps lives in her mother’s purse. In the car on the way home, hope is radiating off of her mother’s body. The snow is dazzling. 

“I’ll do it this time, Brooke. Really,” her mother say. 

Brooke nods, a tight smile on her face. She’s been promised so much by her mother in the past, and each time a flicker of hope sparks within her. The sparks are small and timid and extinguished quickly; after the promise comes the crash, the disappointment, the anger. But still, she clings to this flicker of hope, even as she braces herself for the letdown that will inevitably come, like it has so often in the past. And Brooke will always be there, holding up the pieces, no matter what happens.

For a couple of years, Brooke’s mom does change. She enrolls in a phlebotomy program and finishes it. She holds down a job at a doctor’s office. She keeps the fridge stocked and pays her bills on time. Brooke offers support and congratulations, but when she looks at her mother, she feels disgusted. She knows, logically, that her mother is suffering from an illness and one that has consumed her totally, but her heart is filled with annoyance and resentment. 

Brooke is 24, a grown woman, college-educated, two years into her career, married. She is pregnant with her first child, a baby girl, and she is elated. She has dreamed of being a mom, of having a person who loves her wholly and totally, to be number one in somebody’s life. A love that isn’t overshadowed by desperate attempts to escape. She dreams of the bond she will share with her own daughter and the person her daughter will grow to be. 

Brooke’s daughter was born on a cold day in March. The hospital room had been sterile, smelling of antiseptic tinged with the sweet smell of baby shampoo. Nurses come in and out at all hours, congratulating her, handing her checklists, pamphlets, feeding logs. Brooke forces a smile onto her face and thanks them weakly for their care and attention. She grips the warm, delicate bundle in her arms, seeking something tangible and certain. Her daughter is only seven pounds, but it felt like the whole world was lying in Brooke’s arms. Her chest felt hollow, like a bell had been struck but made no sound. Every kind word, each congratulations felt like an expectation she could never meet. Wasn’t she supposed to feel joy?

They bring her home two days later in the middle of a snowstorm. Brooke sits in the backseat, numb. When her daughter was born, Brooke expected to feel an overwhelming, deep love for her immediately. But when she looked at her daughter’s face for the first time, she felt nothing. They arrive at the apartment and Brooke’s husband gently unlatches the car seat and shuffles into the apartment. Brooke trails behind, her bag hefted on her shoulder.

Once inside, Brooke releases her daughter from her car seat and lays her tenderly in the swing, willing herself to feel something, anything, toward her daughter. But the feelings won’t come. What is wrong with me? Brooke wonders, panic tinging her thoughts. She wonders if her mother had felt this emptiness too, the numb weight of it pressing down. Brooke won’t ask. She doesn’t give her mother’s advice any weight.

The days blur together—feedings at all hours, diaper changes, laundry piling in the corners. Brooke’s mind is dense with fog. Her eyes are puffy and shadowed. Her hair is piled on top of her head, a matted tangle that hasn’t been let down or washed in five days. Her clothes are loose on her body, stretched from days of wear without washing, smelling of sour milk. When she peers into her daughter’s face, she still doesn’t feel anything. It’s as if there is a glass wall between them, as if Brooke is peering at her daughter, locked on one side, and Brooke is desperately trying to break through. Shame has settled into her heart. She can’t bring herself to mention this feeling to anyone. What kind of a mother was she? Mothers are supposed to be connected and love their babies right from the start. She torments herself, convincing herself that this was a mistake, she was one of those people who just were not meant to be mothers, she could never be a good mother—she didn’t even have a mother who could teach her to be the kind of mother her daughter deserves.   What if love had always been like this in her family, a faint echo instead of the real thing?

For months, Brooke lives under a weight that crushes her more than any other she has felt before. The days and weeks blend into each other, a hazy fog that Brooke would never quite remember. It takes all the energy she possesses to take care of her daughter. If I can do nothing else, at least she’s alive, Brooke tells herself. If there’s one thing her mother taught her through her self-neglect, it’s how to keep people alive. But is being alive enough? Is a life without love and connection really living?

The months fade into summer, and Brooke sits on her sofa, nursing her daughter. The sun is shining radiantly through the sliding glass door. She looks down at her and smiles softly, smoothing the fine, soft hair on her head. Brooke’s own hair is still messy on her head, but it’s clean. Her clothes are a little wrinkled, but they’re washed. Brooke’s heart feels full of pressure, as if it might explode with joy. She sings softly to her daughter, stroking her soft, pink cheek. 

Brooke is 35 and now has four children. She sits in a softly lit office. Every decision she makes for her children feels monumental and life-altering. The smallest things leave her paralyzed, riddling her with self-doubt. After 11 years and four children, she still isn’t sure she knows how to be a mother, or at least a good one, the one her children deserve. She fears becoming her own mother, a helpless weight that her children will have to carry. Ocean waves roll softly out of the small, white machine on a desk. The smell of lavender puffs out of a diffuser, the white mist shimmering in the air. The fabric against her legs is rough and itchy. Brooke shifts in her seat uncomfortably, picking at her jeans. She lifts her head and looks into the warm, safe eyes of a slim, dark-haired woman sitting in the armchair in front of her. 

“Start whenever you’re ready Brooke. You can tell me anything,” the woman says, soothingly, gently. 

Brooke takes a deep breath, her pulse slowing. She opens her mouth, and her words carry her pain, her self-doubt, her resentment. They float into the air, carrying small bits of weight, slowly and cautiously, from her mind. Hope and healing are planted, settling like seeds in her chest, waiting to take root and blossom in rich colors and fragrance, spreading softly through the dark spaces in her heart. She feels a gentle light catching, a steady warmth settling within, and she knows she can begin again.