Bed of Lies (ON HOLD)

XXIX

I cooked yesterday. I cooked for Tony. I cooked for my husband. And now I am doing so again. I want to cry and laugh and weep all at the same time. It's not reasonable, of course. But the emotions flooding through me are dragging me through a rollercoaster, and I'm not sure if they will stop hauling me on.

Taking a moment to breathe, I zero on the green bell pepper I'm slicing. I'm about to make a rich beef stir-fry that I hope Tony will like. Already, I have my broccoli cut into smaller stubs. Not wanting too many peppers, I supplement in one red pepper to the green one. With a few more slides of my knife, they are done. I scoop them into a plate and set them aside.

The carrots are thick and fresh. I rinse them under hot running water before proceeding to scrape the skin off. It was what Ma perpetually did before she cooked. I learnt it from her. Truthfully, I acquired virtually everything I know how to prepare from her.

Apart from Tony, she was the one person my life had revolved around. It was no surprise, seeing as she'd been the one anchor in my work, the only line to the nearest past, and I suppose in the eyes of a nine-year-old, also to the farthest future.

Life with Ma was torture. I went through hell and back in her hands. Nevertheless, I loved her. I knew because the day I climbed on that tree and made the conclusion that tumbling downwards would be all that I could do, a part of me reached that decision because I wanted my mother to be happy. 

She was never that with me around.

I had no doubt that she hated me. The woman reiterated that each time she struck me in her drunken flushes. She blamed me for a good deal of her problems. And my father. She cried and swore bitterly about him without limit. Even for things that nobody but herself brought to reality, she shoved the blame onto his shoulders.

Never did I fault her for the insults she shovelled on him. Neither do I now. Nor will I ever. He deserved all that he received from her. For ruining my life the way he did. I hate that the mistakes he made pushed me to choose between struggles and strifes with my mother and the route of comfort I'd been enjoying before his story of infidelity was forced on me. The result was a future riddled with unknowns though I was with the person a young me most adored.

Like the foolish innocent I was, I chose the option with my mother as it was the one that made the most sense to a child who thought she'd receive the love she deserved. I followed my heart, and it cost me more than I could ever have conceived.

Even till now, I still depend on my emotions, despite all my experiences advising me not to do so. I suspend most for what I feel, or rather, what I believe I feel. It might be my mistake to be so grounded in that way. It ruffles me to think that the decisions I've made so far have only been mistakes that will hurt me in the future. I'm sometimes flooded with the frightening potentiality that the people I have genuinely offered myself to will only rip me apart from the inside out in the end.

I don't know if I'll live through it.

Grating the carrots faster, I endeavour to guard my fingers as they each level down. I simply want to get this over and done with. All that thinking and coming up with scenarios that haven't yet happened has emptied me of the exhilaration I'd previously held moments ago.

That's the way things are these days. I do my best to be happy, but reality hits and I buckle to my knees, landing flat on my face with no shield or defence mechanism in place. I'm losing the conviction to carry on. I could swear that there's an invisible force purging me of my will.

It's visible in the weight I've lost, in how my eyes have bags that are drooping like I've not slept for months. Honestly, I haven't really. My nights are plagued with what I don't know. I've been trying to figure it out, but there's no solution, and it's driving me mad because it all makes no sense.