Still crying? Is Mommy alright?
Determination resolved the trouble in his noble little heart and encouraged his descent down the stairs of the freezing house.
As his tiny feet reached the threshold of the porch, the young mother had drowned in her bitter tears while lighting her first joint. He stopped in the doorway, mourning to touch and cradle her with his thin arms. Her eyes were rimmed red with pain, her lips blue from the lack of warmth, and her whole body trembled feverishly. Her dusky hair fanned her heated cheeks, as swirls of thick smoke smothered her in a smoldering embrace, the exact same way Papa would have done if he had been here. Instead, she mumbled about birds flying way up high, about troubles melting like lemon drops, and how she couldn't get over some rainbow
"Mommy?" his confused and cowering voice betrayed his best intentions. "Where's Papa?"
Quivering lips and a lopsided smile broke the spell of his utopic childhood; the warmth of a prairie with flowers on a sunny afternoon, the touch of a coffee kiss on the cheek early in the morning, and the bittersweet taste of a carefree childhood came tumbling down. There was a lingering smell of devastation, destruction and most of all, disappointment, along with the stink of musty cannabis. He approached her; wary because he didn't recognize her anymore, lost because he didn't understand, and frightened because he seemed to have been left in the dark.
She coughed a puff of smoke out of her wretched lungs and pulled the little boy close to her chest. She clenched him like an oyster protecting treasure, making him wince. His sides hurt from the pressure of her arms. She sang her song again, quietly, miserably, with hurt in every word uttered from her mouth:
Somewhere over the rainbow,
Way up high,
And the dreams that you dream of,
Once in a lullaby.
Without explanation, hot tears welled at his tear ducts like raindrops gathering at the edge of a leaf, ready for the last sliver of dew to add to the drop. And when the last drop met, salty rain poured down in torrents. The bittersweet melody only made the rain harder. Soon, the child was crying with the wind, howling confusion and pain out of his screaming little lungs.
"Kai," she squeezed him harder, "why do you cry?"
Drops of molten cobalt rolled down his chin.
"Kai, tell me. Is it due to Papa's absence? Is that why you cry? why you belch out your sadness with insolent tears?" She started to crush his sides now. "Kai, stop now."
He couldn't understand the meaning behind her anger.
"Kai, I-I'm warning you." Her painstaking voice cracked a little, as she grasped his arm and whipped him around, in such a way that dizziness added to his already blurred vision. "Stop crying, please..."
"Kai. Stop now."
Now, he faced her bloodshot, once chestnut soft, eyes. They were not her eyes. In truth, he only saw the bewildered and wild eyes of another woman. It wasn't Mommy anymore.
"Stop this insolence..." She shook him vigorously. "Be quiet. Shhh. Stop right now... For God's sake, won't you just shut up? Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!"
She continuously screamed, towards him, or maybe towards what was left of Papa in him. As if a folly had taken over her, she grabbed Kai, and as quickly as her sharp voice pierced him, her hand found him square on the cheek. The viciousness of her nails scraped his skin, leaving four deep gashes of blood where his soft skin was. Round eyes filled with terror looked up at the large guilty eyes of a mother.
