2007, Winnipeg, Canada

By Elizabeth Denny

I’m watching Family Feud, and dinner is on the stove. I can smell it, and I want to help, but she is too frustrated and needs me out of her way.

She tells me that she can’t hear the show, so I turn it up as loud as I think I need to. She says to forget it, to just tell her when the Fast Money part comes on.

I don’t hear the host’s next question because there’s a big crash in the kitchen, and I know that she’s either trying to pull a pan out of that drawer in the stove or put one in.

Instead of taking them all out, she tries to force her way around them. She feels “too fucking tired and weak to take them all out and put them all back in again, dammit.” Then she’s saying “sonofabitchfuckingwhore,” and I wonder if I should offer to help again or just steer clear.

She asks me what the survey question was, and I freeze because I don’t know. The pots were crashing too loud when the question came on, but I don’t tell her that – that will sound like I’m blaming her. I just say “I don’t know,” and she says “forget it.”

She comes in and watches Fast Money, then goes back to the kitchen and yells again: “Ohforfucksakesjesuschrist.”

The rice burned to the pan, and she says, really low, “Fuckinjesusfuckinuselessfuck, I’m so fucking stupid.” Somehow, I am going to be responsible for this. She doesn’t say it, but I feel it.

We have salad with our pork chops and a little bit of rice, but she’s mad because it tastes terrible, and she snaps all sarcastically, “Oh, this gross rice I have to eat, poor me,” and I tell her that’s not what I’m thinking at all, but she doesn’t listen. She just barks that the little bit of burnt stuff won’t kill me, and I say, in my head, “But I wasn’t even complaining.”

I feel so bad for her because all she was trying to do was make a nice dinner, and now she looks like she can’t swallow because she’s trying not to cry. I don’t want to cry, either, because I know she’ll think I feel tortured, having to eat the black part of the rice.

Later, she starts to do the dishes, and I remind her that it’s my turn, but she says to me, “No, no … I didn’t do mine yesterday, so I might as well do them.”

Now I’m confused. Should I insist on doing them because it is really my turn, and I just want her to relax, or will she think I’m trying to parent her again? If I calmly agree to let her do them, will she be pissed off and think I don’t care that she’s stressed out and needs a break? So I just stand there … and stand there … and stand there.

“Do you want to do them?” she asks, finally, and I say, “Yes,” even though I, of course, don’t want to. Who wants to do dishes, anyway? I say, “I don’t know why, but I kind of feel like doing them,” and I’m very cheery in my voice, if not anywhere else. So she stands down and lets me take over.

She goes into the living room and watches Millionaire, and once in a while gives me a shout like, “You OK in there?” or, “Need any help?” but I tell her I’m OK. A while later, she yells at me, “Thanks for doing the dishes. That was really nice of you, sweetie,” and I smile, relieved. Then she asks me to bring her some tea on my way back into the living room, so I take a few minutes and do that.

I bring her tea, but it’s too full and really hot, and it dribbles on her hand. She says, “For fuck sakes, you’d think you’d know by now that it would spill if you filled it up too much.” And I apologize and tell her I didn’t mean to make it that full, so she wipes her hand on her pants and says “Thank you” very quietly.

When she’s done with her tea, she looks at me and says she’s sorry. She’s just tired of being tired all the time for no damn reason, and she’s not mad at me – really – she’s mad at herself.

I nod as usual, and we watch a bit more TV, until she starts to drift off. Every time I try to talk to her or ask her something, she says, “What?!” like she’s spitting at me. I don’t know if I should continue talking or just say, “Nothing.” I know it bothers her when I start to say something and then I don’t finish, but at the same time, I woke her up, and she’ll be really pissed off if I woke her up for nothing.

She’s so fucking tired, and she knows everyone thinks she’s fucking lazy, so she supposes she better not sleep too much, or she won’t sleep tonight, and then she won’t make it through her workday tomorrow. And is it a fucking crime if she sleeps? For chrissakes, what is it now?

I have no idea what to do, so I stay quiet, and she says, “What?!” like she’s spitting again, and I see her teeth clenching, and this time she opens her eyes and looks at me. “What?” she says. “Are you going to finish, or are you going to wait ’til I start falling asleep before you start talking again?”

Then she hauls herself up and stumbles to the kitchen and grabs a glass. She fills it with water and drinks it down and fills it up and drinks it down and fills it up and drinks it down again. Her face is swollen, and I know she’s sick because she’s teetering. She’s not drunk.

There’s something else wrong with her, wrong with her blood, she says. It’s too hard to explain, she says, and the doctors don’t know why anyway. “Dammit, I’m nauseous, maybe dehydrated. Dammit.” She’s just sick like this a lot, and she’s angry with the doctor who doesn’t understand what it feels like to walk around like you’ve been hit by a truck all day. And she hates that the house is messy. She hates everything.

She sits back down on the couch, straight up instead of leaning back, opening her eyes wide and rubbing her hands back and forth over her face and saying, “I better not fall asleep again.”

I can tell that she’s mad again, but I’m not sure if I should say sorry because I didn’t mean to call her lazy or tell her she couldn’t sleep; I just wanted to ask her a question. But that’s what she thinks I meant, and now I feel bad for making her feel bad. I would have asked somebody else, but I’m all alone here.

I wish I knew what to say to her, but I don’t. I would ask someone else what to say, but I’m all alone here. I’m all alone here, and I’m only 11.

Elizabeth Denny is a writer who has been published in several genres, from fiction to poetry to screenwriting and creative nonfiction. She looks forward to two releases of her work in the coming years, a children’s book in 2008 and an epic-length historical novel in 2009. This scene was described to her by the 11-year-old.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Friday, June 1st, 2007 | Email This Post

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