I, who will not scream

There was a certain delicacy to the way that my mother cut fruit. I would sit quietly in the kitchen, watching her make clean cuts along the grain, paying close attention the way she measured the length of the fruit with her fingers. The way she held the knife was the most affectionate of it all. It was as if it was carved to fit her hand, pressing romantically against her weathered palm. Once a broken machine, my mother was complete when holding her adorned kitchen knife.

On occasion, I would be her gracious subject instead of the fruit.

"Stand still," she would tell me, and she would sigh when I kept fidgeting after only seconds of suppression of my movements.

"Don't shake his hand, but take it gently," she would advise only a moment after I delivered a firm handshake to an older gentleman I was introduced to.

"Don't slouch, don't touch, don't yell, don't speak," oh, how I heard it all from my dearest mother, you'd think she was painting a portrait. "Comb your hair," she told me if my hair was too wild, too unconfined.

"Can you do it for me?"

She tread lightly, her long, gentle hair draping behind her like a veil. Wordlessly, she took my hair in her hands, running her fingers through the strands as methodically as she sliced fruit. I found myself drooping, unclenched, and pleaded silently that this rare moment of sensitivity would linger just a little longer. My mom laid a gentle hand on my shoulder, brushing my loud beach waves away from my neck. She stood there, for only a few seconds, but neither of us spoke, I suppose out of fear that these few seconds would be ruptured. Finally, her fingers lifted from the nape of my neck, with a soft sigh, and she moved back to the kitchen, slicing expertly at an apple.

Even after achieving minor fame, having had two of my paintings (apparently enough to be considered a gallery) displayed in a youth exhibit at the Metropolitan and having a dim spotlight in a local newspaper, was my mother passive. I had eagerly said yes to the news story on the phone when my mother wasn't home, kicking my feet and giggling while awaiting her return. But my mother was sullen and bored. She briefly listened to me describe my accomplishment ("It's the Met, for God's sake!") , but swiftly expressed her disinterest with a wave of the hand.

"Why don't you think this is cool?" I pleaded, giving in to her apathy but, on some level, begging for something more. She turned to me with an empty gaze, the whites of her eyes soft and gleaming, that, at the time, I could only interpret as the pinnacle of condescension, and promptly ran to my room. I'd cry into my knees, hugging my legs tightly to stifle my sobs. Eventually my mother would push open my door, giving me a moment to find my composure before she fully entered the room. She would stroll in, making sure my eyes had been dried and my legs had been crossed, before placing a dessert plate of sliced apples on my desk table. And I would watch her closely, waiting for a crack in the porcelain of her sensible, empty gaze, but always finding nothing. I wondered what would happen if I broke the stillness with a scream. If I threw the small plate at her. If, instead of waiting for the porcelain to break, I shattered it myself.

We stood in a suffocating silence, our routine, I suppose. Until, finally, she spoke:

"I do think it's cool," she said. By God, this was my mother's expression of pure adoration! What a relief, proof that I was alive for a reason other than to be my mother's subject of contempt. This was my hope that I was more than a disappointing idea. I was quickly overcome, though, with an impending dread that I felt I couldn't shrug off for the sake of neither my comfort, nor my mother's comfort. As I watched her eyelids gently shield her look from me in a downturned expression, and the corners of her lips turn up in a satisfied smile, I felt touched. I was terrified to realize that this woman, of all people, would be the one to reach inside of me in such a way that I would reach back.

This worry followed me through life, all the way up to her hospital bed. I let my gaze passively trace her limp body, propped up only by cheap pillows and blankets that irritated her skin. I wondered if she would be too tired to utter a word, to meet my stare with her impenetrable judgement. But there remained a familiar desire for my mother to speak beyond what she allowed herself to. I was tired of guessing, of the lack of satisfaction, but as I watched her chest rise and fall, her head leaning opposite to me so that I couldn't see if she was awake, I was confronted by the idea that she may be tired, too.

"Mom?" I spoke, with a kindred gentleness that made me uneasy.

"Hm?"

She lifted her hand, now looking up at the ceiling, and intertwined her fingers with mine. I could feel her veins, her hands pulsing quietly against my palms. I looked at the graceful curve of her nose, and how her hair shielded her eyes from the itchy fabric of the cushions. I was suffocated, once again, by her distressingly mortal presence. Maybe, to an extent I understood her now, as I wondered if maybe she had wished I would speak, too. Her hands melted into mine, like I had been sculpted to fit into her body. Someone made just for me, to press myself into a find shelter when I felt unsafe. I noticed how my hair, still untamed, shielded my eyes from my mothers face. We rested in silence, and intimacy I had always been too frustrated by to relish in. I was terrified by the gradual slowing of her breathing, with the rise and fall of her chest beginning to diminish, ultimately collapsing in on itself. A new kind of silence, I thought. When I finally let go of my mothers hand, I returned to the original worry that had brought me along with her. The worst of it all, I realized, wasn't that she had touched me, but that she would never touch me again.