Homesick
Mum runs her thumb back and forth softly over Dad’s picture, as she clutches it in her hand. There’s a wet sheen to the skin on the back of her hand, where she’s used it to wipe her cheeks. He’s young in this one, younger than I ever saw him. ’89, maybe, a few years before I was born. I sit across from her at the kitchen bench, an unopened red envelope between us.
I open my mouth to speak, but my lips are cracked, and I don’t know what to say.
‘I just don’t know if I can make it at the moment, Aubrey,’ her words are dry, and her eyes look sore. She said that when I called her, and when I texted her, and she didn’t even deign to open the letter. So, I’m back here.
‘Well Dad promised to go with me, when I got one of my sculptures in a gallery,’ I avert my eyes from her and pre-emptively cradle my head in my hands.
I hear her sniffle, and her breath wavers. ‘Aubrey, that is not on. That is just not on.’
‘What, it’s demanding of me to want my parent to support my career?’ My voice cracks, and I hate myself for wanting to cry. I stifle my tears, rubbing my fingers in my eyes.
‘That’s not fair, Abs. I’m grieving, I’m beside myself every day just getting out of bed, and you…’ her voice falters, and a cry crackles in her throat. I drop my hands from my face and look at her through blurry eyes.
‘I didn’t even want you there. I wanted Dad there. Do you think you’re the only one that misses him?’ I can’t stop my voice from quivering, and my face turns red. I kick my seat out from under me, letting it crash into the floor. ‘It’s not easy for me, just because I’m not acting like I’m bedridden.’
I rip the envelope off the table and glare at Mum. She winces away from me, so I take the letter in both hands, and wrench it in two directions until it shreds apart. I let the scraps fall to the floor, stepping on one as I rush out of the room.
I storm down the hallway and grab the extra house key from by the door, before unlocking it and stepping out into the blusterous morning. I can’t stand another second in that house.
I arrive back sometime in the afternoon, as the dim sun lazes across its course in the sky, and the breeze carries a harsher chill for the first time since I left the house. As it turns out, some old friends who I hadn’t seen since I was last in town wanted to hang out, so we spent a while getting coffee and catching up. Now, as the day winds down, I find myself standing at the letterbox of my childhood home, my car waiting behind me.
Mum and Dad bought the bungalow when they moved here and were planning on having a kid. It’s seen better days, ones where its roof didn’t bow so much in the middle, before the copper fittings had turned green and the grey and white paint had flaked from the door. Is this what she imagined her home would be like, before she left Australia? I wouldn’t move across the world to some small town in Colorado for what might even qualify as a shack. But then again, Mum hadn’t come here for the house, or for Colorado, or for anything except my dad.
I remember chipping away at the weatherboard with a screwdriver, shaping little stick figures into the wood, releasing the musky scent of pine wood with each scratch. As I step up to the door now, I can actually see my old carvings, and I bend down to get a better look. Up close, it’s definitely my work, but the wood smells musty and gives off the tell-tale odour of rot.
I unlock the door and slip inside. At least it doesn’t smell damp in here, but there’s a film of dust on every surface above my eye level. I hang the keys back up by the door. I consider just sneaking upstairs to gather my things, and I’m ready to do just that, when I hear Mum’s voice echoing down the hall.
‘… should be glad, right? Nobody… but it’s still not the same…’ she says. A few fragments reach my ears, but others soak into the wallpaper or get lost in the carpet. She didn’t mention having anyone over, but to be fair, she hadn’t mentioned much of anything.
I walk down the hall and into the kitchen, and I see her back facing me, the room empty except her seat at the table. In the empty seat pulled out across from her sits nothing but air, but she seems to be looking in its direction as she mutters to herself. ‘I just want to hold your hand. I wasn’t there when you needed me.’
My brows furrow as I listen, and I cross my arms. Is she rehearsing to give me bad news? To apologise? She places her hand on the table in front of the other chair, and I hear a cry whisper from her lips, ‘I love you, Leon.’
My eyes open wide and I freeze to the spot. I can’t stop the words from coming out. ‘Dad?’ My lips quiver. Mum jolts to attention and turns around, mouth agape and eyes pleading. Her head whips back to the other seat, then to me, and I can see her struggle to form the words to respond.
‘What are you doing? Who are you talking to?’ I stutter, taking a hesitant step towards her.
‘Abs, I- it’s… it’s complicated,’ she pulls her hand away from the table and into her lap, wringing it as she does.
‘You said Dad. You said Dad’s name.’ I keep moving toward the table and place a hand on the back of the chair that she seems entranced by.
‘Don’t-’ she starts to say, startled from her seat, hand outstretched to stop my own. ‘Please, don’t,’ I rip my hand from her grasp, and take a step backwards.
‘What do you mean, don’t? What are you doing, what’s happening?’ my voice becomes louder and louder, words escaping frantically as my mind reels. She’s… She was talking to Dad. Dad’s gone. I… I watched them lower his casket into the ground. ‘Are you crazy? What- what meds are you on? Or off?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me, I didn’t do anything to make him appear, he just… he started talking to me and I had to talk back. Aubrey, please, you have to believe me,’ her eyes flick between each of mine, she seems to shiver, her posture fragile as she grips her legs so tightly with both hands that her knuckles go white.
I shudder out a breath as the world seems to spin around me, and I reach out for purchase on the table. I sit myself down on the floor as sound begins to ring in my ears, and hallucinatory swirls dance in front of my eyes, in colours I can’t focus on and shapes that shift constantly.
‘Is this…’ my vision slowly starts to focus, and I can hear Mum breathing hard next to me again, ‘is this why you’ve been so distant? You can’t come to my gallery opening because you think you’re talking to dad?’
‘You don’t believe me… you don’t believe me…’ she repeats, her voice hoarse, she cascades into sobbing. A haunting wail leaks from her lips, as she clutches at the table as if it can anchor her to reality. ‘He’s not always here, I have to… I have to be there when he’s here, I can’t leave the house, I can’t miss him again.’
I turn my head to look up at her. She has her head in her arms, hunched over on the dining table, her frame shakes as I hear her whimper. ‘You always loved him more than me.’ I say. I run my hand through my hair. My forehead feels hot. Mum brings her head up from the table, eyes wide, tears streaming down her face.
‘How… how could you say that?’ She cries.
‘I always knew. A child knows when they aren’t wanted. I desperately wanted you to care, to be interested.’ I exhale deeply, focusing my breath and steadying myself. These are thoughts I’ve had so many times that they’ve crystalised into a script without me even realising. ‘And right now, you’d prefer a hallucination of him over spending a second being proud of your daughter. I’ve sent you fifteen messages. Called you every day for the past week. I bought an envelope and printed out a ticket for you, and delivered it myself. Can’t you see how desperately I want you to love me?’
I scoff, shaking my head. ‘I hate how much I need you to love me.’ I look at my mum, I look at the woman who raised me, and I see confusion in her eyes.
‘Aubrey, I… I’m so sorry. I thought… I- I don’t know, that, you didn’t… I always knew your dad was your favourite. I didn’t think you cared what I thought.’ She stuttered.
‘Because I yelled at you when I was a teenager? Because I slammed my door and told you that you didn’t understand me? Because I acted like a teenager?’ I fix my gaze on her, and rise to my feet. I stride to the table and sit down on the seat that Dad was supposedly on. ‘That’s just… I didn’t- I was stupid. I was a kid. I cared what you thought more than I cared what Dad thought. I knew he’d love whatever I did just because I did it.’ I reach out and place my hand, palm up, on the table.
‘Abs… I love you,’ Mum says. ‘You’re my little girl, you’re my daughter. You’re a wonderful artist. I love you, and you’re all of the wonderful things your father was. I’m… I’m sorry I never made you feel like I believed that.’ She looks away from me, shameful tears clouding her vision, and holds out her hand to me. I take it without hesitation, and give her a reassuring squeeze, to which she squeezes back, and says, ‘I suppose… my mind is just a mess right now. My anchor to this home, this country, is gone, but I have you. I should have never lost sight of that, Aubrey. I’m so sorry.’
I use my other hand to brush her hair out of her face, where it’s stuck to her cheek from the tears. ‘I know I was never the… mother-daughter shopping trip kind of kid, never the dress up and makeup kind of girl. I never asked you for help. But I love you. I love you, too,’ I say. The scraps of the invitation letter are gathered in a pile on the table; I let go of her hand for a moment, searching through them. Finding the right pieces, I rearrange the letter as if it was never torn, and place it in front of her.
‘I would really love to have you at the premiere of my sculpture, Mum.’ I smile, and it brightens as I see her lips curl into a smile too.
‘There isn’t anything more important to me. I’ll be there, honey.’
