The Property Of: Neena Eellante | ✓ |

24. Sincerely, Briefly, I feel like daughter

Something my mother said to me
today really plucked strings within me.

I had found her in the kitchen and she wasn't doing much, I actually don't know what she was doing at all. 

There was no food on the table. Nothing but a clean breadboard, a cloudy dark bottle and an empty plastic container.

Some part of me wanted to talk to her but I didn't and I don't know why. I did eye her carefully, taking in her crinkled silk nightwear, the way her hair knotted just under the bottom of her skull.

I nearly spilt my orange juice, almost dropped the glass entirely when she spoke. We hadn't talked in days, I hadn't come home in days — well, not in hours when they'd be awake.

"You're here."
It wasn't a question but more of a surprised observation, surprised that her daughter was home and not somewhere unknown. I knew she was drunk by her slurred words and the empty bottle.

Or maybe i knew she was because she had acknowledged my presence.

It was in the early morning before the sun had reached the dead branch of the old oak in the backyard, warmth of day barely touching the middle of the trunk.

I had lowered my glass carefully. Why with care? Careful because of her? Mothers aren't to be feared — but the drunken person who swayed as she slumped against the counter was not my mother.

But I was not her daughter.

'Hello, Monster' I had thought internally. Like mother, like daughter.

"I believe so."
My voice sounded misplaced within my own home, it did not belong there anymore. Sad truth; I didn't know where it belonged at all.

"Better have been good a fuck for you to walk home in the rain." She had slurred, a raised eyebrow oddly misplaced in her pale and darkly shaded face. Her eyes casted down, away from me and anything needing love.

Had it rained last night? Was that the sound on the window? What time did I leave? Thoughts that held no meaning but simply wasted time as I studied my hand pointlessly — my bandage hand.

Our eyes did not meet but I wonder if she had heard me sneak into the house moments prior to our conversation, entering my own window in a dazed state.

I had wondered and still wonder if she could smell the husk of alcohol on my clothes, flakes of cigarettes fumes on my tongue and maybe even the hint of lustful regrets on my skin.

I had felt obliged to respond for a reason I can't describe, "It did not rain."

She had cocked her head to the window knowingly to take in the damp lawn that had been rained upon before fingering the glass bottle for any leftovers of gin. The same delicate finger placed on her tongue in a simple but desperate beg for the calmness it once brought her.

"It rained."
Was all she had said,
a view forced upon of me to believe.

Feeling the need to escape, I had sculled my drink that now tasted raw and thick and rather clogged my throat than anything else.

I paused on cue as I passed her shoulder, "Neena." The tone had forced me complied to;  stop, listen and do.

That's what I had always done.
Stop, Listen, Do.

For the first time she turned and looked at me. Her eyes were sunken into her skull, red where white was meant to be. The close distance engulfing both of us in the stench of alcohol and loneliness.

Did my eyes sink into my skull like that? Were my lips split and my skin cracked? Thoughts had flickered through mind as she stared into my eyes with an unreadable expression.

Or maybe I couldn't read it because I hadn't made eye contact with anyone for awhile. Could you forget how to connect with people?

And then suddenly like an older lady with a fading memory, she gripped my hand tightly but somewhat tenderly as if afraid to let go, "You wear a coat, don't you? Keep you warm and such."

The concern in her drunken head and swollen heart caused me to lie, "Every time, ma." 

Sincerely,
Briefly, I feel like daughter