Hopes Of Anna

Chapter Forty-Six: Family Break-up.

          I sat in the toilet for hours. The aftermath of finger-dip was still no joke. My fingers trembled like I was going to have a seizure and my head ached too much. I did not know how I would concentrate or even appear normal in our family meeting. But if I did not, there would be a lot of suspicion. And recently I found out, my mother smacks her kids. I had taken more than a dip of the finger. I had poured some of the mysterious drug unto the table and used a straw in snorting it. But my body was not reacting well to it. I badly wanted to open up my head because of the heat I felt inside. It hurt so much. A knock came on the toilet door.
       'I'm not done yet'. I forced myself to say to whoever was knocking. It was my mother. I was trying to explain to her that I was having a hard time in passing out waste which made me feel very embarrassed but it was better than the truth.
        'Anna.' My mother said gently. I stopped talking and listened to her. I knew what she was going to say. 'I know this is hard for you. It's not right to put you and your brother through this. But—it's important to get you out of it. I love you guys so much.' My mother was crying. Though she was quiet, I could still hear the little sobs. Still, the physical pain I was experiencing was way worse than the pain of hearing my mother cry. She left. I stayed in the bathroom until finger-dip's effect went down.
Is it worth it? I asked myself. It was. Every second of pain was worth distracting me from the emotional pain I suffered.
******
Mom and Dad sat side by side on one of the couches while Andre and I sat opposite them in the other. I was still in pains even though it had actually reduced from what I felt initially. Mom was struggling to speak; no words came out of her mouth and everyone knew Dad was not going to talk. He did not want this after all. We were all there, waiting for the announcement of the breaking of our family.
          'Can we break this family up already?' I said in a low tone with my head down. I tried hard but I still sounded hurt because I was, physically and emotionally.
           'We aren't a family to begin with...' Said Andre.
           'Then why are we all sitting here? Go back to your tents o ye strangers! I don't see a reason for a meeting if we aren't a family.' I burst out. Mother's eyes were on the floor and Father looked ahead of Andre and I.
             'We are something. We are all connected. No doubt we are your parents, you are our children and we love you.'  Mother said.
'Your father and I made some mistakes; many actually. And we have made you two suffer because of those mistakes. But one thing I don't regret is loving your father. Love is a beautiful thing to feel__'
            'Are we through or not?' Andre cut in.
           'I regret him. If Anna came first I would have married you not minding if you would be a second wife.' Father said waving his finger at Andre.
           'Don't you talk about my mother like that!' Andre stood up and held father by his collar. 'You be talking like I enjoy being the son of a dick like you.' Father threw a punch at Andre. It hit his face with a loud thud.
          'Let go of my son.' Mother held unto father who was also holding Andre's collar this time.
           It bothered me. It bothered me extremely. What was happening in front of me? Why did we ever call ourselves family? We were not a family; at all. There were no families like ours, where the father had a real wife and children and the mother stayed in a relationship because of her children. One of the children hated their father and the father reciprocated this feeling. And there's this girl, using drugs to pacify herself. The world began to spin again. Their voices became faint. I was going somewhere but I was still seated, my vision was blurry, something... something.
My phone rang. I returned to the sitting room where my pretend family were breaking up. It was Ludie.
               ******
          'Hello K.L.' My hands covered my mouth. I felt this was a really bad idea. What if K.L was a really smart person; we would all be dead. I looked around me. Things were happening too fast. I thought about everything, nothing seemed right to me but I went on with it. I had stayed in Marie's house for a week. She had left her uncle and aunt and was living alone on her grandparents allowances. I could not bring myself to go back home. I told Marie about my family's problem and she was not surprised. She said there were a lot of families like ours— unreal families. I cried when she called us unreal but it was true. I had not brought finger-dip to Marie's house but I used its absence to practice sobriety. Mother called me all the time and each time she did, she would cry. She said we would leave the house in a month and she wanted me to come back home before then but I could not bring myself. Only Andre spoke to me like nothing happened. He would ask me how I was faring and how Marie was. Then he would tell me how the movie production is going. It felt like I had been away for more than a week. When my father called, it hurt. He called just once and said sorry. I cried more than I ever that day. So now, watching my group make one of the biggest mistakes ever, felt better than doing anything else.