One of my favorite feelings is also one that I dread the most. It’s getting in the car with my mom. It’s getting in the car with my mom on a winter’s day while we drive home and the sun falls in through the windshield to aid in the warming of the car. I would settle back into my seat, the seat belt buckled in and sitting snugly across my chest and my winter coat. At the time, it was a two hour drive back home, from Boston to Maine. It was a two hour drive of talking, or not talking, but mostly talking.
I loved driving home with my mom. I would tell her all the stupid, funny, annoying things I had on my mind. I told her about my awful roommate that would do arts and crafts in the room at one in the morning. When I had gone out with friends, I told her what we did and didn’t do. I would also tell her about how Anthony, my boyfriend, was doing (he lives in St. Louis). I’d tell her about my worries, like tests, professors, and my future. She’d give me advice or tell me about her experiences with school and life.
And then came the part I loathed. I could always feel it coming, like a storm in the distance. Our conversation would always start out light but we could feel it leaning towards a more somber tone. We would insert little laughs, delaying the inevitable, before the conversation died completely. That was the intermission, the point where my mom geared up for the next topic. Internally, I would always sigh because I knew what was coming.
It was always one of several things.
- My younger brother, Jesse.
- My youngest brother, Ronin, and my oldest brother, Alec.
- My step-dad, Marut (often accompanied by Jesse or visa versa).
- Money
Jesse was often the most talked about subject. She’d tell me all of the awful things he had said and done. One time she told me how he had gotten up in her face (about pot, probably) and how he was practically spitting on her while calling her derogatory names. He had once even wound his arm up as if getting ready to hit her (he wouldn’t win that fight). Another time, she told me about how he broke into a house with friends. She’d tell me about how he went to juvie, or how he had been put on medication that didn’t work, or how he smoked pot non-stop, or how he hated Alec because Alec had autism, or how he hated his dad (my step-dad) and everyone else.
Ronin and Alec, both with autism, were next. My mom would tell me about how Alec kicked the caretaker’s daughter square in the face because he was upset about something or how he attacked Ronin, punching and biting him, in my mom’s shower because Ronin had been agitating him by screaming at the top of his lungs. She’d say that Ronin loves to get on Alec’s nerves by screaming because he thought it was funny. The fact that Ronin and Alec weren’t getting everything they needed as also a well worn topic. The states we had lived in just didn’t provide enough services for autistic people, especially autistic adults. She’d tell me how worn down she was.
Marut often floated up in our conversations. He and Jesse were the same person, which meant they clashed against each other like no other. They would get in fights over trivial things but the fights would exploded into who-can-say-the-most-vile-thing-they-could-think-of to each other, and my mom would be caught in the middle. If she defended Jesse, she would get yelled at by Marut for not having his back. If she defended Marut, Jesse would yell that he hated her, all the while Alec and Ronin would be screaming at each other in the background. She’d tell me these things, as if I didn’t remember them before I went to college. She’d say to me that she was tired.
Money was a never ending issue. I would be told about how much back rent they owed, for the house and the business. I listened as she said that they were in so much debt and they just couldn’t catch up. She’d say that they couldn’t even turn the heat up beyond 60 degrees, despite it being in the single or negative digits, because they couldn’t afford to pay for heat. She said that she was sorry that she couldn’t help me pay for books for school and that she couldn’t pay more for school tuition. When my parent’s had a car repossessed, it prevented them from getting a Parent-PLUS Loan, which almost forced me to drop out of college altogether. She said she was sorry about that too. We had to pay for some of my tuition out of pocket, which was always more than what we had. She’d say to me that she wished she could run away.
We would fly down the highway, barreling towards home to relive all of the stories she told me because they always repeat themselves. The trees would be a ash brown blur as the stood naked on the side of the road and the sky was often a dead gray as the sun had disappeared as we headed north. But at least the car was warm, and for a brief moment after we would leave my school, we would be laughing and happy, actively ignoring our suffocating home life.
Pendulum Swings 