When our classes ended, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the house was all mine. I would do my homework, change from my uniform, and go running to our backyard. This was the time I could be myself and didn’t have to interact with other people. It was my world. It wasn’t a very large space, and my father used it to feed all the birds in the neighborhood, so it had bird seed spread out on bowls hanging from the trees. Half of the yard was an orchard with two apple trees surrounded by grass and soil. Close to the house wall, I had my orchids, and beside them was a rocking chair where I could read my books and make my drawings. I spent many hours there when the weather would let me. During the winter I couldn’t handle even a half-hour outside, but even then I would go for a bit. I always liked to stay with myself, the silence felt amazing to my loud mind. Gustav used to tell me that this wasn’t a good thing, that I could open up to him, he wanted to understand me. But he was a boy, no way he could know all the problems in my head, he couldn’t understand Karl for example.
Many times, I couldn’t manage what was going on with me, I felt like a sailboat with no direction, being taken by the wind of routine, unable to see the meaning of things. Today, telling you this story, I can see I was that mouse on a cage wheel, that didn’t think, living just for the sake of being alive. I always wanted to change my life, make something big that would take me from the emptiness I felt, but I had no idea of what to do.
As I already told you, my mind punished me all the time. I felt like chaos, like an avenue at rush hour, and every car was a different problem to my brain, all mixed up waiting for something good to happen.
Horrible nightmares made me wake up with a wet pillow from my sweat a few times. I had already dreamed I was dying, burned, that I was driving a sword into someone’s chest, that demons were chasing me, all very suffocating. Nightmares that made no sense, and why me? I go around ants while sweeping the floor, so I don’t kill them, I apologize to my orchids if I forget to water them in a week. Not even in sleep can I feel peaceful, my breath was always going out of rhythm.
I know most people didn’t like me, but I didn’t like most people either. A good example of that was the school’s inspector, Mrs. Karlsson. She was always saying I should know better how to behave as an adult, according to the beliefs of her old-fashioned head. And that was all because once she saw me hugging my brother “for too long” at the school entrance one time when my mom brought me. She told me we shouldn’t be too attached to other people like that, that I should be more independent. Now I think that she wasn’t that mistaken, but that day I cursed her. I even felt guilty, because that same day Mrs. Karlsson fell down the stairs, sprained her ankle and spent two weeks limping through the hallways. I felt like that, guilty for the world’s mistakes.
As people say, there is nothing like a new problem to make you forget the old one. Or was that for love? I could use both.
It would feel good if I could share all of this with my mom, Jessica, but she never really cared. Her dark hair combined with her thick eyebrows attracted many glances as she walked by. She is an art teacher at the City College, she teaches two classes. She makes this possible by leaving Rodrigo with Mrs. Lena, going to her classes, and picking him up later on, and many times she worked after hours to grade tests, late into the night. I get we must pay for our house and car, my parents work hard for it, but I don’t understand why they need to wear themselves out working. Once I read in a comic book, “I always learned we have to work for a good life. But why do we have to waste our lives working to have a good life?” I always thought about that, but my mom said this type of question was for lazy people.
She is the type of person that never questions life’s reasons, good for her. But funny enough she feels like she can question me about making a good marriage. All the time she asks me when I’m going to meet a decent boy, because by what she can tell, I’m only getting older. If the idea is to be submissive like her, I choose to stay alone.
For other people to see, she was always in a good mood, smiling. It was hard for someone to believe that with us she wasn’t that happy. She was always ready to listen to those encyclopedia sellers that came to our door and she would take care of our neighbor’s kids when they needed it, she always cared more about others than about me. Her dark hair always had the same scent from when I was a little toddler, that made me miss it even more, miss the time I could run to her arms and still get some love.
She always made me feel embarrassed by telling her friends over dinner how I was a needy child (and why is that?), that I didn’t like to see my father too close to her, child things. This one time, I was around nine, she eavesdropped on my conversation with some other kids in the street while we were playing, when one said something like, ‘when my dad and my mom are dating, they lock the bedroom door, and I can’t bother them. And you?’ She was with other mom’s talking and killed me with her eyes when she heard my answer. ‘At our house they never do that, their door is always open.’ So, she made up an appointment and smoothly took me out of the playtime. When we got home, she picked me up by my clothes and made me regret what I said, she spanked me ten times with her belt on my legs. She made me promise I was never going to talk about their intimate life again. ‘What do you think people will think about us?’ she yelled.
The distance between us grew as I got older. She always looked mad at me for something. I kept begging for attention and asking if I had done something. Her coldness broke my self-esteem and made me desperate, looking for love. She also insisted on protecting my father’s behavior, even when he treated her with disdain, like she was doing to me. I was tired of seeing her hiding and brushing her tears away, while my drunken father starred in a shameful scene at the house. She almost never reacted, just gave up on her book or from playing with my brother in his crib. In total silence, she would go to her room and stay there until the next day. When Rodrigo was born, dad had promised to go to the bar less often, but that didn’t last long.
Rodrigo came as a breath of fresh air to us. He was that baby that could hypnotize others with his smile, he also had a very charming spot on his cheek. He is the most loving one in the house, I love him so much! In general, he has a calm temper, different from the rest of the family, but furious attacks can happen sometimes. Hunger and sleep can turn him into an unpleasant siren that makes me want to throw him in a river. When that happens, he has the power to make all the love that I feel for him become a complete rage within seconds. You get home, wishing for peace and quiet, and find your little brother crying like there was no tomorrow, it’s enough to extinguish any person’s good mood. Talking about moods, my mom once almost broke my bedroom door because of him. It was all because Rodrigo would cry really loud every time she was on the phone with her supervisor at the university, being told that another student complained about her temper during class. Her anger would come up through her body like water boiling in a kettle, she would turn red (from her nerves) but couldn’t disclose it to her boss.
I had the good luck to come home right at that moment. She stared at me from far away and mouthed something like “go take care of Rodrigo” leaning her head against the wall, banging it there a few times. I had just come from school, angry for getting a C- on a literature test, I didn’t have the will to do anything. So, I did what any teenager would do - shut my bedroom door and turn the radio up as loud as I could, leaving Rodrigo’s cries and my furious mom outside. Of course, it only took her a few seconds, to disturb my music with her kicks on my door, followed by her screams saying something like, ‘YOU ARE SO UNGRATEFUL! YOU ARE ONLY HERE TO MAKE MY LIVE HARDER!’