I am twenty-one. Five years ago, my mother brought her second husband into our home. From the very start, something about him felt twisted and wronghe worked as a janitor, and on his arrival, he appeared with two battered suitcases. Instantly, he began ordering me about, trying to act as though the very walls listened to him. I couldn’t stand him. What on earth did my mother see in this man? His wages were pitiful, barely enough to get by, and much of what he scraped together went in maintenance payments for his ex-wife.
We never got onnot even from the start. I kept quiet at first, floating through those early days as if underwater. Eventually, though, the arguments begansharp, echoing quarrels that seemed to leave odd, impossible stains on the hallway wallpaper. Once I finished school, I entered a university to study medicinemiraculously, I was given a place on a scholarship. Being a doctor, that was my childhood wish, something I felt was always just out of reach, like the glint of coins at the bottom of a well. I worked hard at my studies, though the medical faculty often felt like a maze in a dream, corridors twisting forever, lessons never ending.
And then, about half a year ago, he began accusing me of being a burden. Youre grown up now, yet you loaf around on your mothers back, hed say. We have to feed you, clothe you, buy your shoesI had a job at your age. He suggested, with the clumsy logic of dream beings, that I ought to bring money into the house, that my studying was a luxury, not a necessity. It got worsemy mother began to echo his words. She tried to guide me, gently but insistently, as though prodding a sheep towards a gate.
She said, Maybe you could find a part-time job. It’s not easy for us, you know. Were not made of stone. The other evening, he declared that all grown-up children ought to live apart from their parents, as if that were a universal truth you could read on a playing card. His words were strange, hanging in the room like fog. I stared at my mother, hoping shed contradict him. But she was silenther silence was agreement.
Later, I drifted to my room, through air as thick as treacle. The next day, my mother approached me with her voice trembling, fractured into shards. It’s all so difficult. I’m forced to choose. We row all the time. You’re always raising your voiceI want to live in peace. Hes right: youre an adult now. It’s time for you to move out. You have a month to find a place. There was no apology, only this decree.
It felt impossible, like being told by a dragon to leave your own castle in a storybook. Never, in any waking or sleeping world, had I thought my mother would one day ask me to leaveto let me get lost in the clouds. I cannot forgive her. Not ever.
