I Wish

Chapter 9

What the actual? She had? For f**k’s sake. That was my name. My feet were fixed to the floor, and I couldn’t even see straight. Before I could say anything what, although I don’t know, dad had appeared behind me. One second I was standing in the middle of the mess of broken shards and coffee, and the next – whoosh. He’d grabbed me in a giant bear hug and lifted me to sit on the island. The cool glittery quartz is smooth to the touch. Thank god the boy had cleaned up their toast crumbs. I wanted to giggle at the last thought, the air I was dragging into my lungs tingling and all but daring me to.

“Are you hurt?” dad demanded, looking over me worriedly. All but physically checking me for injuries, “Are you okay?” I wanted to snort somewhat hysterically, no. Hard, no. Not even a little bit, but you know what? I couldn’t explain, so I lied. Mostly to buy time, dad was very good at knowing when people were lying to him. It was really scarily impressive how accurate he was. So I knew whatever I told them, it had to be the truth in some way. I just didn’t have enough faith in his ability to tell when I was lying to cough up any details about what I’d been dealing with, mostly because if you believe you’re telling the truth, then technically you aren’t lying. Crazy is a world they could throw out though, and even though I could still feel her lips on mine, I wasn’t so sure I couldn’t be talked into accepting it. Ivy was something else, and logically, crazy made more sense than this s**t show.

“I’m okay,” I said, taking in a couple of slow deep breaths and trying to cover the awkward pause where I was too lost in thought to answer his question, “It just scared the crap out of me.” My hands came down to grab the at the lip of the bench, and I cast my gaze to the floor. Leaning forward a small amount as I did so, ignoring the other people in the room. I wasn’t trying to be rude. What I was, was not looking forward to cleaning that up. I’d need shoes before anything, then wrap the big bits up in newspaper, clean up the coffee puddle and -

“Go sit in the lounge,” mum sighed, starting to shuffle us out of there. Imagine the cutest, fluffiest, baby animal you've ever seen. My chest filled with that kind of warmth, and the accompanying aww that goes with it. I really didn’t want to clean that up. It wasn’t even lunch time and I was done. So completely over today as a whole. I suppose aww wasn’t my first reaction, to be strictly honest. At first I started in surprise because, as lovely as this was, I hadn’t expected that. Still, I wasn’t about to argue with someone who was about to clean my mess up for me. Best mum ever.

“Thank you,” I said in relief, “Love you. You’re the best.” Seven words rattled off on the regular. It really says something that there’s a patented response, which we all use, for mum being a legend. It might not have seemed like much to some people, but the ability to not have to deal with this on top of the bullshit, let’s face the fact that it was shaping up to be a, week? There weren’t words for it, because sometimes it was the little things that make you happy. One tiny little thing I didn’t have to deal with, not that anyone was going to let me have it quietly.

“Hey, no fair!” Mark said, looking at me, and this was the boost my day needed. Somebody else was going to clean up my butterfingers, and I was going to get a show. No doubt about it, because really, brat? Could you be even more of a pain in the ass? I knew mum well enough that she wasn’t going to tolerate someone questioning her decisions like that. She was the parent, and if we didn’t contribute to our creation, (something that, no matter how old I get, will always be gross,) then we didn’t get an opinion. Both boys knew that, which was what made it strange that Jeremey decided to throw their lot in with Mark. I guess older doesn’t always mean smarter… glad that get said out loud, the self-burn jokes probably would have been epic.

“Yeah, we had to clean up our messes, why doesn’t Rose?” Jeremey said accusingly, eyes widening as it clicked that I was being sent out along with them. Jumped right on that, didn’t you just? Brothers. Why couldn’t I have got a sister instead? All the way from Sydney I could almost hear one of my friends with sisters cussing me out for ever wanting something she felt was so unbelievably stupid.

“Because your sister is still sick. You can go and watch TV without complaining, or you can help me clean it up,” mum threatened with an attitude, “And if you want to argue about it when you’re done, there are plenty of weeds in the garden. Could always do with less.” They split immediately. The fact that neither of my brothers were allowed to touch things that are sharp, didn’t seem to occur to any of them. It was cute how grown up they thought they were. I don’t blame them for getting gone, spending a couple of hours pulling weeds? That was distinctly in the realm of possibilities. Mum did not f**k around. Which explains why they ran so fast. I would have. Dad flittered out behind them, after making some kind of silent form of communication only available after a minimum of ten years married. Probably to make sure they didn't destroy the living room. Either that or mum was about to corner me for a conversation, but if that was the case I didn’t want to think about it.

“Thanks,” I told her again, from where I was perched. I don’t know why I didn’t just follow everyone else out immediately. I could have scooted my ass over the island to the other side and legged it. Shame I was too tired for survival instincts.

“No worries,” she says back easily and looking me over once again, “Are you sure you are okay?” Would you listen to that solid clicking sound? Small window of escape closed. How did I answer that? No was still the obvious answer, but I couldn’t tell her that. As previously considered, she’d think I was nuts. Also, how was I supposed to be able to tell her what my name really was if I couldn’t say it? Oh, there it was. That wonderful buzzy feeling of panic that leaves you somewhere over halfway certain that you’re going to be sick. Huh, that was something I could go with. I had been sick, so I wouldn’t have even had to lie. Dad might leave a blatant lie alone, but that’s probably because he’d already planned to leave me alone with my mother. Somehow, I think, that should be considered cheating. She’s rubbing the hem of her shirt in between her fingers while she waits for me to answer.

“Yeah, it just sucks getting sick… and I’m starting to go a little nuts in here,” I admitted quietly, “I kinda just feel like we’re going to be stuck in this limbo forever, and we’re never going to get out.” That was another thing I could bring up that consisted of not lying. I wanted to start living my life. I was supposed to have a job, or study or think about moving out. I should have friends that weren’t people that were just waiting for me to come back and re-join, you know, actual society. Oooooh… wow. Okay, so that was a point that had made itself very rudely known. Ivy was… something interesting, in my own words even, and my gut twisted at the phrasing. Mate… I knew what that meant, because reading was a thing I did a lot. It was one of the only things I did actually, so I had a good idea of exactly what I was getting myself into and I was trying to convince myself to jump right in anyway. Not because I wanted this to work, but because it was something other than sitting in this house. Anything, because at least then I’d be doing something. It kind of made me glad that I was stuck here like I was. Can you imagine the kind of trouble I would have gotten into if I hadn’t been forced into becoming a total recluse? Ivy really seemed to think I was her whole world and here I was only considering it because it was interesting. Convenient where this magic bond thing was concerned. She stole my name, I repeated to myself like a mantra. It didn’t help, I still felt guilty, and conflicted, and mad, and…

“And you’re not listening to a word I’m saying are you?” mum said, breaking my concentration. She’d been talking to me and I didn’t even have the courtesy to realise she was talking? Yikes. Could I get any ruder? She bit her lip, and pink gloss rubbed on her teeth, only to be cleared away by her tongue a moment later.

“I’m a shitty human being,” I said frankly, without waiting to hear her opinion on the matter. I was fairly sure I knew what I was.

“Oy, nobody talks about my baby like that,” she said, wagging a finger, but her eyes had these little crinkles around them that said she was worried about me. Okay, so I was wrong. I looked in the direction of the door the boys and dad had left through. “It’s hard right now, nobody really thought that this thing would last as long as it did,” she said, “We’re keeping safe, and doing the best we can.” She started to clean up the mess, softly clinking in the background.

“I don’t think I can do much more of this. I don’t even really talk to any of my friends anymore. It’s just random comments on their posts, and let’s face it, they’re mostly memes and complaints about restrictions and lock-downs. Everyone has an opinion about what the entire population absolutely must do, or why they shouldn’t have to, and none of them are shy about trying to convince other people that what they think is a hundred percent fact. With a sprinkle of people who don’t actually talk about it at all,” I said truthfully, “I think those people are my favourite. I can’t remember the last time any of us talked properly. If it’s not Covid related, then it’s videos of things we wish we could do, or people we wish we could see live, or places that would be epic to visit, and then we just circle straight back to all the things we’re not doing. Is that why you keep spinning the hobby wheel? To try to find something that’s going to stop you going crazy while we do all this waiting?” By this point she’d started to clean the mess up off the floor. The rhythmic clinking fills the space between words.

“Yep. You could do with a hobby,” she said brightly, popping the shards in the dust bin and mopping up the coffee. I looked down at her, and I didn’t like the way that it made me feel. “Something that helps you feel less like you’re just sitting around and waiting, wasting all this time,” she said and then shooed me off. It was a testament to how off balance I was that I actually considered joining her crazy cycle of attempting to find something that makes me happy enough for none of this to bother me for short periods of time at the very least. I was adamant that I wasn’t going to do this, but the more I thought about it the more I wondered what I had to lose. Clearly not sanity. I’m fairly sure Ivy was going to hoard mine like a dragon with gold. I slid off the edge of the counter and padded my way into the lounge where the boys were watching the Smurf's of all things sighing. I’d almost managed to side track myself with other problems but here we were right back at Ivy again.