I have always had an overactive imagination. Or at least, that’s always what my mother said. My father said I like to make up tall tales as a child. My childhood was chaotic, but when I look back, each and every memory fosters a haze over its recollection. However, there is one memory that sticks out and that is the day when my mother left.
I remember waking up that morning feeling incredibly tired. I had played on my Gameboy until late at night and my eyes were heavy as a result. I jumped out of bed, narrowly avoiding the skinny arms that wrapped themselves around my bedposts from under my bed. I headed down the dark hallway, ignoring the whizzing shadows that flew past my head. At the dinner table sat my dad with a plate of untouched coffee and burnt toast with butter. I peeked behind him to see the end of a tentacle recede back into the toaster.
“Good morning.” I said, forcing a smile and moving to sit at the table.
“Go to your room.” He said, emotions mixing and twirling inside of him. Even from his mouth as he spoke, there were small, slimy tentacles that moved and dripped. I shuddered and quietly followed instructions. As I walked past my mom’s bedroom, I heard a noise. Careful to watch for my father and the tentacles, I held my ear up to the door. All I could hear from inside the room was TV static. I turned and walked up the stairs to my room, shadows dancing past me.
I jumped back into bed and laid on my side to watch the skinny arms bend and contort from the edge of the bed. I wonder if they knew the tentacles were back. I wondered if somehow all the things in the world without mouths and without words and with proper nouns could communicate. Perhaps they knew too that today would be a bad day.
I started as I heard my mother’s soft footsteps coming up the stairs. A soft knock at the door launched me out of bed and gently open the door.
My mother walked in and sat at the edge of my bed while I stood standing. I wasn’t allowed to jump in or out of bed when my parents were around. She began to speak softly, but the volume of the tv static from downstairs drowned out her words. I nodded along to what she was saying, and she sighed. A sigh mixed with melancholy, longing, and static. She left my room.
I spent the rest of the day playing with my GI Joes on my bed and pretending that I couldn’t hear the loud static and angry whispers coming from downstairs. When it was time for dinner, famished, I walked down into the kitchen. My dad was nowhere to be seen and all evidence of a delicious dinner cooked by my mother was missing. I called out for my parents to no response. Catching a glimpse of something in the backyard, I opened the back door and saw my mother standing in the middle of the yard staring at the sky. This was not unusual, as she would often go outside to pray. I was never supposed to disturb her when she was praying.
“My beloved Genevieve forgive me. God, you have forsaken me. I cannot leave him. He’s just a boy. I can’t.”
I quietly listened as she talked, but all I could hear was the blasted TV static. I realized soon enough that the static was coming from her mouth, which was held open as if she were yelling or singing opera. Disturbed, I closed the door and sat down, still looking through the window. She then walked over to a tree with a piece of paper and a rope.
My father walked into the kitchen and began adding ingredients to a pot on the stove. I looked back and saw my mother suspended in the air, as if being lifted by a force. My father plated up the dinner and brought me a plate where I sat on the floor.
“This will taste better if eaten at the table.” He said, while I watched the slimy tentacles curl and uncurl over the food like steam. I accepted my plate and ate at the table for the first time with my father. “I told her to leave. She’s bad for us.” he said as an afterthought.
Years later, I have eaten many meals with my father. I even understand what he means when he says I invent stories. After all, my childhood was chaotic.
The clearest memory I have of that day was the static that poured from my mother’s mouth. Because years later, I can understand the words, hidden beneath the white noise. If I had known that day that my mother was leaving, and I would never have another meal with her, and she would never glue one of my toys back together, and she would never play GI Joes with me again, I might’ve done something different. But I was just a child with an overactive imagination.