I can’t believe that it took this long for her to get help. She’s under surveillance now and I get to see her once a week. It’s already March? I guess it started way back in November sometime, when the world was as gray as you can feel on the inside. But at first mom wasn’t crazy like that, not like after a while. In the beginning she was like, stressed out. More than usual. But whose mom isn’t stressed out?
I wanted an iPhone 14. Needed it. And I made it clear. Nothing but an iPhone 14 for Christmas. Mom was like, no, your phone is fine, it works. But it was old. When she asked why I was so tired every morning I lied and said that it was a teenager thing, but in reality I was lying awake every night with a heavy lump in my stomach, listening to mom crying.
I don’t think she knew I could hear her. When we talked about dad she made it sound like she was going to mourn and remember him forever, but she had moved on and she was feeling okay now. You can fake a smile and a hug and things like that, but you can’t fake that twinkle in your eye. And mom’s eyes were empty.
And then it got worse than just being extra stressed out. When I came home from school some gray day in early December I yelled out to mom, but she didn’t respond. I checked the house, every room, before I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Tried getting as little water as possible in the sink. Every year as it got colder outside the grease or something like clotted and clogged the pipes. With too much water in the sink it could be minutes before it flowed down, and sometimes I stopped and looked at the often murky water which slowly whirled down the greasy pipe, like a slow-motion maelstrom.
“I’m down here,” mom yelled from the basement. “Turn the water off!”
“Already did,” I said and went down.
She was to the right of the stairs, in the boiler room, with her hand on her waist and her bangs pasted to her forehead. She was standing in muddy water with rubber boots on and sighing.
“It ends up here,” she said and nodded to the rusty floor drain I knew was hiding somewhere under the dingy water.
The floor was shining and wet. “Clog water from the kitchen,” mom said, reached for the small gardening shovel she used for the flowerbeds in the spring, and scooped water into a bucket.
I don’t know how to explain the stench in the boiler room. It was like old grease and filth and kind of like shit. And stale and dampish. Really dampish.
It smelled like … clog water, I guess.
“Are there no plumbers?” I asked a few days after we’d discovered the clog water.
Mom was back in the basement and scooping again. “No, we don’t need a plumber, we need the guy who cleans the pipes. And that guy isn’t available before Christmas.”
I looked down in the green plastic bucket, at the water which was as gray as the weather and an ocean for boats of clotted grease and dark chunks of filth.
When she was back down there the next day I wasn’t worried for real, but that stomach lump started making moves.
“You have to scoop it,” she said without looking at me.
But there wasn’t even that much water. We tried not to use the faucet in the kitchen more than we needed.
“You need help?” I asked and reached for the shovel.
She snatched it away from me with so much force and speed that I flinched. “No need. Don’t you have school?” she said.
“It’s Saturday.”
“Then rest up until Monday, I guess.” Her gaze was still focused on the water. What was she looking at?
“It’s Christmas break. You know that. What the fuck are you doing, mom?”
She jerked and looked at me for the first time that day, a motion so quick that she slipped on the stone floor which probably had gotten really slippery from the rubber boots and greasy clog water combo. She struggled for a few seconds before she fell down into the clog water with a splash. In any other situation it would have been hilarious, like something from a fail compilation on YouTube. But now it was just tragic.
And sort of scary.
When you fall you have two options. Smile and laugh at it or get angry. But mom hardly reacted at all. Her eyes were drawn to the clog water and the hidden, rusty drain again, and I was forgotten.
“Mom? You all right?”
She didn’t answer. Started scooping again, but now from a kind of sitting and at the same time lying position where she rested on her elbow.
“Mom?”
The clog water smell made my insides squirm and I backed away. If she wanted to lay in the filth and clean up I was going to let her do it.
I don’t know if she cried even more the following night or if it was just me listening more carefully. If I was more worried. When morning came she wasn’t in the house. Not on the first floor of the house. I knew where she was and the lump in my stomach grew bigger. And harder. Sharper.
“Mom, you’re not coming up?” I realized I was tearing up and almost sobbing.
Mom was like lying on her side in the disgusting fucking clog water and scooped it into the bucket. The boats of filth and grease got stuck on her face and I would’ve thrown up if I’d eaten anything.
“Mom?”
No answer. No reaction at all. Her eyes were focused on the clog water, right where the water bubbled up from the drain if you forgot the clogged pipes and used the faucet in the kitchen sink. I had just had some water run to make it colder, so I guess mom had gotten more to scoop.
The days went by and she continued scooping from the slowly disappearing pool of clog water. Sometimes I could hear a splash when she got up, and then another splash when she emptied the bucket in the toilet across from the boiler room. After that the scooping continued.
In between the days were the evenings, when she came up from the basement and reeked of clog water. She laid down in her bed, which also had started smelling dampish and was speckled by clotted grease, and she fell asleep instantly. I couldn’t be in her bedroom because of the smell. Sometimes I watched her from the other side of the half-closed door before I had to close it all the way. Because of the smell. And because I couldn’t stand watching her in a fetal position, crying in her sleep, with her hair all wet and greasy, in a bed of filth.
Mom came up from the basement during the evenings, until she stopped. One evening she chose to stay down there in the boiler room, and to be honest I wasn’t surprised. In some way I was expecting it.
I wasn’t getting a new iPhone, that much I knew. Would there even be Christmas? Now and then I turned on the water in the kitchen just to fuck with mom, but I never got a reaction. She just kept on scooping. Scratching that spade against the stone floor and the clog water splashed in the bucket. Just the thought of the boiler room reminded me of the stench and made me nauseous.
One night, maybe four or five days before Christmas eve, I woke up with like a gentle calm in my chest. The scoop scratches I heard from the basement were slow and dull, but mom was still going down there. I don’t know if she ever stopped scooping. I realized that the calm came from mom not crying. It was around that time every night I usually woke up and listened to mom crying until my eyes were as muddy as hers.
But besides the recurring stone floor scratches from the basement, an almost sacred silence rested over the house. I got out of bed and walked slowly toward mom’s bedroom. At that time I didn’t know I was walking carefully because I was sneaking. Because I was afraid. Even to this day I can’t explain what scared me.
Mom’s room smelled even worse with clog water and filth. Blankets and pillows were on the floor and the sheet was stained by the dingy water. Here and there were the dark pieces of clotted grease. I had to squint into the darkness to see it and I was too afraid to turn on the lights, but the stains and grease reminded me of something.
The stain, which was as gray as the clog water and surrounded by yellow filth outlines on the sheet, could have been the shape of a person. The stain could look like a human with a body and arms and legs. And the dark grease flakes could be hair on the stain’s head, and maybe a horrid face staring back at me.
I backed out of the room. The creeping discomfort moving restlessly in the back of my neck and spreading out towards my arms got worse. The creeping started stomping. Goosebumps made my arms itch. Mom had stopped scooping. There wasn’t a sound in the house, and I imagined mom sitting right under me staring straight up. Straight up at me, with a vacant glance. With eyes wet from clog water.
As slowly as before I went back to my bedroom, closed the door and lay down. As soon as I shut my eyes the scooping started again.
It went on like that until the day before Christmas. If mom had eaten anything the last few days I didn’t want to think about what it could be. And the more I tried not thinking about it, the more I imagined her eating the grease and drinking the clog water.
It went on like that until it ended. And it ended with a scream.
Mom was roaring from downstairs and I ran to the boiler room. Ran so fast that I tripped down the stairs and almost fell.
“What is it?” I asked with a breath caught in my chest.
She didn’t answer. At least not with words. Another roar escaped her throat and she stared at the rusty drain. The floor was shiny from grease and mom was still wet through and filthy, but the water was gone. At last, she had scooped it all away.
Finally, I thought, now things could get back to normal. And that was the only thought I had time for before mom started crying. It was not at all like the other times, all those nights when she’d been crying. Now it was unrestrained. Mom was crying disgustingly.
The tears, which were squeezed out from the eyes rather than pouring, were gray, murky and greasy. Now and then a dark grease flake or some other filth followed a tear down her face, and the cry smelled so dampish that it made me feel sick. Mom cried clog water.
“I’m done,” she muttered and wiped clog tears against her already wet sleeve.
That’s when mom lost it for real. I asked how she was doing and the glance she gave me was so hollow it made my stomach squirm and I got this weird dizziness. She stood up, with the shovel still in her hand, and walked slowly towards me.
“What are you doing? Mom!?”
She shuffled closer and I backed away. Slipped on one of all the stains from when mom had spilled from her bucket as she was running back and forth, emptying the water in the toilet. I fell down on my ass. Mom swung the shovel at me and I blocked it with my arm. At first I couldn’t feel anything, and then it stung and burned where the shovel’s point had cut a flesh wound on my forearm.
“What the fuck mom!?” The words were clunky. Heavy from tears and desperation.
She was crying as well, but it was the disgusting clog water like before. When she raised the shovel again for a second swing I got up and struck her face with a closed fist. I had never punched anyone before and it hurt like hell. The pain pounded in my knuckles and radiated down my wrist. Mom’s nose cracked softly when it broke and she raised her free hand to catch the blood.
But there wasn’t any blood pouring. Just more clog water. Her nose blood was gray clog water.
She raised the shovel a third time and I pushed her back into the boiler room. Shut the door so fast that it brought a wind of clog stench with it. Mom yelled without words and I locked the door. She screamed until her voice gave away, but she kept on screaming, or at least trying.
I don’t know for how long I was standing leaning at the locked door and crying, but eventually I couldn’t take it. I went up instead, and even if I couldn’t fully escape mom’s roars the change of floor made her duller.
My arm was hurting and I washed the wound in the kitchen. Picked clotted grease from my arm. Heard the drain gargle as the water disappeared down the clogged pipe, and then I heard nothing. I couldn’t hear mom. The roaring stopped and there was total silence for a few seconds, until she started scooping again. I stood and listened to the scratching against the stone floor until it stopped, and just as I expected mom started screaming again when she was done and the water was gone.
I didn’t get an iPhone 14 for Christmas, but at least I had a Christmas celebration. Me and mom celebrated together down in the boiler room. She sat on the floor and scooped clog water into the green plastic bucket. I sat leaning against the wall and played games that lagged on my old phone. On the floor above us, in the kitchen, a small jet of water poured from the faucet and made sure that mom always had new water to scoop.
“Merry Christmas, mom.”