“Make things worse! How is that even possible? I won’t tell anyone, at least for now.”
“We can talk later. Keep your sunglasses when you leave the house, ok?”
It was already late in the afternoon when I closed the car door, and she drove down the street. I admired, for the first time, the front of our house as if I had never lived there. I left this morning with simple questions in my head and came back with bitter certainties. I lost my family references, my world references. My mom heard the Beetle’s engine noise and showed up at the door coming in my direction. I forgot to tell her that after school I wasn’t coming home.
“Lola!!! Why didn’t you tell me you were with Eva? If you get lost your father will kill me, I don’t want to have other problems with him.”
“I’m sorry… mom.” Calling her mom just told sounded weird to me.
“Did your eye got worse? Let me see…”
I forgot that to her I was sick. I hadn’t even remembered about my purple eye.
I was like an orphan. Okay, she wasn’t the best of moms, but this news made a hole in my heart, it was an emptiness, a coldness that nothing could warm up. A few scenes that had always bothered me about my family life started coming back into my memory, this explained a lot of things. The clear preference for Rodrigo, the reaction about birth questions in Florida, even jealousy of my father’s time with me. My life was upside down.
“The allergy is better. I’m going to my room. I want to rest for a little while.”
“I need your help with dinner. You complain while having everything at hand, me at your age, I worked at two different places to help at home. Just stay away from Rodrigo, I don’t want him to get this thing you have in the eye. We have to show it to your father.”
Of course, each scene like this made things more obvious, a mother would never treat her daughter like that. How would my real mom have been? Who was she?
I felt a little dirty, hiding so many things from Jessica. But thinking it over, she was lying to me too, she knew I wasn’t her daughter. I went up to my room trying to organize my ideas in my head. The last thing I was going to do right now would be to rest. I sat in front of my dressing table, facing the mirror’s reflection. I needed colored contacts urgently. Just a few hours before, I had criticized my father for the theater of a life he was living, faking an eye color he didn’t have, and now I was doing it too. My father!!! I know when my mom told him about my eye and he saw me like this, he would know everything! I didn’t know what he would do to me or to my aunt. My stomach twisted. He was the one who caused all this, he is responsible for the chaos that entered my life at the age of seventeen. I thought of running away, but where would I go? I had to face him even if I didn’t have the courage to. I didn’t have a clue where to escape to. I was lost in my thought making up some catastrophic possibilities.
When I noticed my room was already bluish because of the night arriving through the window. I opened the door without a word. My mom would be finishing giving Rodrigo his food in the kitchen with Koda lying beside her, my father hadn’t arrived yet. The anguish increased with each hour banging on the living room clock, I wanted time to stop.
It was 7:00 p.m. I went to get a glass of water (my mouth was dry like a desert) before he got home. I saw mom running her finger on a book page in the living room, saying to herself that she needed to find out if it was genetic or contagious, while she kept the baby in a corner of the room (as far away as possible from me). When I passed back to the stairs, Koda watched everything from the front door, Rodrigo throw himself from the chair into my direction. He was fascinated with my purple eye, opened a wide smile to me as if I was a new toy in front of him. At least someone was having fun with this.
8:00 p.m. I kept myself burrowed in my room, but my ears were on the outside, waiting for the signal of a car parking. My legs ached with the pressure of waiting. I didn’t have the guts to destroy the necklace before seeing my father’s reaction to this eye. Depending on what he tells me, I could give it back to him to soften my judgment. I was imagining all the possible catastrophic options when he got home. He could get furious or have a heart attack, could hit me, break the house down, kick me out, or even kill me. None seemed like a good option. Every single thing that came into my mind was minus a nail in my fingers, I bit all of them. Meanwhile, my mom walked from one side to the other in the living room. It wasn’t only me who waited for him. Where was this man anyway?
The clock said 9:15 p.m. It was Friday. I heard the engine of his Volvo turn off. My father had finally got home. I felt my heart in my jugular. I thought, it is now, my Gosh! I ran to my room door and locked it. It was my first impulse. My thigh muscles shook uncontrollably, I was cold. Then I thought it over, I couldn’t run away, not at this hour. I took a deep breath, fixed my bangs, and opened the door at once. I heard the front door slamming and voices came from the living room. Koda was excited at my father’s arrival, and then suddenly came up to lay in my bed. If the reception wasn’t good even for him, imagine how it was going to be with me?
Rodrigo was already sleeping like an angel in his room. Only my parents were in the living room. My father got home by stumbling on his legs, he could barely stand. I watched it from the top of the stairs, hidden. I didn’t have the guts to go down. I was so nervous I could hear my heart beating inside my ears.
“Lars, why did you do this? I asked so many times for you to come home early, we have an issue to talk about…”
“Leave me alone! I’m… tired. I think I threw up on my shirt.”
“Lola has a problem, I think she…”
“ENOUGH! I don’t want to know, leave me alone, I already told you so!!! Or, I will vomit on you too! I am tired of these problems. I want to go to sleep. Come on, help me upstairs.”
My father was drooling more than Rodrigo does while eating, his dignity must have been left at the bar. His brown eyes were out of focus. He leaned on my mom’s shoulder, she swallowed her tears in and came upstairs to their room. I ran to mine. I stood behind the door half open watching them go by, while I tried to control my fast breath. I heard my mom putting him to bed, he laid down like a potato bag. She closed the door right after that and came in my direction, whispering, “Today your father is in no condition to talk. This type of eye disease, he had it too, tomorrow you two can talk. I just want you to keep your distance from Rodrigo or his things. I don’t know what I’ll do if he catches it too. Tomorrow, when conversation is possible, he will explain it to you. Good night…”
I breathed, relieved for escaping at least for now, but how would tomorrow be? I couldn’t escape for too long.
My mom was devastated each time he came home like that, it was the delusion of a perfect marriage, that she sustained for people outside the house. I wanted to throw in her face all the coldness with me, vomit all the tears that were kept in my throat for years, but it wasn’t time yet, this was going to happen anyway. My family outcome was settled for tomorrow, in other words, it was another wakeful night.
I counted around fifteen times the number of stars on my celling. Clarity took long enough to show its face in my window, but at the end, it was a new day.
Dad snored so loud I could hear him through the walls. I opened my door a little bit and smelled coffee coming from the kitchen, where my mom was setting the table. Shortly after that, she came up to my room, she carried a bag of clothes and Rodrigo’s suitcase.