I stand on our large, navy doormat with an insignia letter P like I did on a hot high school night with liquor on my breath way after curfew. It was then when I would await Mother’s angry face at the window. It is the same now. A daughter awaiting the unexpected… My hand roofed over my eyes, I peer through the glass for any sign of her holding my anticipation by the balls. Nothing...only an elegant interior brimming with antiques. Balancing Ryan on a hip, I reach up and hammer the iron knocker a few times BANG, BANG, BANG! I wait. Nothing. My heart is marching in my ears. BANG, BANG, BANG! Breathe. I want another cigarette. Something moves… She emerges from the corridor all black. She waves cutesy, smiling. My grin is gigantic; I am almost dancing at the window. "There’s Grandmere!" Very close—if it wasn’t for the glass separating us—I could touch her. She disarms the alarm and swings the door open.
"Hello…" she cheers, but then seems to be taken over by a pernicious force. I am not the person she thought—possibly Joline, my friend—my new bobbed hair has deceived her! My body is shutting down. Her eyes are the invectives in control; they are vibrating like boiling black marbles. "Elizabeth! What are you doing here?" she growls. I am slapped by a blast of evil cognizance, but proceed under her glowering cast inside.
"Mother, I came to see you…" I speak to her rationally and move to hug her, but her face is frozen in demented savagery as she shrieks away.
"NO! I DIDN’T INVITE YOU!" Her ripping yell envelopes me like a throat devouring down, squeezing tighter, killing off my breath. The door slams, BANG behind her. The house reverberates. It is suddenly darker. I beg to speak, but sound is caught in my throat.
"Mother, please…how are you?" I clench a smile. She shrieks farther back. The house clutches me and roots me in its presence. I am taken, trapped, and minimized, for the entryway, the Oriental rug where we stand, the walls and antiques extend out of proportion further and further away.
"HOW DARE YOU COME HERE UNANNOUNCED!" she rages, spitting through her teeth. "I demand to know why you are HERE?"
But I cannot answer her. My insides burn as I am caught in evaluation and horror, surveying her from head to toe. Her blond bouffant has grown out into long pale wisps dangling off her shoulders. Her face is done, but her mouth lies flimsy and cracked, smeared hideously with magenta lipstick. Waxy red remnants lie on her face, and flecks of skin spike out from her lips like a cactus. Talking or listening, her chapped mouth makes sticky noises and her teeth are clotted with a yellow cud. The plunging neckline of her velvet gown reveals her bones, which sharply protrude out of her chest like a starving bird. Her movie star features are sickly, sunken, and have been thieved away by some terrifying neglect.
"Mother, I came to see you…to see how you are doing…" My mouth is shaking noticeably.
"I’M JUST FINE!" she rails. Everything continues to grow darker around us. I smell a faint chemical odor emanating off her figure. "You are not staying here!" she hisses.
"I know, I…"
"I KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN UP TO, ELIZABETH! SOME VERY SICK THINGS! AND YOU WILL FACE THE AFTERMATH, DEAR ONE!" she screams spitting at me. "TRUST ME! YOU WILL NOT GET OFF EASY…HE WILL SEEK SEVERE, SEVERE VENGEANCE ON YOU YOUNG LADY!"
"Mother, please! PLEASE…we used to talk about everything…we used to be best friends!"
"JUST GO! GET OUT OF HERE! I don’t want to see you now…you have arrived unannounced and I forbid that kind of indecency! Just…get out…go away, NOW!" she shouts moving towards me but hesitating at the same time. As if I smell of a putrid odor myself, or that my skin could burn her, as if I could kill her with my very presence.
"Fine…" I say. My voice is seven years old. I am terrified of her again; my neck is slippery with perspiration. Ryan is mute, almost frozen on my hip. The air is suffocating. I step toward the door; I see the shiny handle. Soon we’ll be out…soon we’ll be away…just let me outside! Destruction in my chest—pestilent, relentless. Head bowed, shielding it from Mother’s possible violent blows. Her bony hand clicks the brass handle and moves the dark door open. White light shrouds the entryway. Her yellow eyes squint. She grimaces in a deranged viciousness.
I can see the car. Over the threshold. Another step…just another… "Oh! And Elizabeth?" she snarls behind me. I turn. Her face screaming white. "…DON’T HURT THE BABY!" I hold my nephew tight. The orange trees melt; my world smears. I am nauseated and vibrating in endless fear. Her eyes are all over me, studying me from head to toe, my gate, my clothes, my hair, my skin…it all revolts her; her daughter of misdeeds in the same room with her—she could just die.
Balancing Ryan anxiously, I secure him into his seat and round the hood unsteadily and slam myself in the car for safety. My shaky hands seem to be someone else’s; I ponder them like aliens attached to my arms—fidgeting, forcing the key into the ignition…fingers void of any dexterity. Breath choking. "Come on…COME ON…PLEASE! PLEASE!" My face breaks apart. Tears spew. Her figure recreated over and over opening the door. A white head up against the car window! Hands scratching at glass. PLEASE! It fires up. "Okay…okay…okay…" Ryan is jumpy from my jerks and winded breaths. He knows. He starts to whimper. "It’s okay…sweetie…we’re going for a ride…we’ll see lots of big trucks…"