Tasia Siereveld

4-5-15

Turning Point

In Search of lost time

For the 5th day in a row my mother had refused to get out of bed. She said she was “sick,” but even at 10 I knew she wasn’t the chicken soup and stuffy nose kind of sick, it was the other kind. It was an illness of the mind, and of the spirit, and her episodes were growing ever more frequent those past few years. For instance, when flight 175 crashed into the twin towers, I guess you could say she took it hard. The end of days is coming! She announced to my sister and I on our arrival home from school. She was certain that in a matter of days the world would be plunged into chaos, and that the apocalypse was nigh. We spent the entire afternoon hiding under the bed praying. It wasn’t until my father came home and found us that she could be calmed enough to venture out. When she wasn’t prophesying events of biblical proportions or finding demons in our ceramic decor, she was going on compulsive shopping sprees or in some cases just plain forgetting she had children to be home for. On a particularly rainy day I arrived home to an empty and locked house; I learned that picking a lock isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. My father always tried to talk away the delusions, curb the erratic behavior, but he worked long hours, and to be honest, I think his patience had been wearing thin. So he came home later every night, and she slept longer every day.

The following friday was typical of Washington in October; the sky was hanging low, the fat gray clouds heavy with rain. I was leaning my head against the school bus window, day dreaming about a weekend shut up in my room reading, trying to escape the feelings of unease that had settled into every room of my house. I leaned my head against the window and traced shapes in the condensation on the glass. I would be 11 in a couple days, but I doubted much improvement would come from the addition of another year.

As the bus rounded the corner and pulled up to my stop, I saw an obscured figure standing on my front porch. I cleared a patch in the mist on the window so I could see clearly. It was my dad, home from work early. I found this so unusual that it disturbed me, and a lump that I could not swallow back formed in my throat.

I stepped off the bus cautiously, and took my time walking, afraid of the news I would receive upon reaching the porch. My little sister on the other hand, skipped, as merrily as you please, all the way home. She was never the most perceptive child, and tended to see the joy in every situation, rather than the grim reality that often stared us in the face.

“Daddy!” she squealed with glee, and jumped into our fathers arms.

“My Emma-loo bug!” he said. He forced a smile just for her as he lifted her into a hug. I on the other hand, got a different look entirely, one that said I have something to tell you, and it isn’t happy news.

After Emily was set up with a popsicle and a rerun of Arthur my dad told me to follow him out to the garage. Once out in the musty dimly lit carport, that for some reason or another my dad deemed suitable for father daughter chat, I felt the tension mount in my chest. My imagination invented a variety of horrific scenarios that could have warranted such an ominous welcome home. My mind went back to the image of the my parents bedroom door, which I had noticed on the way to the garage was hanging open for the first time in a week. The room, had been empty.

I was staring down at my tennis shoes, wondering why my dad hadn’t said anything yet, when I braved a glance in his direction. I saw for the first time in my life tears forming in his eyes, but he quickly composed himself and looked straight at me.

“Your mom,” he started, “your mom has left us.” I let the breath that I was holding go. I knew that I should have wanted to cry, but instead a wave of relief washed over me, and only a small twinge of guilt followed it.

“Where did she go?” I asked, as if I was asking what was for dinner.

“I don’t know.” he said. “Her note didn’t say.” I nodded, but I still couldn’t really comprehend. This wasn’t supposed to happen in normal happy families, I thought. I felt the delayed tears begin to arrive, and started to sniffle.

“Hey,” my dad, said softly, and he bent down to hold my face in his hands. “I know things haven’t been easy lately, but I promise you, we will be ok. We’re gonna start over, and we’re gonna be happy.” He kissed a tear off my cheek, like he did when I was little. “I’m sorry you have to grow up so fast Tasia.” I wasn’t sure what he meant at the time, but he was right, with him working full time, and a sister who was kind but unable to dedicate herself to a task for more than a few minutes, many of the responsibilities of a second parent fell to me. But he was right about something else too, after a lot of adjusting, and some healing, we were happy. It wasn’t so much the absence of my mother that changed the course of my life, but the newfound presence of my father. He redoubled his efforts as a parent, pushing us to study, making sure we were clean and had a warm meal every night, goals my mother could not always accomplish. It was years before we learned our new roles, but I had what I had always longed for, stability. We never quite achieved “normal”, but we did achieve a quite unique, but very happy family.