An elegy for cracked foundations

My mother hasn’t spoken today. The only sounds that fill this old house are her quiet, yet deafening sobs. I’ve been sitting here, at the bottom of my great-grandmother’s winding staircase that leads to my mother’s tear-stained cheeks, for almost an hour, pinching the worn, beige carpet. I hadn’t moved from this spot since I first arrived, walking into the front door and feeling the thick stillness of the air. As I sit here, with my elbows on my knees, staring at the forming hole on the step, I repeat the soft words of my grandmother this morning: Can you come over? There’s something wrong with your mother. And I had arrived only an hour later, gently setting my purse on the kitchen table by the front door, placing a soft kiss on my grandmother’s stress-creased forehead, and making my way to this step. My mother must know that I’m here— that I’ve only moved up two steps because I lack the courage or strength or patience to go up the other twelve. Her sobs don’t give my location away, though.

I had been here not twelve hours before, in her bathroom, my legs criss-crossed on the closed, plastic toilet seat as she stood in front of the mirror. While she got ready for her serving shift, I watched my mother straighten her long, freshly dyed- brown strands of hair, brush her signature pink eyeshadow on her eyelids, wisp black mascara on her thin eyelashes, using her index finger to smudge the pencil-ed eyeliner on her bottom lid. She paused between each task to sip her glass of white wine, as if it were motivation to continue the routine. We hadn’t spoken much, just soft, Can you hand me that? Watch your head so I can open the cabinet. Should I use more mascara? Each time she spoke, she said the words so softly, as if the slur in her voice was contained by the quietness of her tone. She wouldn’t meet my blue-eyed gaze like I so desperately tried to reach her green from where she stands and I sit. The amount of mascara won’t cover the glaze, I almost said to her. But I knew she knew. And she knew what I knew: sobriety is never linear with her.

Above me, the house no longer tries to hide her away from the world as her soft footsteps echo down the stairs, following the path to the same antique bathroom. The wooden door creaks as she closes it, and I almost want to thank it as it covers my slip of a sigh. I make my way up the staircase, slow and meticulous, for why, I’m not sure. The only light in the dark hallway is a sliver of yellow from the thin gap in the bathroom door. My mother’s bedroom no longer has a door, rotting wood ceasing to exist in its frame. The long, black curtains that long ago replaced the door wisp in the fall and rise of the house breathing, and with no soft rays of light escaping the curtains, I know she hadn’t bothered to turn on her bedroom light, always wanting the darkness to consume her on days like this. On good days, on days when the sobriety is linear, her room is filled with remnants of a functioning adult: the lingering smell of a lit apple cinnamon scented candle, Today’s Hot Country blasting through her phone’s speaker, and her queen-sized bed dressed up to perfection, with her countless throw pillows arranged in posh order. The windows that face the yard are open, the house welcoming the soft breeze of the outside world. On those days, I find her dancing to the music, the breeze blowing into her hair, and a smile painted on her face. 

Finally, as her shaky hands drop the earring into the sink for the third time, I ask her if we’re going to talk about this. These malnourished floorboards can only hold an elephant for so long. She shakes her head, as if to say I don’t know what you mean. I force her to look at me, to see the seriousness in my eyes, and ask her if it was an accident or intentional. Did you mix your medication with your wine? No response. The guilt already forming on her face, trying to hide as she fishes for the earring once again. Maybe you took the pills too soon before the wine? I’m grasping at straws, trying to make excuses for her as if this house’s foundation relies on it. And yet, the only sounds that fill the bathroom are my own. When she finally gets her earring into place, she places her long, perfectly painted fingers on the sink’s edge and looks into the mirror, at her blown pupils and droopy eyelids, I’m sure. Is it noticeable? I only had one glass. Refusing to meet my gaze as I try to meet hers in reflection of the mirror, I remind her that her medication can’t be mixed. This happens each time. You know this. Can you call out of work? But she can’t, we both know this to be true. Bills are piling up as our grandmother needs my mother’s financial help more than usual this month, and just last week, her boss gave her the final warning. Shanna, this is getting out of control, she called me that day, on her way home from her short shift, to mimic the words of her boss. She swore to me that it wasn’t. That she didn’t mean to take one pill too many. I let her speak the words into the phone, hoping her lies tasted bitter on her tongue.

After the rusted pipes drain the remaining water from my mother washing her hands, the house settles into silence again. As she enters the bedroom, not at all acknowledging my presence, I watch as she climbs into her unkempt bed, pushes a plush pillow under her head, cascading her slim body under her heavy comforter, and pats the other side of the bed, signaling me to join her. Part of me stands there, in the middle of the darkened room, hesitating to allow her wallowing to continue, and yet, as I watch her patiently laying there, eyes red-lined and swollen, I take cautious steps until I too climb into the bed. My mother, though taller than me by three to four inches, contorts her body so her forehead is pressed against my neck, her shaky jaw held place by my shoulder. Her tears trickle down her cheeks onto my neck, creating a tickling sensation, but I don’t dare move except to wrap my arms around her tightly. We lay like this, the only sounds in the room being her sniffles and gasps of air, the only movements are my hand stroking her tangled hair. I don’t want to be like this, she whispers into the void. This always happens to me, another call into the void. I know, Mom. I know. And I do know, better than I’d like to. And she knows more than the line of sobriety allows her to most days. This house knows her staggering footsteps as if they were built into its bones. This bed that she holds captive once a month knows her body’s mold more than its own.

I offer to drive her to work for the fourth time as I zip her into her sleek dress. She pushes her hair back over her shoulder, scoffing at the idea once again. I don’t need a chaperone. I’m fine, she hisses. My mother’s attitude shifted after the second offer and again after I asked her to drink water and let me make her a quick meal to soak up her high valium and alcohol blood content. I know you don’t, but I would feel better if you let me. Ignoring me, she moves to sit on the edge of her bed and fumbles with the anklet strap on her heels. The shakiness of her hands—from lack of nutrients, frustration, or the mix of poisons, I don’t know and don’t care to ask— increase the difficulty of the task. I don’t let her struggle for long, knowing she’s one minor inconvenience away from a tantrum, I find myself getting on my knees in front of her to strap her in. I’m only in town for a few more days, I want to spend time with you while I can. I toss into the air, hoping she grabs my offer and takes it down to the car, turning the engine so the heat can warm the December air, and sitting passenger as I yield and stop and go until I make it to the restaurant, watching her walk in as I wait out in the parking lot for the inevitable moment my mother’s boss sends her home. And yet, as she stands, her heels digging into the carpet as she stumbles her way to the full-length mirror, tugs her thigh hugging dress down, and tries to reassure me she’s well enough to function, the reassurance falls as if it were drops of water from the leaky pipe in the basement, swollen and heavy with knowledge that it creates mold-stained residue on the never covered concrete. 

Soon, the rise and fall of her chest sync with the house’s own breathing. I slip out of her hold then, ever so gently untangling her limbs from my own, resting her arm on the pillow as if it were my body still. Once I know that my mother’s body is stirring only from readjusting and not from her waking in my absence in a way only a mother knows of her child, I tuck a piece of hair behind her ear and kiss her cheek. As they expand and shrink under the tiptoes I place on them, I wonder if these unforgiving floorboards must know she’s restless, for once in their hundred-year span of living, covering my trail of footsteps to the door, wanting silence as well. 

When I gave up from trying to find a blueprint to mothering my mother, I sat on one of these decrepit steps, my elbows resting on my knees, stretching my neck while I waited to hear my mother’s paint chipped, backed-in-too-far dented suv pull from the driveway. You worry too much, she said as she grabbed her keys off of the nightstand. I’ll be home from work late tonight, so we’ll hang out more tomorrow, she promised as she kissed my head goodbye. In the moments I watched her slowly walk down the stairs, gripping the handrail for support, I thought about asking if she believed she’d work the whole night. If, in the back of her hazy mind, she really thought her condition wasn’t as noticeable as it was. I knew the answer to that, as I questioned it more often than not, rehearsing the same lines in my head again and again: She knows her condition. She won’t admit it but she knows. Interrupting my recap, my phone dings as my sister texts to ask how my birthday is going with a picture of Taylor Swift attached. Feeling 22, I send. Mom just left for work, I’ll be by soon. I’ll keep tonight’s burden silent, taking it out on the step as I pick and pull on the fading fabric. 

In the kitchen, my grandmother’s forehead creases have subsided by two or three, only for a little while as the exhaustion takes over the darkness upstairs. I have to go back to South Carolina in two days. I can’t stay this time, I remind our grandmother, who will return to the role of caregiver once I walk out this door. Maybe it’s a crack in the foundation, the fact that my mother moved in with her months ago to take care of our aging grandmother and her dying home, and now the roles have reversed, as the curve of sobriety moves again and again. We could talk about outside help, for both her and my mother, but the conversation always ends the same way: we can take care of ourselves, this house has good bones. Instead, I say goodbye and walk out to my car, knowing that when my mother wakes up, she’ll call and apologize for her role in the last fifteen hours, for losing her longest held job in years last night, promising to make it up next time I’m home from college. 

Kayla Jessop is a recent graduate of the Masters of Arts in Writing program at Coastal Carolina University. Her creative nonfiction has been published in Tempo, Harpur Palate, and is forthcoming in other literary magazines. She does her best writing while sitting in coffee shops and daydreaming about possibilities. In her free time, she enjoys cross-stitching and watching New Girl.