The Mess She Made

I am 14 

 My mother doesn’t want help and it doesn’t matter what I want. We stay here, glued to the floor by bits of rotting food. We’re surrounded by filth. Things aren’t recognizable anymore, they morphed into piles that threaten to crush us. It wasn’t always like this, we didn’t have to turn sideways just to pass through a hallway. We had game nights, family trips, and Sunday dinners, then dad and John died in a car accident. Now we just have stuff. There are fast food bags, cereal boxes, and dirty cans strewn all around the kitchen. It’s a fire hazard to turn on the stove, not that we can get to it anyway. We don’t use the fridge either because of the mold. I don’t know how mom keeps her job. She is useless here, is she different at work? Maybe her coworkers pretend not to see, or maybe they pity her. No one pities me. 

 We have weak water pressure and it takes a full day for the tub to drain. When it inevitably stops working I will have to improvise. Mom won’t let people into the house to fix anything, the second bathroom has been out of commission for months. I keep my room clean, especially my desk. I excel in school, adults don’t dig too deep when they think you’re responsible. I lie to my friends. I tell them that my mom is immunocompromised, I know enough about it to convince a few eighth graders that they can’t come over. I should tell them she’s blind too. She doesn’t see me. I am part of her hoard, something to be ignored but never discarded. 

 She keeps John’s room clean, but only because she doesn’t go in there. He was ten. Dad and John were on the way to soccer practice when a drunk driver hit them. They both died on impact, the drunk driver just broke his wrist. Sometimes I sneak into John’s room when mom’s not home, it’s dusty, but it doesn’t have the same stench as the rest of the house. His bed has a Toy Story duvet, mom got him a Transformers one for his birthday, but didn’t have a chance to give it to him. Now it’s just floating somewhere in our house, covered by things that have no importance. I don’t know why she can’t tell the difference, it’s easy. Photo albums are important, old socks are not. 

  I can’t wait until college.

I am 18

 “I’m going to NYU.” There isn’t much more to say. I only applied to out of state schools, NYU was my top choice. Mom looks at me for a long time, she opens and closes her mouth, then takes a small breath.  

“Please don’t.”

 We have successfully ignored each other for the past five years, and now she has the audacity to ask me this. The rage starts in my chest and travels upwards through my throat, I am screaming in a raspy voice I don’t recognize.

“How fucking dare you? I get up at 5 to shower at the gym every day. I can never wash the smell of this house off of me! I work two jobs so I don’t have to be here with you! You know nothing about me, you pathetic excuse for a mother! I don’t want to be here!” There is no air left in my lungs.

“I don’t either,” she says quietly. “I’m afraid of what I might do if I’m here alone.” She isn’t looking at me. Her fingers are fidgeting with an old take out menu. She is squished on the couch that is overflowing with old mail and clothes. She is hunched and small and the most present I’ve seen her in years.

 She used to be vibrant, nothing could eclipse her. When John and I were little she would read Where is Spot to us, the one where mama dog looks for her puppy. Mama dog keeps finding different animals around the house until she eventually finds Spot in the basket. Mom would tickle us at the end, then she’d let us tickle her. Her laugh resonated through the house, our day wasn’t finished until she laughed.

After the accident, I tried hard to be of comfort to her, but nothing worked. When she looked at me she saw the dead, so she stopped looking. Eventually, I stopped trying, a kid can only take so much rejection. But she wasn’t rejecting me now, she was asking for help.

“Things have to change.” My voice is level, the rage is gone. I don’t have to leave for two months. I don’t want to commit to anything, but I would skip NYU in a heartbeat if it meant I could have my mom back. Images of us cooking in a clean kitchen and having dinner together come involuntarily, they make me feel naive and hopeful. “You need therapy, mom.”

“I know.” She finally looks at me, her vulnerability makes my heart hurt. I want to hug her, but neither one of us is ready yet. I reach out a hand and she squeezes it. I feel like I’m five again, about to make my mom laugh.

I AM 22

 The grocery bags are hurting my wrists, I rush to the counter to put them down. Mom is standing at the stove, stirring a large pot. Aromatic steam fills the kitchen.

“Smells great,” I pull the lettuce out. “I’ll start the salad.”

“Thanks, chili will be ready soon.” She puts a lid on the pot.

 I stare at her for a moment. Sometimes I don’t trust that this can last. I catch myself waiting for her to dissolve into an apathetic mess. She hasn’t done anything in the past four years to make me think she’ll hoard again, so the doubt makes me feel guilty. I grab the rest of the ingredients from the fridge.

 The clean up took a year. It was just the two of us, looking at every piece of garbage and making a decision. We did family therapy and individual therapy. I deferred my NYU admission.  After the cleanup and the repairs mom couldn’t bear to stay there. It looked too much like the house where the four of us were happy. I was going to NYU in the fall, and mom didn’t need that much space. We sold it. This place is much smaller, just a two-bedroom condo. Enough room for me to stay when I visit on breaks, but not so much that mom gets overwhelmed with the cleaning. Everywhere mom looked in the old house she saw dad and John. As her therapist suggested, “the trash was an external manifestation of the walls she has built inside.” We have enough space to make new memories here.

“It’s ready.” Mom turns off the stove.

We each make a plate and sit down at the dining room table. We stay there long after the food has been eaten, talking about everything and nothing at all.