Unwanted Guests
568 Words
It never ceases to amuse me how much power “family” thinks it has.
As if sharing blood gives them permanent access to your life.
As if disappearing for years somehow earns them the right to reappear uninvited and unannounced like ghosts that refuse to accept they were dead.
The past has a habit of doing that.
It creeps back when you’ve finally stopped giving it space.
It taps gently, pretending it still owns a key.
That’s how she returned.
My mother.
The first thing that reached me wasn’t her voice.
It was the squeal of trolley wheels scraping across the wooden floor, followed by the unmistakable scent of hospital disinfectant mixed with the chemical rot of rehab.
And she didn’t come alone.
The universe, in its usual comedic cruelty, brought her back with the one person I’ve despised almost as much as her: Darla.
My expression must’ve shifted the moment they stepped inside—confusion, annoyance, disgust. Subtle, but there.
And yet… Darla had grown. I could tell in the way her voice settled when she spoke, in the confident weight of her footsteps, even in the slight brush of her arm against mine as she passed.
She wasn’t the little Vatican-bell siren I once fantasized about flushing.
She had matured. Changed shape. Changed presence.
And she hadn’t just returned to drop off my paralyzed, mute mother.
No. She carried a purpose of her own; one I could feel humming around her. One I needed to decode.
“I’m taking your mom’s things to the room,” she said.
Soft. Softer than I remembered. Too soft for this house.
It was the kind of softness I hadn’t heard in two years—not since Carol.
Since she left me… or since I shoved her into the stuffing machine in her father’s restaurant.
I swear that one was an accident. Mercy on the GIT of the ones who ate the sausages that week.
Who am I kidding?
It wasn’t an accident.
She cheated on me with her coworker, Bryan—who is sadly married with two sets of twits… twins, I mean.
He’s already a sad man.
I mean, deciding to marry Dr. Kim is deciding to be unhappy for the rest of your life. And if you’re not tough or smart, it’s suicide.
I know that because I dated Kim Cheng in grade 12.
She once asked me to marry her and when I refused, she climbed onto the school roof and jumped.
She somehow landed in a cluster of trees and cracked her head—forgot all about me afterward.
That was the end of us.
She became addicted to pain and painkillers afterward, collecting piercings and tattoos like souvenirs from a war only she was fighting.
Yup.
We teach in the same school now, and she has no idea who I am.
Anyway, karma will handle Bryan. It always does.
My mother was the only person who knew about my blindness, and now she was mute—so what was there to worry about?
All I needed was a nanny to help feed her and clean her humongous behind.
Darla offered to move in and help with all that, but I refused and only allowed her visits four times a week.
Was I supposed to believe she suddenly loved my mother? Suddenly cared?
No.
She wanted something.
And I had to find out what.
- Writer
