Wallpaper

“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath as I ran my hand under the running faucet in the bathroom.

The mixture of soap and water were unkind to the tiny, curved indentions on my knuckles. I winced as the laughter resumed from the living room, reverberating the walls around me. I thought when I left this God-forsaken place that it meant things would change. Not necessarily the place or people, but my ability to handle them. And even though I was fully aware of the cushioned mantle of sanity that took me nearly ten years, for half of which I was in therapy, to build away from the suffocating existence that was my family, it disappeared all too quickly upon my return.

           “Mallory!” My mother, Janet, called, “C’mon hon, you’re missing all the fun.”

           The torture was relentless. I had been in town for only a few hours and already found myself picking up the same habits that I swore to leave and never, ever take back.

 I am my mother and father’s third child born a stretch after my brother, Jackson, and my older sister, Elaine. Together, we make up one of the few dozens of families in our small town in North Georgia. Unlike my first two siblings, former homecoming queen and high school glory quarterback, I was like the wallpaper of the family. You know something that blended into the background and only garnered any attention for its ugliness. With relatively no interests, talents, and the receiver of the extremely tapered end of the gene pool, I was at the mercy of their jokes at all times.

           “Coming!” I shouted back as I dabbed at my knuckles with the paper towel. I looked around the bathroom at the sickly looking, yellowed Tuscan themed wallpaper and matching border set. Wallpaper was a terrible thing to compare myself to. I took a deep breath and emerged from the bathroom, ready to face off once again.

           “What took you so long Lor?” Jackson questioned. “You were in the bathroom so long I thought I you might have fell in.”

           “Nature’s call was long distance, I suppose.” Elaine added.

           “I bet it was the turnips,” my mother quipped as she snapped her fingers. “You probably don’t eat like that in the city huh?”

           I sat down on the worn brown recliner that emitted its own distinct scent every time I adjusted. “No mama, I still get my vegetables.”

I shifted uncomfortably under the gaze of my siblings, like twin Siamese cats eyeing a goldfish. It was obvious that their glory days had left them. Elaine’s once golden hair had dulled over the years as it shrouded her now gaunt face. Her arm draped languidly around Jackson’s shoulders as he rested his folded hands on his rounded belly.

“So tell us about this fancy job of yours,” Elaine said with a smirk. “The one that’s kept you away for almost ten years.”

 “It’s not fancy really,” I responded, “I’m an event coordinator.”

Jackson’s stomach bounced as he exploded with laughter, “Sounds fancy to me. Gotta be if it’s kept you away for so long.”

“Naw, she’s right,” Elaine added, “Those people usually run around, setting up things for other people, like weddings and whatnot. Makes them forget to live their own lives though,” She turned her attention towards my father, whose head continued to lob up and down as he made his pitiful attempts to stay awake, “What’s that saying daddy? ‘A man who tries to catch two rabbits won’t get either one.’”

Her question went unanswered as his head reached its final resting place on the cushion behind him.

“Daddy!” she exclaimed.

His jowls continued to flap from the thick vibration from his throat. There was no use. A semi-truck plowing through the house couldn’t wake him now.  

           “Anyway,” Elaine continued, “It’s something like that.” She lifted up the glass of wine that sat on the wooden table next to her, “I couldn’t live like that. Runnin’ behind someone else like I don’t have my own life. Such a sad way to live.”

           I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t a personal assistant like she was implying. I am an event coordinator, someone who helps facilitate the organization of people’s most important celebrations and that if she couldn’t understand it, she should shove it. Instead, my fist subtlety found my mouth again and I bit into the familiar area that had nursed me since I was young.

           The loud slap my mother’s hand made as it connected with my father’s thigh startled all of us in the room.

           “Dale, Dale,” she repeated as she continued her attempts to wake him, “I think it’s a good time to bring out the Polaroids.” She turned to wink at me, “Make some new memories while looking at some old ones.”

           We gathered around my mother as she went through the box, holding up each picture to examine it and smiling as she passed it along. Most of the pictures were taken of us doing random and candid things, like Jackson striking his Hulk Hogan pose by the ironing board as he ironed his suit for his banquet or Elaine as she tied her hair in 3,000^th ponytail before she went to school in the morning. There were some of me as well, helping Mom in the kitchen as I added chocolate chips to the batter for her Sunday morning pancakes.

           “Oh, look at this one!” Elaine exclaimed, grabbing it out of the box before my mother could reach for it. “I remember this! It was the day that Bridget had her birthday party.”

           Jackson chuckled to himself, “Ahh, Bridget.” He reached out to Elaine for the picture, “Day of my first kiss, yes sir.” He continued to shake his head, “She was a cute girl. Shoot, still is.”

           I remembered Bridget’s birthday well. It was a hot summer day in Georgia. The kind of day that would make you start sweating the moment that you went out to check your mail. I told my parents that I didn’t really want to go. Bridget was a friend to Elaine and Jackson, not to me. They wouldn’t watch over me and make sure that I was okay, like they always instructed them to when they left me with them.

           “It’s a drag that she married that alcoholic,” Elaine added. “That stress will fade her beauty quicker than Cinderella’s coach turned into a pumpkin.”

           I remembered the warmth of the sun on my skin as I wandered around to look for them. The perspiration that collected on my neck and began to pool under my armpits. The increasing difficulty with each step as I tried to find Elaine to take me to the bathroom. The moment when I gave up and sat soaked on the grass as I waited for the party to end so I could go home. I glanced over at the picture in Jackson’s hand and felt my heart break for my younger self as I stood amongst the rest of the children—shy, stinky and soaked.

           “Oh, my gawd,” Elaine gasped, “Look at Mallory. Her hand is almost shoved completely in her mouth. I almost forgot she used to do that.”

           Jackson balled up his own fist and attempted to fit it into his mouth, “Her own personal knuckle sandwich.”

           A quiet hush fell over the room as my mother sat pensively for a few moments. She admitted that she never knew why I did that and if it wasn’t for the picture she would have forgotten that I ever had.

           “You still keep that up?” she questioned. “Biting your fist?”

           Each member of the family studied me intently as they waited for me to answer. They finally looked at me like they really saw me. Like wallpaper that had been found to have some intricate detail that was overshadowed at first glance. But this isn’t how I wanted to be remembered. Not by some insignificant habit that was cultivated as some self-soothing mechanism. I made the decision that it would be another few years before I stopped by again and that I would leave my family with a new memory of who I created myself to be outside of their influence.

           “Of course not, Mom,” I responded with a smile.