The thing is, relationships are complicated. Relationships with everyone are complex. I knew my mum for twenty-two years and, to this day, I still have no idea who she is as a person.
She's angry all the time. Like, seriously, she never smiles. But then there are those moments when her friends come over and they make a home on the couches in the sitting room, Scandal or something playing on the flat screen, cigarette smoke quivering up against the ceiling in a dense tobacco cloud while she laughs with them, like really laughs.
These moments are alien to me. Tiny pockets of humanity reserved only for her friends, her sisters… Lovers
Mum never smiles. But she's always laughing when her friends come over—floating around the kitchen, touching the backs of people who come and go throughout my childhood with hands that look exactly like mine—round fingernails, discoloured knobs for knuckles like the fatty bits off of bones. I could almost see myself in her.
Despite my childhood, I could be that person (blithe and emotionally responsive). I imagine myself as her: smiling, laughing, kissing, and holding the people around me. I'm pretty and everyone wants to be around me. All of the time. In this version of my mother, she laughs with my daughters.
Relationships are complicated: Transition periods are as painful as pressing an angry red pimple between your thumb and index finger and hoping for the best. The consequences of those relationships are the blemishes that remain. I don't need to tell you this.
I cry about it all the time. I always tell my friends, "I don't want my mother to love me. I know she does. Telling me she loves me is easier than admitting that she likes me. I think this is because she doesn't. She's always complaining about how difficult I am."
The mood is light and everyone is nursing a drink and the lights in the bar are low. An ebbing neon purple, something ambiguous and sensual. They always laugh it off and tell me that I'm very dramatic. I get that a lot: Oh, you're so dramatic. And idealistic—it's almost adorable. I respond, "I'm a Leo."
That puts them off immediately. My friends don't like it when I speak astrology. "You're into that stuff? I don't even know what I am. Like an Aries, I think," my one friend would always say. The kind of friend I made through another friend. Someone I never talk to, but probably follow on social media because of our mutuals. A friend of a friend.
I'm in bed, blankets pulled up to my chin and I'm doom-scrolling through Facebook community posts while I lay on my back in the dark, arms stretched towards the ceiling to hold my phone out of my face. That friend posts a birthday announcement—he's an Aries. People who are sceptical about these things always know their Zodiac sign. It's the irony of it all.
Oh, you're really an Aries. How weird. In moments like these, when things speak to me, I feel compelled to act upon the invitation. I tell myself that he won't even see my comment like everyone else does. Then check my phone ten times while I'm in class.
"Are you expecting a call?" my friend asks. "You're literally checking your phone like a hundred times per second."
It's always when you think you're so discrete when you're the most obvious. Really. "What? No. Just wondering when this class will end."
"True, hey," she says. She tucks her chin into the crook of her elbow, melting into the desk. The lecturer drones.
I'm a simple person. I lie to the people in my life and expect them to play the game with me. They must take my word for it—even if they can read my true emotions on my face.
Really, I honestly don't know a lot about that stuff. It's a bit phoney. But maybe you can teach me some time, You know. Since it's your thing. I get his message when I'm back at my house. I read it once. Then turn off my Wi-Fi connection and lock my phone. I toss it somewhere on my bed.
"A high-quality woman doesn't wait for a man to text her back. She commands the room," the flat screen buzzes in the background—some Feminist podcast. I think it's meant to be ironic.
I take a bath and, by this time at night, I lay on my stomach, wrapped in a damp towel while I formulate my response. Cute. Seriously. Like, even if I wanted that, I wouldn't waste my time on someone like you. You seem the type to convince me why my beliefs are skewed. That's not really what I'm looking for. I'm left on read.
I don't hate my mother.
There's this understanding between us where I'm meant to turn a blind eye when she tells people how much she sacrificed to raise me.
"You know, these kids… They don't understand how much we had to go through to ensure they are where they are today. There was nothing about oh, this is too hard! We had to do everything we could so that our kids could have something to eat," she says to her friends. It's another one of those nights where they sit in the living room and talk for hours. The air is thick with cigarette smoke and the damp scent of Summer rain is blowing in through the mesh on the front gate. Windows wide open. Fancy Christmas curtains bellowing.
At a time like this, you don't interrupt their conversation. My mother habitually spoke about me like I wasn't in the room. It was my duty to keep quiet or nod when I was addressed.
I'm lurking in the doorway of my childhood bedroom, eyes spying on the kitchen. There is no such thing as dinner when Mum's friends come over to visit. "I always say: it's every man for himself," she'd tell her friends. They laugh on cue. It's all-natural and comfortable in the prepackaged manner of some TV sitcom.
Things are so ideal when other people are around. Food is boiling on the stove (a vegetable stew with mutton pieces, potato cubes and fresh spices). Instead of serving her guests tea or coffee, I'm sent across the street to the tuckshop to buy a two-litre Coca-Cola. Naturally, I don't get to have a glass for my effort. I don't dare ask for pocket money either.
"I mean, how old are they now?" one friend asks.
"The youngest is turning twenty."
"Oh, no! They're at the age where they can cook for themselves. Seriously. I told you not to baby them when they were younger. Do you see now?"
Mum's face hardens. "I don't baby them. But I'm not letting anyone mess in my kitchen. They don't know how to clean up after themselves."
In between stepping into my Converse to go to the tuckshop and re-entering the house, I've managed to sneak into the kitchen. I'm quiet about it, making sure not to interrupt their conversation. That's my only job. And it is something I've perfected.