Mom died that day in June without a note left behind. She left without any assurance that it had nothing to do with Tara or me. Nope. Mom left us alone with her body spread wide and limp for Tara to discover too late. Her body unfolded like a child laying out to make a snow angel, but instead of leaving behind that angelic silhouette, mom engrained a more unshapely imprint in Tara’s mind as she laid motionless amongst a puddle of spilled water and all those pills.
I never saw mom’s body like that. I only saw her being taken away and then eventually folded up nicely, arms crossed in a casket, wearing some bright pink blush and ruby red lipstick—loud colors she never would have chosen herself. I thought about wiping off some of the cheap makeup before guests saw her one last time at the wake, but I was scared her decaying lips might fall off entirely. So, I left her body untouched and cried on the funeral home’s bathroom toilet, staring at a photo of her from years ago when she was less pale and more vivacious.
“Dad! Dad!” Tara shouted throughout the house. These words weren’t let out in a shriek with the same sense of urgency they had been when Tara screamed them as mom fell lamely into her arms last February. That time, it was a Tuesday morning before school. We skipped school as ICU nurses got mom started on the activated charcoal while a doctor called her incident a “tumble” and blamed it on her “relapse.” We nodded our heads with his words, but we knew it wasn’t a relapse. She never fully stopped taking the pills.
In reality, mom’s earlier February “tumble” was a nosedive straight down, sinking herself in all the years of salty tears she tried to hide from us. The rest of us knew it was only so long until she’d run out of breath down there. I wished I could’ve pulled her up from those depressive depths, but the pressure hurt my head and my hands weren’t strong enough to hold onto hers. That day in June, she sunk herself too deep. She slipped. We couldn’t reach her. Our arms just weren’t long enough to pull her out that time.
“Dad! Dad!” Tara shouted that February. Those words weren’t shouted with every last choking breath her body could exhale like they eventually were when she found mom dead amongst the bottle of spilled pills on her closet floor that day in June.
That June day was the eve of Tara's graduation, but Tara didn’t walk the stage that next day. She sat in her room, and I think—for a minute or two—she thought about the prescribed Adderall on her desk and how if she took enough pills, her heart might burst. Just for that minute or two, she might’ve imagined all the love she had for mom inside that heart and how if it did burst, it’d paint the whole wide world in a billion glimmers of lost love while she looked down on everything from above, back with mom again. For a minute or two, I might’ve thought about this too.
Our hope died with mom that June. Tara didn’t yell helplessly. Instead, she built up an angry roar, calling out “Dad! Dad!” to the man who’d forgotten how to be a father years ago.
Dad’s life had become less sound and more hectic with us getting older and mom becoming more unstable. So, he selfishly closed his mind to the two burdens he made and the one he married, despite how much we needed his arms and ears to be open for us. Tara knew anything lower than her maddening shouts might as well have been the softest whispers to dad—never heard or acknowledged, just quiet cries left to linger in a limbo of hushed distress.
Tara never shared much information with me about that day, but when the police arrived at our house that June evening, I heard her tell them that tears were crusted around mom’s eyes. Mom passed in pain. Tara and I both blamed ourselves separately for a while. We believed those tears fell from a cry that none of us even thought to listen for that day. We thought we were both so selfish. Although, now, I’m starting to believe mom's tears might’ve fallen silently. At that point, she didn’t have much left to give anyway. Her pain had grown increasingly internal towards the end.
“Dad! You said we were going through her jewelry today. You promised we’d do this together before I had to go off to school. I need to find that gold chain… the one with the rose.”
“Tara, honey. We can do this later tonight. I have to get to work. I’m running late and I-55’s already a mess.” Dad stared at his phone rolling his eyes, picked up his briefcase, and headed out the same door mom's body was carried out in a body bag just a few weeks earlier.
“Is that damn traffic radio all you ever listen to anymore? Why don’t you understand that I’m a mess too?” Wind slammed the door shut in the middle of Tara’s yelling. Dad didn't reopen it. He just left.
Dad was always busy. Doing what? None of us ever really quite understood what kept him away for so long. I guess, putting a roof over our head for one and paying for all of mom’s unsuccessful trips to rehab and medical bills for another, but he was always too busy to understand that money wasn’t the fix. All mom ever wanted was to hold on to some of him. She wanted to clasp on to some of what our family was before he got too busy with late nights at the office, and last-minute business trips, and weeks out of town with no calls to check in on the rest of us. He was busy, and then he got busier. Sometimes, the three of us forgot he was coming back. Sometimes, Tara and I think he forgets we’re still his family now.
“I want to hold on to something of hers. Why doesn’t he get it, Court? That bracelet is all I have left.” Tara ran up to her room and slammed the door. She’d been doing this a lot lately—after he bought the wrong kind of cake on mom’s birthday in July, when he didn’t remember to plant flowers on his and mom’s anniversary, the time he forgot to come home early to help Tara with her first college course registration. No matter how loud they were, Tara’s shouts went in his one ear and out the other. I could tell he took all of it as teen angst instead of real grief, because when he would get home most nights, he never even cared enough to smooth things over or make sure she was okay.
Dad didn’t change much after mom died. At first, Tara and I thought that was a defense mechanism or maybe an attempt to be brave for us. Now, I think we both understand that his life feels easier without her in it.
After work that evening, dad came home late with a pizza around 10:00 p.m. Tara and I had both already made our own separate dinners, if you can even call microwave popcorn and cheese with crackers “dinner.” Still, because of that, it didn’t matter as much to Tara that the pizza had sausage on it. Although, that was just another thing dad didn’t care to remember. Tara was a vegetarian. She had been for three weeks.
“Dad, Tara leaves for college in thirteen days. We really should go through some of mom’s stuff before she heads away.” I tried to speak calmly with him. He always seemed to have had such hard days at work, but I think it was the coming home to us that was most unenjoyable for him.
I’ll only have one year alone in the house without Tara, but I wish I could just go off to college now too and leave him behind with her. A million or more times, we’d thought about leaving him like mom probably should have. We thought about going off to Opa and Grandma’s house. He probably would’ve loved that, and if he wouldn’t have, he wasn’t doing a great job of showing us otherwise. While we always imagined getting away from him, Tara and I got into our beds each night and closed our eyes to better memories of when mom made sure our house felt like home.
“Sure, okay. Let’s get this over with. Get your sister.”
Tara came running down the steps before I even had the chance to call out her name, as if she’d been eavesdropping at the top of the stairway. She always did that—leave herself out of the conversation until she wanted to be a part of it or fight back at something arrogant or careless dad said.
Together, the three of us went back upstairs to visit mom and dad’s closet. Neither Tara nor I had been back there since that night in June. Dad flipped on the light switch and nonchalantly tramped straight back to unlock the safe in the right corner, like there hadn’t just been a corpse sprawled on those wood floors.
“Have at it,” he said plopping down the pearls and jewels.
Tara and I slowly stepped into the room, immediately overwhelmed by the vibrant dresses, scarves, and tops which hung on the left side of their narrow closet. Untouched and perfectly hanging, it felt like she could have still been alive keeping that place tidy. Mom always tried her best to keep everything together, at least on the outside. How unfortunately ironic it was that outwardly she shined brightly in these pinks, purples, yellows, greens, and blues, but, inwardly, her mind was entirely consumed by a darkness unable to explore anything other than grey clouds of her dark depression.
To Tara and I, this was not just a closet. This was the birthplace of our very first and last memories with mom: playing fashion show while she picked out a fancy dinner outfit, helping mom clip her pearls and zip up her dresses whenever dad wasn’t around, being sprayed with her favorite perfumes before our first school dances and dates, and, of course, eventually watching all those happy times fade to black in the company of policemen and strangers who only came in to take her body away along with the possibility of making any more good memories in there.
Tara and I sat down around mom’s pearls and jewels, recounting every event we remembered her wearing them to over the years. Her fingers were skinny and dainty, so most of the rings didn’t fit any fingers besides our pinkies. Mom's arms were so tiny too. Most of the pearls and bangles which loosely wrapped themselves around her wrists fit us just right and some not even at all. In her jewelry box, I found the silver charm I’d gotten for her several Mother’s Days ago. It read: “God couldn’t be everywhere, so he created mothers.” I couldn’t afford a chain when I bought the charm, so mom never actually wore it. I remember her keeping it in her wallet for a while though. As I pocketed it, I wondered when she might’ve taken it out of there.
We began decking ourselves out in mom's jewelry as if we were playing a board game of Pretty, Pretty, Princess like we did with her when we were younger. Tara and I laughed together for the first time in a while. I felt happy too. As we swung her diamonds around our necks and smiled, one pearl earring fell to the floor under mom’s hanging clothes. I reached to grab the fallen one and ended up pulling out two round white artifacts: the pearl earring and a pill. Our makeshift game of Pretty, Pretty, Princess was over, and neither of us felt like winners. Mom was dead, and no queen nor princess could ever replace her.
This castle’s king, on the other hand, took immediate reign of the situation, like he did with everything. Dad began tapping his toe, waiting for us to take off mom’s pieces, and grab what we wanted. Just like everything else after mom died, this was no sacred event to him. Her funeral was just a financial setback, her burial was an inconvenience on a rainy day, and her birthday was an excuse to eat the cake he liked—cheap yellow with vanilla frosting—because “she’s not eating it anyway!”
His toe taps became steps as he walked towards us on the ground and reached down to pick up a few pieces he seemed to want to keep for himself. I understood him taking the wedding and engagement rings, but a few pieces turned into a handful, which turned into most of everything that sparkled inside of her black leather jewelry box.
“Dad what are you doing with all of those?” I asked.
“Where is the gold bracelet with the rose? The one she wore, you know, at the end.” Tara hoped he knew the answer.
“Courtney, for one, these are mine. I bought these pieces for your mom, and it is my decision if I don’t want my young daughters running around in such fancy jewelry. You’re not mature enough to wear them anyway. And I have no idea what bracelet you’re talking about, Tara. What does it matter to you? There is plenty of other gold jewelry right there.” He pointed towards a few tainted gold vermeil and 14-karat gold plated bracelets and chains.
“Those aren’t even real, dad. Mom barely ever wore them. I want that gold bracelet. She wore it every day this past year, maybe even longer. It was the bracelet Opa and Grandma gave her when she went off to school. You know how much mom loved roses too. I’m not asking for much. I just need that bracelet dad. What don’t you get about this?”
Tara was about to go lock herself in her room. I felt it. She was ready to close us off again. I wished she’d let me in there. I just wanted to spend time with her the way we had when dad was gone and we were with mom.
“You know, what I don’t get is your attitude, Tara. If I knew where that bracelet was, I’d give it to you. I don’t know which bracelet you’re talking about. It’s not here with her jewelry. The reality is I’m not ready for you two to take away these pieces of your mom. It’s depressing to see you both looking so much like her.” He took his handful of mom’s jewelry, slammed it in the top dresser drawer with all the cufflinks mom bought him over the years, and stormed out.
“No, dad. The reality is that you haven’t cared about mom in years. If you wanted out on this family, why the hell did you stick around? You made sure mom couldn’t be happy. Now, Court and I can’t hold on to the things that she wore when she was happy. Addiction might be the disease that killed mom, but you’re the one who’s really sick in the head.” Tara yelled. Dad didn’t respond, but maybe that was for the best.
Tara left for her room, of course. I took all the cheap tainted gold vermeil and 14-karat gold plated bracelets and chains, and I tucked them away in my empty dancing ballerina jewelry box along with the charm I bought mom a few Mother’s Days ago.
The next few days were quiet in the house. There was no yelling. There wasn’t even much conversation. I missed Tara, and I was scared for her to leave for school. We only had about nine days left, and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be coming home from Loyola Marymount on too many weekends or breaks. Dad made sure there was nothing for her here. I wasn’t scared of her to leave because I was scared of dad. I guess, I was more scared of how much I began to hate him and how much he didn’t care about me. It was like he was no longer a part of me—like I was born 100% mom, and now I was living with a stranger who didn’t want to help me remember any part of the woman who made me. Even when mom couldn’t take care of her own life, she tried to get out of bed for us…until she couldn’t anymore.
Days passed. Tara packed up her life into duffel bags. Dad worked late nights and avoided conversation. Some days, he got rides to work, and he was always gone early. I only knew if he got a ride based on whether his car was still parked in the garage. Other days, I think he slept at the office, but I’d never know because he usually came home when I was already in bed, and he left the house before we’d even wake up in the morning.
It was two days until Tara was supposed to move into her dorm. Dad probably still had no idea that she would be hopping on a plane then for a 2000-mile trip. I’d already started school at this point. It was my senior year of high school and the excitement of that kept my brain occupied most days from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., but when I got home, or, well, not home, but when I got back to the place the three of us lived, I couldn’t forget her and how everything had changed. I fell asleep every night holding mom’s Mother’s Day charm while listening to my little ballerina dance to the tune that reminded me of a happier childhood: one with a mom, and a sister, and a dad.
The day before Tara left, she came into my room just to ask if I had kept any of her clothes. I said no. That was a lie, but I was smart enough to put all of the stuff I’d stolen in a suitcase above my topmost closet shelf.
Opa and Grandma called late that afternoon while Tara and I were getting ready to sit down for dinner alone together. After mom died, they started calling more frequently to check in on us. I think they worried because depression can be genetic and because they knew how bad dad had gotten. They’d always ask how Tara and I were. We always said good. Sometimes they’d ask about dad too. We’d lie. I know they wanted the truth, but I once watched a movie where the mother’s daughter unexpectedly passed away and I remembered the mom saying, “Nobody will ever understand. A mother should never have to see her child die.” I worried Opa and Grandma couldn’t take any more worry, but it was nice to hear their voices. Whenever Grandma spoke, I’d close my eyes and imagine she was mom; their voices had always been so similar.
Dad got dropped off back home that day at 5:31 p.m. I remember the exactness of this because the microwave beeped and showed it after my dinner popcorn was ready. I peered out our side porch window as a fancy red car—too low to the ground to reveal its driver—pulled into our driveway. Dad took a moment, hopped out of its passenger side, and came in the door holding a pepperoni pizza. Was he fucking kidding me?I wish.
Dad called Tara down and apologized in advance for not being able to travel with her the following day. We both felt that one coming. He headed upstairs to shower, and the two of us sat at the kitchen island making depressing small talk about how I’d miss her and how she’d feel the same while I picked off and ate the pepperoni from her slices.
The doorbell rang, interrupting the loud silence between Tara and me. We both got up to answer it. Tara reached for the door, opened it, and standing there was a woman in tall, skanky, purple heels with that same low-riding red car parked out front of our house now.
“Hi girls! I’m Monica, your dad’s friend from work. He left this in my car. Would you mind giving it to him?”
With a fake voice and smile, the woman held out dad’s briefcase in our direction. I gasped at her gesture, recognizing the shimmer and shine of a wristful of jewelry Tara and I had just carefully picked through days before. Mom’s classic wedding band below an ugly and unfamiliar engagement ring on this woman’s ring finger. I stared down at mom’s pearls tackily wrapped around her ankle. Mom’s diamond tennis bracelet choking this lady’s fat wrist, right next to the gold bracelet with the rose mom got from Opa and Grandma before she went to college.
“How dare you?” Tara began to scream. She reached out her right arm and clawed the gold bracelet right off of Monica’s arm. The metal links which firmly held the bracelet together so beautifully for decades finally gave up. It fell to the ground, unlinked and broken now.
“Look what you did! Look what you did to our family!” The water was still running from dad’s shower, and Tara stormed upstairs into his room.
I took his briefcase from Monica and slammed it on the ground. Bending over, I collected the broken golden chain with the rose, leaving Monica alone to see herself out of one of the homes she wrecked.
I had no idea what Tara’s plan was, but I followed her closely behind, rounding corners in swift movements. I stood at the entrance to mom and dad’s closet as I watched Tara reach into the top drawer of dad’s dresser, grabbing what was left of mom’s jewelry along with a few pairs and lone cufflinks that Tara could get her hands on quickly.
“Follow me. We’re getting out of here.”
“Tara? Where?”
“Not here, Court. Don’t you see what’s going on? He did this to mom. He did this to us. He doesn’t want us, and he didn’t want her. This isn’t home. Mom was home.”
Tara’s bags sat by the back door ready to leave for Loyola Marymount tomorrow.
“We found this out in June, Court. Plans change. Come on.”
“I need a second.” I ran upstairs to grab the suitcase that I'd hidden on the top of my closet shelf along with my dancing ballerina jewelry box.
Tara grabbed the keys to mom’s old Nissan, threw her bags in, and typed our destination into the GPS. We knew we needed to figure out how to make some gas money soon. The little babysitting money on Tara’s debit could only hold us over for so long, and the gas light had been shining for almost 30 miles. We took an exit somewhere in central Oklahoma, pulling off the highway to a short strip of local pubs and gas stations.
“Court, do you see that?”
“Yeah, I know we need gas, but we have enough for maybe a quarter tank now,” I said staring at the big Citgo right passed the stoplight.
“No. Do you see that?” Tara pointed left towards a tiny strip mall full of half-lit storefront signs.
“PAWN SHOP” blinked in bright red.
“Seriously, Tara, I don’t think they’re going to pay for any of our beat up Nike’s or old duffel bags.”
“I was actually thinking maybe mom’s jewelry.”
“How-wh-why would we sell mom’s jewelry? That’s all we’ve got left.” I was both infuriated and distraught with even the mere idea of getting rid of mom’s pieces.
“Court, we just don’t have much of an option.”
The two of us held hands into the pawn shop with chains and pearls dangling from our clenched fingers. We left hundreds of dollars richer, but I felt like we’d lost it all. Tucked away inside the duffel propped on the seat behind me were the cheap costume jewelry, Mother’s Day charm, and the broken gold chain with the rose.
With the exception of that pawn shop and a few other stops to fuel the car up with gas and us with honeybuns and slushies, Tara and I drove directly from Chicago to San Diego. We took turns driving and declining dad’s phone calls for about 35 hours until we got there.
Together, Tara and I walked up a driveway lined with roses—a driveway we hadn’t seen in far too long. She knocked on the door, and I stood back.
It creaked open slowly, and they both stood there. Tears swelling in their eyes, it already felt more like home.
“Hi Opa. Hi Grandma.” Immediately, we felt her in their embrace.
“Sometimes, you need to hold onto a person’s people instead of their things to remember them,” Tara said looking at me.
While helping us unpack, my ballerina jewelry box tipped over, revealing the gold chain and a few other jewelry pieces. Opa gasped, and his eyes widened with his mouth. He remembered that bracelet.
That night, I forgot all about sleeping with the Mother’s Day charm and dozed off next to Tara while listening to Grandma’s stories of mom instead.
The next morning, we headed downstairs, and there it was. Mom’s gold bracelet with the rose, link by link, connected again.
“Oh girls, did you see that? Opa sat there this morning with his plyers fixing up that bracelet up for you.” Tara hopped up the stairs. I followed and watched her shut away mom’s bracelet safely with the charm and costume jewelry. Safe and sound, that jewelry rested in the comfort of my ballerina jewelry box.
“This,” Tara said as she tucked away those pieces of mom, “isn’t all we’ve got left of her.” Tara reached her arm out to wrap it around my shoulder, and we walked downstairs together for some breakfast table talk with Opa and Grandma.
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