Started at 12 AM, finished at 2 AM. (2,234 words)

Once again sent to Dax.

*Clarification*

This story is based on true events.



Escaping Edith


“She made us chew on glass if we disobeyed her. We’d grind and grind and my tongue would be swollen for days.” Jan covered her mouth and looked out over the veranda. Her gray streaked hair pulled back, glasses hanging from her neck on a string. She took a deep breath.
“I don’t know if I told you this but I opened the casket before the funeral.” Hand still covering her mouth, Jan looked down at her feet. Her glasses were wet.
“They had wrapped her head in a paisley scarf-“
“-The one you gave her for Christmas after you got married?”
“Yes, that’s the one.” Jan answered, hands now at her neck. “She never did wear it. She told me it was too ‘busy’.”
The pungent smell of eucalyptus hung in the air and as if on cue, the wind picked up, blowing the banana shaped leaves into the corners of the veranda steps. Jan stood up stiffly from her wicker chair and looked out towards the faint red blur on the horizon.
“Let’s go inside.”

The house smelled of redwood and camphor. Fragile little things stuck in nooks seemed to appear out of nowhere, yet never showing themselves again until they were sought for. Most were lost forever. Jan slowly walked towards the kitchen, dragging her fingers along the dusty books on the pinewood bookshelf.
“Once Dave and I sell the house, I plan on sorting through some of these. Maybe I’ll find something worth reading.” She wiped her fingers on her pants. In the kitchen she filled a glass with water from the sink. Not catching the spout in time, her hand was soaked.
“Damn it.” Jan gasped, “I’m so sorry, I don’t normally curse.” She smiled, little folds of skin crinkling around her eyes and lips.
“We couldn’t curse around my mother, she’d throw a fit.” Jan chuckled but then her face slackened.
“I remember when I was around 10 and Jack, my brother, was almost 13. We were playing outside one day, not wanting to be trapped in the house. There was nothing else to do; Mam wouldn’t let us go to school. Anyways, Jack was busy nailing a few planks, not really making anything in particular. I think I was skipping rope. No matter, but I somehow fell over Jack and he accidentally hammered his thumb.” Jan bit her lip.
“Jack started swearing, saying things like ‘shit’ and ‘damn,’ I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. I began to cry and Mam came running outside. At first I though she’d kiss Jack’s thumb better. Isn’t that what mothers did? But no, she dragged the both of us inside by our shirts and threw us into the bathroom. It was the same routine: she’d turn on the bathtub faucet to full blast and the coldest it could go. First came Jack because he was the oldest. Then me, the youngest.” Jan paused, her eyes weeping red.
“Do you want to stop?”
“No, that’s fine dear. I’ll finish the story.” Jan wiped her face on her blue cardigan.
“It started out with our heads down, our faces soaked by the stream of water seeping out of our hair. Then it was face up. I remember hating both. Anyways, that day wasn’t anything different in particular, except that Mam was forcing Jack’s face under the water and then pulling his head up and screaming: ‘You want to fucking curse? Do you think I’m a fucking sorry ass bitch who doesn’t know a damn thing about what you little shits are up to?’” Jan leaned against the tiled kitchen counter and shook her head.
“Keep in mind, Jack’s thumb was still hurting him but I couldn’t tell if he was crying or if it was just the water flowing on his face. I remember asking Daddy one day if he had his face ‘washed’ in water by Mam too. He never directly answered my questions about Mam, he’d just look at me in his distant way. I never saw him except when he came home from work in the evenings, lucky him, because Jack and I didn’t have anywhere to escape. I think he was just as afraid of Mam as we were. Did I ever tell you about the time that he brought Mam flowers home after work?”
“No, you didn’t.”
Jan took a sip of her water.
“He walked in one night, carrying a bunch of blue irises. I think it was their anniversary. Either way, he smiled only for a little while because when Mam came into the living room, she took one look at the flowers and told Daddy that they were the wrong colour. I remember hearing crying coming from his room that night. Mam’s room was silent. I think it was the only time I heard Daddy cry.”

The house was dark, lit only by the incandescent kitchen light. Weak shadows seemed to creep over the linoleum floor and hide between the legs of a kitchen stool, not quite making it to the cabinets over the floor. Jan finally motioned to follow her to the living room. The light switch made a little ‘click!’ and the room was then bathed in a dim yellow; a vase of fresh irises stood on a lacquered wood coffee table.
“I think she learned how to play stupid pretty well after we moved her to the nursing home.” Jan absently placed her glasses on the edge of the coffee table as she sat down on a fringed love seat.
“Was that her first time living away from this house?”
Jan nodded,
“Yes. Dave and I decided that it would be better for her to live with other people around. We’d visit her here and then and she’d go on about how the president had dropped in that morning for breakfast or that she’d discovered a chocolate cookie she’d misplaced thirty years before and so on. She was fairly sharp for being ninety though. We’d cleaned out her fridge and threw away food that had been in there since God knows when. When Dave and I came to see her a few days later, I was about to say hello to Mam when she shouted,
“Where is it? What did you do with it?”
“Where is what, Mam?”
“Jack’s lady sauce!” She was looking at me like I was the devil. I looked at Dave and he shrugged.
“Mam,” I said, “ Jack hasn’t lived here in years. What’s lady sauce?” Mam swung her fists in the air and I thought that she was going to hit me.
“The lady sauce! The damned sweet stuff Jack hides in his closet! I need it.” I suddenly remembered chucking a half empty bottle of Aunt Jemimah’s syrup in the trash while cleaning out her fridge.
“Mam,” I said, keeping my distance, “why do you need maple syrup?” Mam then looked at Dave and I as if she had just woken up from a nap.
“What? Why the hell would I need maple syrup? Come inside and make me some coffee.”

A fly buzzed around the faded yellow table lamp, stirring up the stale air that padded the walls and ceiling. Jan sighed.
“When we moved her to the nursing home, she seemed to regress even more. I came one day to visit her in her private room and when she saw me, she sat up and yelled,
“I’m now the official rat catcher!”
Jan broke down and started laughing.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, someone has been hurt!’ and so I ran out of the room and looked down the hallway. I honestly thought that she had clubbed someone with her cane.” Jan was still chuckling and rubbing her eyes.
“It was such a contrast though, from a completely manic housewife mother to this little old woman, who was still manic for that matter. Just in a different way.” Jan swapped at the fly and knocked her glasses off the table.
“Shoot.” She muttered under her breath. Wiping her glasses on her sweater, she broke,
“Oh right, I forgot. So as I was saying, she got away with playing dumb living in that assisted living home. She was still completely crazy but she was as manipulative as ever.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well,” Jan started, “I guess it was in the way that we communicated. I’d bring up a difficult topic, like the bathtub submerging for example, and she’d look out the door and point to someone passing by. I think I asked her about Daddy one time and she looked at me and said,
“Tell him to stay at work tonight, I’m having the ladies over.”
And yet, when I’d ask her about the piano compositions she had created, she was a magnificent pianist by the way, she’d go into great length and detail about songs that she’d played years before. She always remembered the events that benefited her or her image in some way. Was that a product of years of denial I wonder? Or simply a way of changing an awkward subject, something about herself that she’d never admit? I guess I’ll never know. But nothing has ever been resolved.” Jan looked at the coffee table and reached for a yellowed funeral invitation.
“I think Jack, Dave and I were the only ones at the funeral who really knew what Mam was like. And the only reason Dave knew what from what I told him. Daddy knew as well of course, but he died years before. Although, I wish he’d been there, maybe some sort of closure could have been reached.”
“Will your feelings ever be resolved?”
“Well, not as long as I remain resentful and bitter. It’s hard acknowledging painful experiences without holding onto them and using them as excuses for any sort of shortcomings. But isn’t that what we are?” Jan reflected, “Aren’t we all just walking manifestations of memory? Living proof of past pain and pleasure? I’ve though long and hard about all of this, and yet I haven’t reached a point where I can just say, ‘Janet, you are free to live your life as you please. Though Mam is still in your head, you can’t let her memory prevent you from seeking out the good things.’ But even in death, she still haunts me.”

The wooden clock on the mantle rung out ten o’clock and Jan stretched out her arms.
“Well dear, I know it’s probably early for you but I’ve had a long day. This old woman is tired.” Jan grinned.
“You’re not so old, Jan.”
“Oh sweetie, I was old before I even knew what it felt like.” She got up and pressed out the wrinkles on the couch. “Did you get all that down, by the way?” Jan placed her hands on her hips and peered at the notebook.
“For the most part. I still want to know more about your Dad. Why did he marry your Mam? Why did they stay together?”
“He thought she was just passionate, that’s all.” Jan started. “He fell in love with her lively spirit. She was very outgoing and outspoken, which he probably found endearing. I don’t think he knew about her manic episodes until I was born. Jack had it pretty all right the first three years of his life. From what I know, the three of them would go on drives on the weekend, hike in the hills above this house. You know, do family things. My poor Daddy, though. He tried his best at anything he did, even if it meant holding Mam down during one of her fits. I think he though that by remaining committed to the marriage he could somehow change Mam for the better. In the end, he was abused just like us kids. Mam would throw dishes at him if he came in late from work. There would go the white wedding plates, the gravy jug, the teapot; anything Mam could get her hands on. He went through hell just to get a meal.”
“Did he die happy?”
“Of course he did, he had his grandkids. Your mother and uncles kept him occupied.”
“But Nana, wouldn’t he have carried that burden? Didn’t she haunt him in life like she does you in death?”
“Of course she did, but they lived apart after I married Dave. I think it was the best thing for Daddy. It was hard for him though, leaving this house for another empty one. Although, this house had always been empty for him as well. Not that Jack and I weren’t important in Daddy’s life, but Mam acted as a buffer between all of us. Even though she was present in every space, there was nothing there to fill it.”