The Ceramic Shards of Family

I could tell that my mother was going to pick a fight the moment she walked into the kitchen. Her body seemed to bristle with anger, like an animal who’s searching for a victim of prey. Her eyes scan the countertops. Nothing is out of place. I made sure of that, I always do. I don’t like giving her more reasons for unreasonable arguments.

She moves away from the doorway and deeper into the kitchen. Searching, searching, searching. Opening the fridge, shutting it. Opening the drawer, slamming it shut. Opening the cabinet-

“The mug is chipped,” she says quietly as she pulls it out of the cabinet. You’d think that quiet meant she wasn’t as angry as she usually is, but then you’d be wrong. Quiet is a calm before a storm. 

“What?” I ask. Her hand that holds the mug is practically shaking as she holds it out for me to see. There’s a crack, a microscopic one. I have to squint to see it. 

Mother sets the mug down on the counter. “You broke it.”

I furrow my eyebrows and scoff loudly. “I broke it? I’ve never touched that mug in my life.”

“Don’t lie to me. I know it was you. You broke it!” With each word, her words get louder and louder, until her voice finally breaks the shouting barrier. 

“I’m not lying,” I say through gritted teeth. “I don’t use mugs. Only two people in this house drink coffee. You and Ali-”

It’s one motion. One second my mother’s hand is by her side, the next it’s in the air and sweeping the mug to the floor. The sound it makes when it comes in contact with the floor is deafening; the shattering sound echoing in my ears. 

The mug is in a million pieces. 

Mother sinks to her knees before I can stop her, tears streaming down her cheeks as she grapples at the broken shards of ceramic. She grabs each piece like she can fix it, like the mug isn’t broken beyond repair.

She holds one of her bleeding fingers up to my face, sticking it in my face as I kneel across from her. The crimson liquid decorates her entire hand like some sick accessory. It’s starting to drip onto the floor, adn the sight of it makes me want to gag.

Blue lights flashing.

Blood, so much blood

I swallow as the smell of blood fills the air between us.

Staining the carpets, staining the rugs 

Staining her clothes, staining mine

“You did this,” She says, her shaking finger still pointing at my face.

“I did this?” I ask in disbelief. “You're the one who sent it to the floor.”

“No,” She says. “No, no, no, NO! You broke this. You let it break!”

“I didn't do anything!” I shout.

“That’s the damn problem Lucille! You didn't do anything! You never do anything! You let the mug break like it meant nothing to you.” She’s screaming at me. 

“I couldn’t do anything!” I scream back, tears of my own finding their way down my face. Her hands are back down, grabbing pieces upon pieces of glass in her hands. She doesn’t wince at the cuts the shards must be making. But I feel like I’m the only one getting hurt by her razor sharp sword of words that she stabs me with every day. 

“You’re lying! You’re always lying. You could see that the mug was breaking and you didn’t do anything to stop it.” Mother’s chest heaves up and down, and she’s practically gasping her words by now. “Why didn’t you fix it? Why couldn’t you stop if you knew it was going to break?”

My heart feels like it freezes.

“Did you know about this? That she thought these things?” Mother asks, holding up the stupid journal with the stupid flowers on it. That journal held the only secrets between us.

And I had read it. I had asked her about the ugly things she said about herself on those white pages. She yelled at me for invading her privacy, but we talked and she told me she meant every single word that was written. That she was tired of living like herself. 

I hugged her. I listened, I let her cry, because that’s what sisters do.

She promised me that she would stop thinking those things, those terrible, nasty things. That she would start to love herself, and that yes, it was probably just a high school thing.

And I believed her.

A month later, her body-

Blood , so much blood. 

Staining the carpets, staining the rugs 

Staining her clothes, staining mine

Mother’s hands are on my shoulders, shaking me roughly. Screaming, gasping, looking for answers. 

“WHY DIDN’T YOU FIX IT?”

“BECAUSE IT WASN’T MY JOB TO!” I scream back before dissolving into sobs of my own. “It was never my job to fix everything when it was breaking. I didn’t know how to fix it, okay? I watched it shatter and break because I didn’t know what else to do!”

I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and look back at my mother. At one point, the three of us were close.

Now there was a chasm larger than life itself between us.

“You should’ve done something Mother. You should have fixed it. You should have opened your eyes, because then you would have seen the cracks and chips in the goddamn mug and then you would have to stop blaming me for everything.” My voice is dangerously low now as I spit out the words I’ve been holding in for so long. 

“You know that the reason it broke is on you. You just can’t handle the guilt, can you? You sit here and you blame me because you can’t handle the fact that you’re a fucking terrible mother and person!”

Slap. The sound of her hand against my face is almost as loud as the shattering sound the mug made. I bring my hand up and touch my stinging cheek.

And I laugh. It starts quiet but as it gets louder it gets more and more bitter. I stand up, the shards of ceramic crunching and breaking again and again as I back away from my mother.

“Have fun with the mess you’ve made, Mother. Because now you don’t have any daughters left to pick up after you.”