[at the house i was born in]
When I return home from my junior year of college for Thanksgiving break, my mom picks me up from the airport. It’s nice to sit side by side on the drive home. She asks me how I am, and I’m grateful that I can say tired. Tired is an easy answer. On our long road, I watch the moon out the window like I did as a kid. I used to think it followed our car. When we arrive at the house, it’s late. I find the bed in the room downstairs already made. I feel a flood of gratitude, saved from wrestling with a fitted sheet when exhausted.
When my mom was single and I was a child, we both slept upstairs in her bed. I hated the first time she brought a serious boyfriend home and I was banished to my own room. Now I climb under my own covers in underwear, wool socks, and a thermal long sleeve. There’s something about going to bed in the cold that makes sleep feel like a blessing. When I was little my mom used to take on a childish voice as we climbed into bed, squealing in delight, “I love bedtime.” I never understood her back then. Bedtime used to knot in my stomach, fill my lungs. I understand it now. There’s something forgiving about bedtime.
In the morning, I wake up to natural light. I sit up and look out the window. I’m met with the soft face of a cow, its large dark eyes gazing back at me over the barbed wire fence. I smile and wave hello like we’re old friends. My neighbors the cows, the same ones I would watch out the window when I was a kid. They live eternally on their side of the fence in the field, backed by the woods and the hills beyond.
Growing up, I listened to the first three or four Harry Potter books while watching the cows graze in the dusky light out the window. I’d cuddle up beside my mom in her queen size bed in the converted attic as she read aloud. Aside from her habit of dozing off mid-sentence, she was a riveting reader, taking on different voices and accents for the characters, an audible adoration for the text.
I get dressed and come out of my room. I have a cup of tea and a piece of toast at the kitchen counter. My mom comes downstairs halfway through and asks how I slept. I slept well. She did too.
She says, “So, how’s the term been so far? How are you?”
I tell her that I love my classes, except for one. And then I say, “There’s hot water left in the kettle.”
She says, “Great,” and goes to the tea cabinet. I grab my cup and head outside before she can ask again how I’ve been doing, aside from classes.
When I step out into the unusually warm November morning, I close the door softly behind me. The blue paint is chipping off the wood framing. I used to slam this door a lot. My mom hated when I slammed the door. Any of them. She’d scream at me and I’d stomp up our carpeted stairs, the hollow space beneath them thudding louder than it seemed my little feet should’ve been capable of. I’d stop at the top of the staircase when she commanded me to, turning around to watch her at the bottom, my hands outstretched to opposite railings. She’d count to three, and I’d stand there, gripping the thin rails in my hands, trying to call her bluff.
I pick through the overgrown center path through the garden and roam down the hill. The trampoline at the bottom was old when we got it, and that was over a decade ago. It’s never had a net around the sides or any padding over the springs. It’s where I learned to do a flip. Front and back. Front was less scary but back was easier. Once there was a big storm and a tree in the cow pasture fell, crushing the fence and the trampoline. My mom and I dragged the branches out of the way and propped the trampoline legs back up. She held up the pieces, and I jumped on the metal until it bent back into shape.
I put a hand on the metal frame and swing myself up. The surface has holes in it now. They’re small but abundant. The edges look brittle, like any sudden movement might tear them open further. I step lightly, take an experimental hop. I’m scared I might fall right through into the tall brown grass beneath, so I lie down on my back and stare up into the pale blue sky. Me and my childhood best friend used to lie like this in the evenings and play Spot the Airplane, watching for the tell-tale blinking lights among the stars. Whoever saw them first would say “airplane” and get a point. We’d play this game and talk about our secrets. I remember it was one of these nights that I told her how I hated my dad’s new yellow house.
I said, “I can’t sleep when I’m over there. I feel so anxious all the time.”
She said, “I kinda feel like my dad doesn’t really want me. Sometimes I wish that when my parents split, my mom got full custody.”
Her long silky strands of red hair mixed with my dark waves as we sunk into each other. It was quiet for a long time. Then she shot up her hand and pointed, “Airplane.”
A group of crows bursts into the bright sky above me. They caw and call and chase each other. Breaking the quiet of this place into pieces. I’m reminded of a line from some audiobook or tv show. I can’t remember which. I can’t picture the child who says it. But I can hear his exact earnest tone. “Why is everybody always yelling?”
I say it aloud in his sweet kid voice to try to place it. It doesn’t work. The crows keep shouting and swooping. I say it again.
“Why is everybody always yelling?”
[at gate c12]
As I wait for my delayed flight, I do my Spanish practice. I’m getting the same question wrong again and again. It’s making me angrier than it should. I’m sitting on the floor with my back leaned up against the wall. I take a deep breath and press “return” on the keyboard. Mac is the only company who uses that word. I guess they couldn’t be like everyone else. Enter is an old-school word. Enter is what everyone says. They have to be innovative. They don’t enter, they return. Because they’ve already been here. They’ve been everywhere. They are all powerful, all knowing. I can’t escape them. I recently sold my soul and started storing things in The Cloud. Now I get a ninety-nine cent bill from Apple every month. You’re welcome, Steve Jobs. Don’t spend it all en un solo lugar.
I get a question right. It feels like nothing. It’s late, and the terminal is mostly empty. My mom is learning Spanish too. She did an immersion program right out of college, but she’s lost a lot of it since then. We practice together sometimes. I’m better at the grammar than she is. She’s better at talking to people. She’s better at that in English too. When I was younger, I remember trailing along behind her on her errands and marveling at the way she could talk to anyone like they were on her side. Southern ladies who’d probably tell her she’s going to hell if they knew she’d dated women. Gruff men with beer bellies who called her sweetie and darling and incompetent. She’s from Pittsburgh, but when she talks with people from the south, she’d subconsciously adopt a bit of the twang. She always talked like everyone was equal and safe. I clenched my gut silently behind her, hoping the men wouldn’t notice that I too would have boobs someday.
I get the question wrong again. And then again. It’s one of the only ones I have left in the lesson. I’m tired. It’s pitch black outside. It comes again. All the windows have turned into distorted mirrors. The screen goes red again, and I slam the return key. When I type the answer again my fingers strike the keys. I get it right but it doesn’t make me feel better. My fingertips are throbbing. My face feels hot and wrong like my answer. Like this anger.
I take another deep breath and shake my head to clear it, like I’m an etch-a-sketch. I had one at my dad’s when I was little. I only remember having it at the apartment we lived in after the yellow house. The one where I would struggle to fall asleep every night and come out of it too soon every morning. I’d give up trying to fall back asleep and pad out to the big maroon couch with the overstuffed pillows that would swallow you. I’d watch cartoons off DVDs on my dad’s laptop until he woke up.
When the plane finally boards, the captain tells us to expect some turbulence and leaves the seat belt sign on. As we barrel down the runway, I close my eyes and mutter a little prayer. Neither of us are religious, but my mom and I have done it on every flight in my memory, our foreheads pressed together to hear each other over the roar of the engines. It ends: “Angels please be with us on this journey and guide us safely there on the fiery white breath of a dragon. So mote it be.” I take a moment to imagine the flight going its course and landing safely, accompanied by its dragon and angels. I always picture the long, blue and white dragon from Spirited Away. I loved that movie when I was younger, except that I was deeply unsettled by the scene where the parents gorge themselves and turn into pigs. I was terrified that my parents would disappear in some equally nonsensical and horrific way. I still love that movie. I’m less afraid of it now. I’m less afraid of turbulence too. I used to grip my mom’s hand whenever the plane lifted or shuttered. Now I understand that it’s a metal tube flying through the atmosphere; it’s better that it can be flexible to obstacles.
Back on the ground, I adjust the bags on my back, each weighing down a different shoulder unevenly. The wind lashes against my cheeks as I squint out over the endless rows of cars in the long-term lot. I parked in the farthest possible corner.
In the cold, my little truck’s engine is hesitant to start. I watch the imperceptible movement of the temperature gauge through the cloud my breath makes in the air. I wrap my arms around myself. Being held makes my throat feel tight. I sit very still until the needle finally edges over the C onto the actual chart. Then I shift into reverse and pull out towards the open road, barely another car in sight.
[back on campus]
Walking along the road from my dorm onto main campus, I see a woman on her bicycle. She’s short and squat and reminds me of Dolores Umbridge. She teaches voice. I dread the thought of having to wave at her when we pass. I’m put off by her forced cheer. Her plastic happiness oozing over into the space around her like bubblegum pink acid, eating through everything and leaving behind bits of glitter that’ll never come out of the carpet. Thinking about her that way puts a putrid sickly feeling in my throat. I hate the feeling of hate. I hate her for causing it. I hate myself for hating her enough that she causes it. The cycle goes round and round like the wheels on her pale blue bicycle.
As we get nearer, I fear she might be waving, but then I realize she’s just wearing a scarf. It fwaps along as she rides, forced to trail behind her in the cool, damp morning whether it wants to or not. Poor thing. I’m relieved not to have to engage. I hate fake smiles and social etiquette, small talk and pretending to be nice. As we carry on toward each other, I avoid eye contact, only glancing up for the briefest moment when we are closest. She’s looking right at me. She contorts her face into a chin-wrinkling, neck-scrunching smile. Her gooey little grin takes me by surprise, and my traitor of a face reflects a forced smile right back at her.
As soon as she’s passed, I spit the expression out of my mouth, nearly gagging. A disgusted, hateful feeling spits up from my stomach. This is a lovely morning. My skin is alive in the air, fresh and chilly. The colors are vivid, the leaves doing their ridiculously beautiful Vermont fall thing. The clouds are draping their bodies over the hills in the distance like beautiful, chubby, happy women in oil paintings. I know all of this, but all I feel is something corrosive inside me. Rough and fragile, scraping like sandpaper against the insides of my ribs. Tearing into little pieces and fluttering into my feet.
As I veer around the corner with the road, I call my mom. When she answers, she sounds tired. I ask her how she is before she gets the chance to ask me.
She tells me about her upcoming week, her full roster of clients, a court date for a parking ticket.
I say, “Sounds stressful.”
She says, “Anyway, what’s up?”
I kick a pebble down the road in front of me. As I watch it skip over the cracks in the unkempt concrete, I think about saying that I feel bad. Maybe even how I feel bad. The pebble rolls to a stop.
“I had a minute walking to class,” I say, “Just wanted to say hi.”
She says, “Aw, that’s nice,” and she sounds a little better. She tells me to have a good day, and I hang up. When I get to the pebble I walk past it, leaving it behind.
[in the car]
On my way home from the grocery store, I don’t put on any music, and I can hear the engine. I get why all the car guys who drive manuals are so douchey about it. There’s something about knowing your vehicle so intimately—reading its emotions through the pedals, understanding its every desire and complaint through the sound of the engine—that makes you feel superior to all the idiots who just put the car in drive and go.
At the traffic light, I clutch in and roll to a stop. When I first bought my truck, a little white 2004 Nissan Frontier with a manual transmission, I didn’t yet know how to drive it. All I knew was this was my truck. I had to have it, and I’d learn once I did. Sometimes you have to push yourself right into the deep end. When I was younger, my dad’s technically-ex-but-still-kinda-girlfriend lived in an apartment complex with a pool. Sometimes he’d take me there over the summer. Other times we’d sneak into hotel pools. He taught me that if you walk through the lobby with confidence, no one questions you. I’ve been too scared to try it without him.
I was sitting on the side of the girlfriend-not-girlfriend pool one summer afternoon on my knees, peering into the deep water, when my dad snuck up behind me and pushed me in. The edge of the pool was gritty and concrete. Uneven and sharp. I came up in a vaguely bloody cloud, my shins totally skinned. I climbed out crying but quickly turned to revenge, pushing my kid hands against his slippery back. Trying to shove him in. When he finally fell, he pulled me to his chest, and we plunged together.
The car behind me honks. The light is green, streaks stabbing out around it in my blurred vision. I start driving again, trying to get my eyes to focus.
When I went to buy the truck, my partner at the time came with me since he could drive it and I couldn’t. After I signed all the papers and handed over the money I’d been saving up, we took it straight to a lake near my neighborhood, and I drove the slow street around and around until I was brave enough to try a real road. Now when I drive other people’s automatics, I stab my foot for a clutch to start them. My partner made a joke after a couple weeks that he was gonna get a manual too. “I can’t have a girlfriend who’s better at driving stick than me.” I asked why not. He said, “Cuz I’m a man, and I have a fragile ego.” We both laughed.
I think it’s a lot less funny now. Or a lot more. It’s hard to tell. We’re not together anymore. The truck and I are still going strong though. I named it Gromit after the dog. As in Wallace and.
When I pull into my spot in the gravel, I take a moment to turn the truck off. I always do, when we get to places. It’s a nice kind of moment. A quiet one where I listen to Gromit settle down after working hard. I clutch in and break, turn off the key, listen to the motor whir to a stop before I release the pedals and stomp on the parking brake. If you let the clutch go too soon, the gears catch and it stalls. I try to be gentle to Gromit. We take care of each other.
I pull the key from the transmission and fold my fingers around it. The teeth cut into my palm. I don’t move. My freezer foods are melting in the back seat. I stare out over the field through my windshield, smudged and full of bugs.
When I was seven years old, I stayed behind in my mom’s car. An old red, Subaru legacy hatchback. My mom disappeared through the front door at the end of the walkway. We’d been fighting, but she decided it was over. No one told my insides. They still had their weapons out. I was too skinny to fit an army inside me, but it lodged itself there anyway. Bones sharpened into swords; have you ever been punctured from the inside out? Your ribcage is the last one you suspect to turn on you. That’s why it hurts so much. I guess I was angry, but I never knew what that meant. Anger is an emotion for men, right? My dad was an angry kid. He pulled his shit together. His father wasn’t around. My father plays made up word games in the car and buys Whatchamacallit bars and lottery tickets at the gas station; he gives me the change, and I get to do the scratching. Quarters are the best for it. The carpet on the floor of his car was littered in the dust coating of those cards, falling away to reveal rarely-winning numbers. I didn’t care. He made it feel like a team effort. He and my mom are good teammates; they’re not a good couple. They’re friends now. The three of us go on family vacations to my great-grandmother’s neighborhood in Florida in the summers. We listen to stand-up comedy on the drive down. My mom and I go on long walks along the beach with our arms around each other. I used to hold onto her waist until I outgrew her. Now she holds my hips, and I put my arm over her shoulders, careful to move her beautiful curls out of the way first so I don’t pull them. My parents cook dinner together in the condo, playing music with the door open, salty vacation breeze pulled in by the sound. They never lived together. Not since before I could talk. They didn’t mean to make me, but they did mean to have me. I feel loved.
I feel loved, but no one told my insides when I was seven years old. Sitting in the front seat of the car watching the space where my mom didn’t say sorry to me.
I dug my nails into my forearm, but I never bled. I sank my teeth into my bicep, but I never tasted the iron. It was all needed elsewhere. Shields and sharp edges jabbing at my tendons. They don’t seem to know that the fight is over. That she didn’t mean it. I know that I didn’t. I’ll go inside and apologize. I’m not angry at her anyway. No one deserves my wrath except me. Who am I to deserve such a thing. I just want to get it out. Too bad I’m afraid of throwing up. In middle school I woke up every morning nauseous. I’d go into the bathroom off our kitchen and kneel by the toilet like maybe something would happen. It never did. I haven’t thrown up since I learned what curse words meant. I learned young. My mom has the mouth of a sailor, and I love her for it. Adults used to apologize to me for their language, and I would laugh at them. Imagine having that kind of confidence. Where did it go? My body kept getting longer, but somehow I ran out of room for it. Maybe it all sunk into my feet; I can barely reach them anymore. Sometimes I feel so far away from the ground that I think if I tripped, the fall might be far enough to kill me. I’d never jump on purpose.
A few summers ago, I was eating ice cream outside of the frozen custard shop on Merrimon Ave in my hometown. The sun kissed my skin as I leaned on my elbows in the soft grass. I was talking to one of my friends about her plans to travel after graduation. All I could feel was the numb cold of sugar on my tongue.
“I can’t wait to have that kind of freedom,” she said, “To see all those cool places and explore. It’s so exciting, you know?”
But I didn’t. All I could think was how I had forgotten the definition of that word. I said, “That’s great,” and the sweetness felt numb on my tongue.
[in the kitchen]
When I wake up, I lay corpse-like under the blankets. The covers are off kilter from each other, having shifted in the night. There’s a wrinkle in the sheet against my thigh, sensation tearing up my leg like a run in a pair of tights. I push all three layers off me and stand. Force them back to my liking, tuck them into the wall. When I turn, I can feel the cracks of the wood under my feet. I should be hungry. I try to convince myself I am. I want a smoothie, but I can’t have it because someone used the bullet blender and left it gritty. The blades plastered in blue-black. I don’t want to touch it. I have a shelf full of groceries but I can’t imagine eating anything warm. I guess I’ll make an egg. I pull on jeans and tromp down the stairs.
I find dirty dishes in the sink again. The cast iron is caked. Old booger, rusty semen, burnt cheese scraping across the black metal under a thin layer of water. Oil slick and swirling across the surface. You’re not supposed to let cast iron stay wet like that. It’ll need to be reseasoned.
Knives are dull and crusty, silverware clinking under plates and bowls with bloated old food clinging to the sides, scared of falling. In its terror it’s pissed itself. The whole kitchen smells. The white metal stove top is splattered in orange sauce, grimy at its edges. The burners smoke when you turn them on. They can’t seem to kick the habit. Everyone knows how addicting nicotine is. Too bad tobacco stains your teeth, hanging themselves rotten in sour gums.
I hope the perpetrator takes better care of their mouth than this room.
When it’s clean, I love the kitchen. Light spilling in the windows, delicious and sweet, refreshing and watery. Pouring ice cold lemonade on a burning summer day. Floor tiles gleaming like they just got to take their BMWs through the car wash. Total tooth smile. They use whitening strips, and you can tell. I love the way a sharp knife cuts through the stem of a head of broccoli with purpose. An ax in a forest. When I was a kid I used to pretend to be a fairy, making all four seasons with my tiny broccoli trees. Spring, summer, bite off all the leaves, ranch dip winter, repeat. I love the way my teeth crunch into bell peppers like stop lights. They’re mostly water. I’ve never been so hydrated in my life. I like to press my palm into the clean smooth metal of a skillet as it heats up to test if it’s warm. I’ve never burnt myself yet. When they don’t stick, and you flip an egg, its flattened belly turning up to you like you’re the sun. You’ll never see something so fulfilling. It will make you want to be a parent someday.
And then the kids with their sticky fingers will forget to clean up after themselves. Someone has left dirty dishes in the sink again.
I want to take them out and break them. I want to take them in my hands one at a time. Grime slick and thick under my fingertips. I would hold them away from me, arms outstretched. I want to let go. In my head, they hit the tiles, hard as teeth. The floor devours them. Crunching glass like the ice cubes at the end of my drink. I can feel the shards against my bare ankles. Feel the crash, skitter, glittery and shimmering against my ear drums. Did you know that the shape of your ear is more unique than your fingerprint. Next time you commit a crime, make sure you’re not listening.
I can see them all shatter. Every cup plate pot pan spoon spork fork knife. My legs catch the debris. In the flesh. Sticking out like hood ornaments. Brand new bloody streak paint job. Better go through the car wash so it’s gleaming. I drop to my knees. Bones grinding into dust against the hard floor. I pummel the mess with my fists, knuckles cracking. Should’ve worn more lotion. The tiles finish chewing with their bright white teeth and the floor swallows. Licks its lips and leaves the room clean.
[on the phone]
Outside, my fingertips harden in the cold air, thumping against the smooth glass of the phone screen as I dial my mom’s number. I can feel the ridges of the tree’s body against my back as I lean into it, listening to the dial tone.
She picks up. “Hey beebs.”
I tip my head back. My hair catches in the grooves of the bark as I stare up through the bare winter branches to the pale sky.
After a moment, she says, “How are you?”
I say, “Remember when I kicked through the windshield of your car?”
She laughs. “I remember.”
“I used to feel so…” I try to think, but I can’t. I give up on a word, “After we’d fight. We were parked at grandma and grandpa’s.”
“I got right back in the car and drove away,” she says. “Had to cool off. I was actually just reminded about this the other day. Grandma sent me a picture of a big construction paper apology card you made me. I forgot all about it. She found it while she was cleaning out the shed. You wrote that you were so sorry in giant letters. I think you were scared I wasn’t gonna come back.” She laughs again. “Your handwriting was so wonky and cute.”
I say, “Mom.”
And she gets it. She goes quiet, the air changed through the line.
I say, “I keep feeling like I’m gonna break things.” I say, “I threw a spatula across the kitchen.”
She doesn’t answer for a second.
I say, “It hit a cutting board, leaned up by the sink. Made a loud sound.”
“Oh, my baby,” she says, voice strong and soft. Like everyone is equal and safe, “What’s going on?”
I start to cry. It’s wet and hiccupy. If I were a little kid there would be snot streaming down my face.
“I’m sorry, little bug. I didn’t know you’d been feeling this way.”
I press my head harder into the tree bark. I can feel the pattern digging into my scalp.
“It’s okay,” I say.
She listens to me cry.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No, I just.” I take some breaths. Raspy and non-geometrical. “I needed you to know.”
I breathe in sharply and hold, needing the quiet. My vision is blurry. The tree behind me is solid. The cold on my hands is cracking my knuckles open again.
“Okay,” she says, “I hear you.”
When we’ve hung up, I rise gingerly to my feet and cross the grass to Gromit. In the driver’s seat, I start the engine and watch the gauge. When it climbs above the C, I clutch in and shift into reverse. I sit with both pedals pressed to the floor.
I’m ready to move. I don’t know where to go.
I turn the truck off again. Taking care to keep the clutch pressed in long enough to listen to the whirring engine come to a stop. The silence settles in.
–
Isabella Serene is a writer and musician who graduated with a BA from Bennington College. She enjoys climbing things (trees, rocks, buildings).
© 2024, Isabella Serene
Halfway Down the Stairs 