Open Mind: Chapter Three

You already know everything there is to know about the accident. Everything that I remember of it, in any case. There was that rainy day in the library when it was just the two of us, silent other than the persistent buzzing of the overhead lights and the pitter-patter of raindrops on the foggy windows. I started to cry -- I don’t remember what triggered it, but you asked what was wrong. I told you all about the accident, every bit of it that I could still remember at that point, and I know I was not as nice about it as I should have been. You just wanted to know how to help, and I wanted so desperately to just push you away. But deep down, I wanted you to know. There was a bitter-sweet catharsis in sharing that with you -- but that time has passed. My old man is as dead now as he was then, and I would rather leave my memories of him untainted by sharing again now what I remember of his death.

After the accident, things were never the same between my mother and I. I don’t have that many memories of her from before the accident. Working as a nurse, it seemed like she was always either sleeping during the day or gone throughout the night. From a young age, I learned to take care of myself for the most part during the day -- feeding myself and entertaining myself while she slept. Sometimes I would sneak into my parents’ bedroom while my mom was sleeping and I’d borrow my dad’s rosewood guitar. Since my bedroom was right next door to theirs, I would have to strum and hum quietly, my scrawny arms barely able to wrap around the base of the guitar. I’d practice the songs that my father sketched out for me from our sessions together at the bar, kept in a spiral notebook that I carried with me everywhere for so many years.

The other way that I passed the time as a kid was with the Atari that my father kept in the “home office” of the house. He’d kept the old wood-paneled dinosaur from his childhood, and by some miracle the machine still worked. While other kids were mashing buttons to Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog, I was moving a single square block through endless corridors of red, green, blue, and yellow in Adventure. I pictured myself as a brave knight, searching for keys and slaying seahorse-dragons in pursuit of the princess that never appeared. I imagined the look on her face when I tossed the head of some snarling creature at her feet, and she’d say “that’s like, so nasty,” and I’d just laugh and laugh.

There were other games that caught my attention from time to time, but there was something about Adventure that just hit me differently. So many other games try to spoon-feed a story to the player, and I’ve played and enjoyed plenty of those, but there’s something magical about being allowed to fill in the gaps for yourself in a game that just can’t be beat.

After the accident, I spent a lot of time in the attic replaying the game. I didn’t have the same wild imagination for it as I did when I was in elementary school, but there was a comfort in it that helped during the first few months. I kept to myself in the months that followed, barricading the entry to the attic with pointed words and insults to my mother when she’d try to come in.

“Skylar,” my mom would call out to me in the irritating, half-hearted sweet tone she’d adopted. “I’d really like it if you’d come eat dinner with me, please.”

“I’d really like to not do that, thanks,” I snapped back in the same sickly-sweet melody.

“Come on, Skylar.”

“Come on, Mom.”

“Fine,” she said, and I heard her tiny footsteps stomping back down the stairs. A part of me felt pity for her, but the other part of me knew that she’d mistake my pity for her for weakness, and she would try to worm her way into my space. After several minutes, I heard her footsteps approach again. The stairs creaked slowly as she ascended the stairs, and after one familiar long squeak, I knew she had reached the halfway point.

“What?” I called out to her. She didn’t respond, and after another few steps she came around the corner and entered the attic room. She carried two plates of some kind of gravy-slathered meat and smiled at me. She extended a plate to me, but I only gave her a skeptical look.

“This one is yours,” she said. “Take it please.”

Begrudgingly, I rose to my feet and snatched the plate from her hand. I grumbled as I plopped back down on the couch. My mother took a seat in the armchair beside the couch where Dad always used to sit and watch me play games on weeknights after work. I wanted to yell at her, but I recognized that it wasn’t her fault -- she couldn’t have known that it was his spot.

“I don’t think I’ve eaten up here the entire time we’ve had the house.”

I said nothing and stuffed my face with what I soon discovered was ground beef. I would have normally chosen not to eat the food and simply go without, but since Mom was sitting right next to me, I chose to tough it out and just eat the bland meatloaf.

“I can’t blame you for wanting to hang out up here. It’s so much warmer.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you still playing that old Atari? We could have gotten a newer game system for your birthday if I’d known you enjoyed it so much.”

“I like this one.”

“Why? What do you do?”

“You have to explore the castle.”

“That’s a castle?” Mom squinted her eyes, as if that would help her see what her mind couldn’t comprehend. “It doesn’t look like one to me.”

“Well that’s what it’s supposed to be.”

Mom said nothing, and watched in silence as I finished my food and returned to the game. I navigated several rooms before she spoke up again.

“I wanted to talk to you. I feel like we haven’t spoken at all since ..” her voice trailed off.

“That’s okay. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“I know, Skylar. I know.” Mom sighed weakly. “Truth be told, I don’t really want to talk about it either.”

“Okay.”

“But we have to, Sky.” Mom rose up from her seat, placed her empty plate on the arm of her chair, and sat back down on the sofa beside me. “It’s not healthy to keep thoughts and feelings bottled up without talking about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. He’s gone and he’s never coming back. The end.”

“That can’t be all that you’re feeling.”

“No, it’s not.” My eyes never strayed from the screen. My mother moved closer to me, but I pulled away from her. I turned to look at her, determined to end the conversation. “All that matters is that he’s not coming back, no matter how much it hurts.”

“Stop it, Sky.”

“There’s no amount of wishing on stars and crying myself to sleep that’s gonna change a thing. Every time I see his guitar or pass by one of his favorite bars, I feel like my lungs are going to give out. I’ve cried and cried until I’ve dried myself out, and guess what? He’s still dead and buried and he left us here to wallow in it.”

“Enough.”

I tossed the controller onto the glass-top coffee table with a clank and rose to my feet. “You want me to talk, and then when I talk, you tell me to shut up.”

“I didn’t tell you to shut up.”

“You might as well have. I know what enough means coming from you.”

“I don’t understand what you are getting so mad at me for.”

“I’m not mad at you!”

“You are. I know you are. You’ve been avoiding me for weeks. Every time I try to reach out to you, you push me away.”

“I just want to be left alone. Is that so much to ask?”

“If you keep hiding away, you’re going to be miserable.”

I sat back down on the sofa, on the opposite end from Mom. I refused to look her in the eyes, but I knew she was right. Being alone was not going to fix things.

“I’m going to be miserable no matter what. I’d rather not make other people miserable with me.”

Mom got up and walked over to me. She knelt down in front of me and placed each of her hands on either side of my face. Tears were streaming down her face and she forced a smile. “I’m miserable too, Skylar. I can’t do this alone. I need you.”

I didn’t know what to say. I always assumed that the kids are the ones who need their parents, and that the opposite of that was like dividing by zero -- it’s not supposed to be possible. I had managed to reach a level of calm and quiet inside of me after weeks of seemingly endless waves of sadness, and in her one act of weakness, my mother knee-capped my composure. I wept a shivering, bottomless sob that shut down my brain and clouded my thoughts. All I could think of was the sensations I was experiencing -- the cloying sweetness of my mother’s perfume, the scratching of her sweater against my cheeks, and the bones of her fingers pressed against my shoulder blades.

“I can’t,” I gasped. “I just can’t…”

We laid on that sofa for the rest of the night, her arms wrapped around me tightly as we cried and bled our shared sorrow out together. For the first time in my life, I felt the raw connection between my mother and me. Any time I’d try to get close to her, there was this cellophane wall that I never understood -- an elusive air that just wouldn’t clear. It was like I was always with a mirage of my mother and never the real woman who’d created me. Her shaking as she held me was the most human my mother had ever been, and it gutted me that it had taken 14 years for her to finally open up and be my mother in a way that I could understand.

After our bonding moment in the basement, my mother and I had seemed to smooth over some of the tension between us. There was a relief in knowing that we were both still hurting, and sometimes it only took a quick glance between us to settle my fears. After a few weeks, my mother’s looks of pain started to get worse. What had started as an appearance of longing had transformed into fear. I couldn’t see the connection anymore, and looking to her only made me feel worse. I found myself spending more and more time in the attic on my own, but unlike last time, my mother didn’t bother me. She kept to herself, too.

One night, my uncle Martin stopped by the house unannounced. I hadn’t seen him since my father’s funeral, and the last few months seemed to have been easier to him than they had been to us. He came bearing gifts of Little Debbie snacks and a blonde Barbie-type doll that would have never appealed to me at any age. Even if it was a bit misguided, I did appreciate Martin’s kindness.

“How’re you holding up, kiddo?”

“I’m okay.”

“And your Mom? How’s she?”

“I don’t know,” I answered plainly. “You’d have to ask her.”

Uncle Martin shot me a puzzled look, then laughed it off. “Fair enough. Where is she?”

“You can come in. I’ll get her.”

Uncle Martin entered the house and followed me into the living room. I pointed him to the sofa before remembering that he and my father were the ones who moved the sofa into that spot in the first place. I asked if he wanted a drink, just like Dad had always asked me to do, but Uncle Martin declined politely. I walked into the kitchen -- connected through an open doorway to the living room -- and retrieved my own glass from the flimsy folding table we used for a kitchen table.

“What are you doing here?” I was happy to see Uncle Martin, but he didn’t travel this far south without some reason.

“I called last week to let your mom know that I was coming down to have a talk with her. I had some business that I’d been putting off with Mother’s old place so it was perfect, really. More importantly, I want to know what happened to that big ass wooden table we hauled up here with your uncle Jeffrey?”

“Mom had to sell it. She said it was ugly anyways.”

Uncle Martin scoffed, then covered it with his usual deep-throated laugh. “I guess she has a point. Your grandmother’s taste in home decor was definitely a bit … gaudy.”

I didn’t realize that the table had belonged to my grandmother, and I felt a twinge of sadness that it was gone. I walked down the carpeted hallway that extended beyond the staircase and down the hall to my mother’s room. We had traded rooms after my father died -- I had wanted his room to feel closer to him, and my mother wanted my room to feel further. My room was a bit smaller than theirs, so it was her loss, really.

I hesitated for a moment at her door, inhaled sharply, and knocked. There was no sound for a moment, then I heard a weak moan. “Sky?”

“Uncle Martin is here.”

“Who?”

“Uncle Martin. He said he drove down and wanted to come see you.”

From behind the door, I heard the frantic squeaking of Mom jumping up from the bed, the raking of the dresser drawer opening as she searched for something to throw on, and the crash of a bottle to the floor, followed by a panicked, “goddamnit!” After a minute or two, she opened the door and looked at me wearily. I had grown to her height, and I was threatening to pass her up like my half-giant father.

“How do I look?”

“Like hell,” I laughed.

“Good enough.” I followed Mom back down the hall and into the living room. She turned to face me. “Uncle Martin and I are going to have a talk. I’ll send him upstairs after so you can show him your games when we’re done. Do you want a snack or something to take up there?”

“I brought her some Little Debbies, Debbie,” Uncle Martin joked. “She can take those up there if she wants.”

Mom said nothing, clearly reigning in whatever rage she was storing up for Uncle Martin. I took my box of chocolate squares and climbed the stairs on all fours like some sort of deranged raccoon. It was something I did often and didn’t even consider that someone like Uncle Martin might find it strange for a preteen girl to do. I could hear his faint chuckle as I reached the top of the stairs. I left the door open a crack, just to see what I could eavesdrop. Unfortunately, my mother anticipated this and spoke to my uncle softly at first.

“You finally managed to sell the Haunted Mansion, huh?”

“Way under market value, but I did.”

“You made it out like the property was red hot, Martin. John busted his ass to get this house finished in time for you to sell, and you’re just now selling?”

“What do you want me to say, Debbie? The market really tanked that year. Families got spooked and no one would buy the place. I’m amazed I’ve managed to sell it even this far out. The place has a history, you know.”

I pressed against the door, struggling to hear the voices. The hinge of the door squeaked, and my mother cut her voice short. She and my uncle said nothing for a moment, waiting to see if they could hear my footsteps. I held my breath, waiting for her to call out to me, but she didn’t. When they continued talking, their voices were even weaker. I huffed and sat cross-legged on the carpet beside the door. After a few minutes, their voices grew louder. I could pick up a few words of mother’s scattered Spanish -- she used it more with others, and particularly with my uncles, who she knew found her Mexican heritage to be particularly distasteful to the family’s legacy.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” my mother shouted.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset about this.”

“He was your brother, bolillo. Don’t you have any shame?”

“Shame over what? I’m the one whose spent all this time trying to sell the property. I’m the one she left the house to. I’m the one who drove to the middle of nowhere to fix every little goddamn problem with the house. I loved my brother, but he didn’t lift a finger to help me sell the place. I’m sorry about what happened, and I miss John too, but that doesn’t change anything about what he did while he was still here.”

“Ay caray, why is everything a transaction with you? I’m doing my best here with the house that he built -- the one you helped talk him into busting his ass for, by the way. I don’t want to lose it, but I just can’t manage on my own.”

“Don’t blame me for what he chose to do. No one could have seen that coming, could they?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not saying anything …”

“Dilo, Martin. I know you want to say it. Just say it and get it over with.”

“Jeffrey told me what the coroner said about his alcohol levels. He shouldn’t have been behind the wheel.”

“Oh come on--”

“Why did he drive that night? For God’s sake, Debbie, Skylar was in the backseat.”

“Oh don’t pretend like you give a shit about her now. When we get thrown out of this house, that’ll be on you.”

“Sober up, Debbie. You’re talking crazy.”

“I thought maybe you really cared about people in this family, but I see now you’ve only ever really cared about one thing -- the money. Well, you can get the hell out of my house and drive your money-grubbing ass back to Kansas City, estúpido. There’s nothing here for you anymore.”

“Don’t gotta tell me twice, Deb.”

“Don’t call me that. Get out. Vete de aqui!”

I scurried backwards from the door in a hurry. My heart was pounding out of my chest and I couldn’t catch my breath. My mind was racing over what I’d heard. I had no idea that we were in so much trouble -- my mother never mentioned it. It suddenly made so much sense why her face was so often filled with fear and anxiety.

I’ve not seen or heard from Uncle Martin since that day. Mom hasn’t spoken to him or my Uncle Jeffrey, and they’ve not tried to reach out to me. There was a part of me that desperately wished I would have had one more chance to sit and talk with Uncle Martin, and I guess I still could, but the weight of what I don’t know about him and my father crushes my desire to. Even though my memories of my father aren’t perfect, I feel like Uncle Martin would poison them even more than he already had.

The memory of that day hung in the air for weeks afterwards, and it festered for a few months. My mother and I barely talked at all, other than out of sheer necessity. She picked up more shifts at the hospital, and I poured myself into video games. I’d graduated onto games that were actually from this decade, and I committed so much time to playing through the RPGs my uncle Jeffrey had shipped to me the Christmas before. It was exhausting to come up with stories like I did when I was kid, so I started to move towards the games that had stories that I could get lost in. There’s something deeply satisfying about finding the villain who burned your village, killed your wife, stole your cow, or whatever arbitrary thing the writers chose to use to kick-start the adventure. When it’s just one bad guy responsible for all your pain and you beat the living hell out of him with a giant steak knife surgically attached to your forearm, there’s unbeatable catharsis in that. Some days I wished that I had some evil clown or dark magician or tyrannical warlord of my own to murder -- just to feel as if some sort of cosmic justice had been doled out to balance the universe.

After a few months had passed, my mother finally came to me to address the elephant --who had most certainly overstayed his welcome-- in the room. I was sitting at the kitchen table scrolling through my phone and picking at a bowl of cold green grapes. Without a word she approached the kitchen table and sat at the wobbling chair across from me. The table was so small that I could have reached across and touched her, but there was something about her choice to sit across from me that spoke volumes. I say down my phone impatiently and looked at her. She did not look back at me.

“Whatever it is that you need to say, you can say it,” I told her.

“You’re my daughter -- I don’t need permission,” she snapped.

I scoffed. I folded my arms and looked down at her. She was slumped in the chair. I hadn’t heard her come in, but she often got off work just before 2PM after working her 16 hour shifts. Her whole body was dragging to the ground, and I felt guilty for giving her such a hard time. At the same time, I was frustrated with the words unspoken that had been piling up for weeks.

“Sorry. I just felt like you had something you wanted to tell me.”

“It’s not something I want to tell you, exactly. But I don’t really have a choice. I know you were listening a while back when Uncle Martin and I had our fight.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“There wasn’t a point in saying anything. I should have done a better job of keeping all that from you, but I messed up.” Mom cradled her head in her hands. “You know we can’t stay here any more.”

“What about Uncle Jeffrey? Can he help us?”

“I doubt it. If your Uncle Martin found out about that, he’d have a fit. There’s no one else, Sky.” She looked for the first time in weeks directly into my eyes. Hers were red and blue, struggling to stay open. “It’s just us, chica.”

I leaned back in my chair and exhaled heavily. I knew this day was coming, and I’d been dreading it ever since Mom and Martin’s fight, but somehow she still managed to blindside me. I kept thinking there was some way around this -- some way of fighting it. It was clear that we were out of options.

“Well, I’m almost fifteen. Sarah, a girl in my Biology class, is my age and is working part-time at the sandwich shop across from Wal-Mart. I could just ask around and if I could make enough money, maybe we could afford to --”

“Dr. Bryan put in a good word for me to be transferred to a hospital in Saint Louis. They’re looking to close the center out here --”

My whole torso shot forward and my fists slammed on the table. I could see my mother recoil in her chair. “Wait, are you serious? Where will everyone go?”

“I don’t know, Skylar. I guess they’ll have to drive to the next one.”

“The closest hospital isn’t for another … what? An hour, at least.”

“I know, Sky. I know. I’m very fortunate that Dr. Bryan is helping to send me to another facility. I really am.”

“They can’t just leave us out here. They can’t!”

Mom’s breath escaped from her, and with it, her fight. Her face and her shoulders told me what her words couldn’t -- there was nothing that could be done. As much as I bitched and moaned about my mother, I knew that she ultimately cared for that job and that facility. People don’t give that much of themselves to something that they don’t care for.

“How long do we have?” Moving was going to be a huge undertaking and I wanted to make sure I knew as far ahead as possible about when I could expect to leave.

“Well, the hospital gave me a 30 days notice, so I figure we can manage one month after I’m laid off here before we need to move. So, two months? I would rather get going as soon as possible though so I can get started at the new facility.”

“Two months…” I thought about that time-frame, swirling it around in my mind as I considered all of the things I would need to do in that time. My circle of friends was small and rotating so I didn’t see much need to get all sentimental about it now. If they didn’t care all that much after my Dad died, I can’t imagine they’d be all that torn up about seeing me go. Mom’s side of the family all lived in the Saint Louis area, and most of Dad’s remaining family was scattered across the state too. And of those that were left, my mother had run them off with her behavior. I had the crushing realization in that moment that no one would miss me if I were to disappear.

“I’m sorry, I wish I could have given you more time to --”

“Why drag it out,” I asked. I gave her a halfhearted shrug. “Let’s get it over with.” I stood up from the table and headed towards my room.

“I was thinking of having a yard sale.”

“Less to move. Makes sense.”

“If there are things you want to keep, you should put them in your room. I don’t want to try and sell something that you might want to keep around.” She stared at the short glass in her hand with bumps in the bottom -- a favorite of Dad for his Jack and Cokes.

“Yep,” I responded flatly. I took stock of the items around the house that I might want to keep.

Admittedly, there wasn’t much. My father wasn’t much of one to keep anything. The only item that he owned that I had wanted to keep was his rosewood guitar, and that hadn’t left my bedroom since he passed. Everything else that remained in the house were things that my mother had collected in the subsequent years since we moved into the house and things that my mother had stolen from Grandma Helen’s house. None of it had any sentimental value, and all of it could not leave fast enough.