The Daily Write: Those Voices (August 21, 2013)

Writing Prompt: Those Voices

There's things I just can't say out loud, or even write, for fear of having them come to pass. Or for fear of stating something so happy that the opposite happens next and bad rains down upon me and my family. Which is to say, I was thinking today about how my daughter has had a mother for an entire 7 years with no interruption except for my occassional business trip to Europe, or the Philippines or NYC. I was almost envious. How strange to be envious of my daughter for having me.

 

I didn't have a me much when I was a kid. My mom split when I was 4. Just took off one day with her old man. She left me and my little brother at daycare. Didn't pick us up. We had all been living together with  my aunt, her husband and her weird friend. Or rather, I think that was the era when my mom lived at that house with all of us in the backyard in a tent with two men who were good friends. Wayne was the darker skinned and bigger Afro'd of the two. He had a coffee house with stained glass and wooden geometric light fixtures hanging down from the ceiling beams on rugged chain. The wood was dark like Wayne, and the stained glass lit from within. He and Carl wore dashikis as was the proud African heritage style of the late 60s. My mom probably wanted to wear them, but didn't. But who can remember such details?
 
I do remember her not showing up. I remember crying wishing for her to hold me. I remember tapping on a black and white television screen trying to get her to turn around and look at me. And later, after she resurfaced, but when we had been moved by my father to live with him, I remember him having me dial her on our push button phone to tell her I started my period. I was deeply humiliated and when she congratulated me I wanted to scream.
 
I don't know what it's like to have a mother. Not really.

I feel sick writing this.