Unforeseen Consequences

We sit at the table every night, in the exact same places. 

Ma on my right at the head, on the chair with the arm rests, Chaarun on Ma’s right, little Cody next to him, and Coffey next to me.

When I’m lying in bed at night, Chaarun asleep beside me, I like to replay dinnertime over and over in my mind. I screw my eyes shut tight and force myself to remember. I’ve done this every night since my 5th birthday. That was 3 years ago because, on my last birthday, my cake had 9 candles.

If I don’t remember, I’ll never get my chance to escape.

When my eyes are shut, I can see Ma’s arm and the way it jiggles as she scoops buttery mashed potato onto our plates. I am always first because I am the eldest, then Chaarun, then Coffey, then Cody.

I remember how Cody cries that his portion is the smallest, and how he pokes his little finger at Chaarun’s plate, his face the colour of the sherbet lollipops Ma gets from the supermarket. Strawberry red. I like strawberries.

Then Ma pretends to be cross - she says “hmph”, but she still hugs Cody close, though he's just a big baby. 

We all get silver plastic knives and forks. They are the ones you are supposed to throw away but Ma soaks them in soapy hot water until the potato bits come off and swears they are usable.

If it’s Friday, we get sausages instead of boiled chicken. Fridays are my favourite. On Friday night when I am doing my remembering, I like to run my tongue over my lips and try to taste the greasy meat, hoping to catch a smudge of barbecue sauce that I might have missed at bathtime.

We have to eat in silence. Ma doesn’t like us to talk, she says it’s impolite because she can see all our chewed up food and spit.

So whilst I eat, I like to look around the room we sit in. I start behind Ma and work my way around left, over Chaarun and Cody’s heads- but only with my eyes, my only eye, and never with my whole head.

Not that there would be anything new to look at - Ma doesn’t leave the house often, apart from going to the supermarket or when she goes to work in her blue uniform with black tights and squeaky black shoes. I have never seen her unpack anything from a box. Everything around us has been here forever. We call the room the sitting room, but it is the only room that we have, apart from our bedrooms: Ma’s room and then the one us boys share. 

I wonder about the old dusty furniture, the peeling stripy wallpaper, the ugly little china dollies and the big yellow light above us that makes scary wall shadows and hums like a bumblebee. It flickers a lot as well and Ma always looks up at it like she has never seen it do that before.

I like to imagine a big TV on the wall behind Ma. You can get really big ones now that cover the whole wall; I have seen them in the colourful magazines that Ma sometimes picks up from the supermarket. I like to circle all the things I want the most with my big red marker pen: new clothes, a Nerf gun or a football, strawberry jam, string cheese and a TV. But I never get them and Ma would never let me see them in real life on the shelves. I would like a TV so that me and my brothers can watch football sometime and scream when the best team in the world, Man United, score. I wouldn't even mind watching cartoons with Cody.

I like to imagine that there are windows between the tall wooden cupboards that store our dinner plates like trophies, our cutlery put into the stiff drawers that need keys to open them. Only Ma has those.

I like to imagine the sun shining in through those windows in the morning and sitting on my skin; I think it would be nice and warm and would make Coffey’s chocolatey skin glow.

A window would be nice, but we don't have one of those anywhere.

At the other end of the room, I look the longest. Ma faces it in her chair, so I can only move my left eye as far as it will go, otherwise, she will see me.

There is a little kitchen, with a cooker and then a yellow-y fridge and a freezer sat on top of one another. Besides that, to the left, is the smelly bin and besides that, is The Door.

It is the only thing in the room that isn’t old, or peeling, or dusty. The Door isn’t even wooden. It is big and grey and has lots of screws and bolts and slidey parts where it opens. And I have never seen what is behind it. Only Ma goes out The Door. 

When she leaves, us boys have to line up and stand with our backs to her and face the wall with no TV. You hear a lot of clanging and swearing and panting from Ma (it must be heavy) and we know we can look again when we hear the biggest bolt go boom.

It is The Door I try the hardest to remember. I try to picture all of the little bolts and screws and slidey bits because I know that if I figure out how to open it, though I really love Ma, I can free my brothers. And we can all go home - back to our real Mas and Pas.

Chaarun came some time between my 6th and 7th birthday. I think it was in the summertime because he was wearing a pair of white shorts and a Man U football shirt, with brown leather sandals and he smelt of sun lotion. He used to have huge ears that stuck out of the side of his head and he used to pull them when he was nervous. He did that alot in the beginning, hugging his knees and staring at nothing. I had tried to talk to him, but he never responded. Ma told me to give him time. We became friends eventually and his head grew. Or his ears shrunk.

Cody and Coffey came together near my 9th birthday, so it was definitely autumn then. One night they weren’t there, and the next morning, when Chaarun and I came into the sitting room for breakfast, they were, sitting at the table, drinking orange squash from baby beakers, a bowl of porridge between them. They had on fluffy pajamas, but they didn't have slippers. I had seen white paper bands on their wrists. I had had one of those at some time, though I think I must have been very young. Ma had stood behind them, and had said that Cody was 4 and Coffey was 5. Ma had stroked Cody’s head when she had said this.

I had looked at Cody and immediately felt like I didn't like him very much. I had always been Ma’s boy - and she had had me since I was 4 too.

I don’t know exactly when I realised that Ma was not Ma, but I have always known that my brothers were not my brothers. We don’t look alike, but we do have the same superpower.

Chaarun and Coffey are darker than me. They both have black hair, but Coffey is the darkest and his hair is all coily. Chaarun’s skin is the colour of sand. Cody and I could be real brothers though. We both have yellow hair and blue eyes, but Cody’s right eye is grey. 

That is the superpower - we all have magical right eyes.

Coffey has a huge mark across his eye; I asked Ma if he was scratched by a lion and she told me to stop being silly. Chaarun’s right eye does little dances sometimes without him wanting it to. He has an eye patch that he wears on his left good eye and special eye drops for his dancing right eye.

And then there is me; I don't have a right eye at all.

When I sit and stare at the things in the sitting room, I also try to look at Ma.

I don’t think she’s old, but her hair's a little grey on top and her neck wrinkles. She doesn’t smile too much, so she also has little lines around her mouth.

In the beginning, she used to smile a lot at me. She used to laugh loads too. She’d make up stories at bedtime for me and Chaarun about pirates, superheroes, and Lego men. But since Coffey and Cody came, she’s moody and spends more time with them; she barely even comes to kiss me and Chaarun goodnight. Chaarun doesn't care; he just turns over on his stomach. But I do.

Nowadays, she says “you're my big boys” and “I am so happy and thankful for my big family.”

I don't know if Ma is happy though.

She makes us porridge every morning, gives us boys sheets of sums and books to read and then she disappears through The Door. I don’t mind that she’s gone most of the day; I know how to make us boys cheese triangle sandwiches with huge bits of bread. And I help Cody and Coffey undo their trousers when they need the toilet.

After work, Ma goes straight to her room and shuts her door. Sometimes I hear her crying and talking, but I don’t know who to. She says things like “Karen, it has to be today” or “Not today Karen, not today” and then she just squeaks like a mouse and I hear her bed groan like she has fallen onto it suddenly.

I asked her one time if she wished her life was different. Her eyes had gone all shiny and her chin started wobbling. After ages she had said, “No, I don’t, I am where I am because of the decisions I have made. And I will accept the consequences.”

I hadn't known what she meant so I had asked her if us boys were “consequences” and she said that we were “the cause”. She had also said that she wished she could leave her job. When I had asked why, she had looked me straight in the face and said “because one day, it will get me into serious trouble”.

When Ma leaves for work, I like to go into her room. My brothers and I sometimes play hide and seek there, but there isn’t much place to hide, apart from under the duvet, because everything is locked. I always looked for something to get me through The Door, but I never found anything.

One day though, I lifted Ma’s mattress and saw an oldish brown envelope poking out of the wooden planks that make up her bed frame. I had thought that it might have appeared suddenly because of how Ma falls down on her bed. There were some papers that looked all official, and they had the same picture at the top as the picture on Ma’s uniform. There was also a little photo of a lady that looked like Ma, but younger with lots more hair, but it was hard to tell because the photo was scratched and in black and white. There was a baby on the lady's lap. I thought it was a boy because he was wearing dungarees and black button shoes. On the back of the photo it had said “My darling Christopher, always in my heart”.The baby in the photo was looking at the camera, but where his right eye should have been, there was a gaping black hole.

And then there was also a long heavy silver key.

—------------PRESENT—------------

Dinner tonight is sausage and potatoes. It’s a Friday. It is also my birthday.

There is a cake on the table with 10 candles. Ma promised everyone that they could have a slice after they finished their dinner.

Cody is whining again. Coffey is eating his sausages first and dipping them in sauce. Chaarun is rubbing his dancing eye.

I sit with my hands in my lap, staring at my food. I am about to do something and I don't know what Ma will think.

Ma looks at me.

“Eat up birthday boy”, she says.

“Ma” I say. There is a funny lump in my throat. “Do you have just us boys or do you have another boy?”.

Ma holds a piece of sausage on her fork in midair. She looks like she hasn’t heard me but she also looks like she has.

“Just you boys”, she says, eating her sausage.

The lump in my throat is hurting. My hands in my lap move to my trouser pocket and I pull out the square photo.

“Is this me as a baby Ma?”, I ask, putting it on the table in front of Ma and Chaarun. I can tell Chaarun is looking at me now though I am not looking at him.

Ma looks down at the table and I hear a noise from her throat that sounds like she was about to choke. She snatches the photo from the table and stares at it for ages. Her face is now lollipop red.

“Where did you get this?'' she asks and I can tell she is upset.

“But is it me?”, I ask, picking up my knife and fork. My stomach is rumbling.

“Yes, it is”, Ma says very quickly.

“I don’t think it is, Ma”, I say “because it’s an old picture, it’s black and white, back before they had colour.” 

Ma gives me a strange look but she nods her head.

“I am not that old, darling, but yes it is definitely you”, she says.

I look up and turn my head to look at Ma fully in the face. She looks back at me. She has the same expression on her face as the time when I asked her why us boys all had different skin colours. I don't remember exactly what she said, but I knew she was lying. She is lying now. 

“Okay”, I say and continue eating. I don't say anything else until I finish all of my dinner. I decide to put my plate to my mouth and lick the barbecue sauce. My brothers stare, but Ma says nothing.

“Can I have cake now”, I ask. Ma’s face changes and she drags the cake towards me, lighting the candles with a lighter that she takes from her gown pocket. I wonder where she keeps it normally.

“Make a wish”, Coffey says in a baby voice so I screw my eyes shut and remember.

The Door. Coffey and Cody with pajamas, no slippers and the bands around their wrists. Chaarun screaming for his “real home” in the beginning, Ma talking to herself in her room, something about someone called Christopher and “SIDS” on the hospital papers, all of us at the table every night…

Suddenly, I can hear Ma singing happy birthday. I open my eyes and find her face close to mine. She is leaning on the table, over her plate, towards my cake. Her face isn’t red anymore.

“Shall we blow out your candles together?”, she asks. Her grin is so big, I can see all her wonky teeth. 

My lit candles are reflected in her eyes. I look at my brothers.They are also all leaning towards my cake. Cody’s fingers are covered in barbecue sauce. I smile at him though. He’s just a little kid really.

“Okay”, I say and everyone takes a breath, blows and the candles go out.

Then, Ma takes a small key from the inside of her dressing gown. She leans behind her and unlocks the cutlery drawer. The lock snaps, the drawer opens and out comes the special cake knife. I wonder how long she has had a key for the cupboards tucked into her bra.

“You can cut your own cake now that you are 10”, Ma says and she hands me the knife. It has a flowery white handle and a long zig zag blade. It is heavier than I think it will be so I put my hands together and put the blade on top of the icing.

I feel Ma put a hand on my back, it’s cold. 

“My big boy”, Ma says, her voice weird and high. And then I hear strange voices in my head.

Are you the nurse who can make me better?

My name is Karen. I’m your Ma.

No, my Ma is Annie, where’s my Ma?

I’m you Ma now, I’m Karen and you are Christopher.

No, I’m Michael, my Daddy says so.

No you are Christopher. You’re mine.

I realise Ma is speaking and the voices stop.

“I love you Christopher”, Ma says, kissing my cheek.  “You’re mine, Ma loves you”.

My hands feel wet. I don't want to cut the cake. My left eye starts to burn and twitch and I feel a tear on my cheek.

“You're not my Ma”, I say as I turn and push the knife into Ma’s right eye.

Ma goes back and down, her head hits the floor. Cody screams and Coffey runs to Chaarun around the table. Chaarun’s sand skin is now more like cement. He puts his arms around them.

I know Ma is dead without looking, her neck looks funny.

“Chris?” Chaarun says, chin wobbling.

“It’s okay”, I say as I look at them all.

My superpower brothers.

“Ma told me that she will accept the consequences of her actions”.

Then I look at The Door, my hand around the long silver key in my pocket and I wonder if the sun will be warm and waiting on the other side.