The Way That Love Works

When I was eleven years old I learned the way love works. It happened something like this. One year my daddy became very busy so he didn’t come home a lot. Then, after a little while, he didn’t come home at all. Mommy became very sad because Daddy found a new family. She said it was because he didn’t love us, but that’s not the way love works. Mommy drank juice that made her dizzy; Daddy was always the one who would watch her, clean up her messes and drive us to school. So when he stopped coming home I became worried about who would do all the helping. Joey was busy with his friends after school. Mia and Maya were babies so Daddy’s job became my job. 

I went to school every day and slept with the babies every night so that made it hard to watch Mommy, but when I did I made sure I used my eyeballs the best I could. She’d change so fast that one time I even tried to hold my eyeballs open as long as I could to see if I could catch it - the change -  but I never could. I think it must have happened when I was blinking. It was like magic. Except it was bad magic, the kind that puts people under spells that they can’t get out of. I told her that if she was so thirsty then she should just drink water or milk, but she said she didn’t like water or milk. Even when I asked her nicely, she wouldn’t listen. I thought it was because she didn’t love me, but that’s not the way love works.

Most days were the same. My alarm clock would go off at 6:00 AM. The house would be so quiet that I could sometimes hear birds. I’d roll out of bed onto my knees and pray the Our Father and Hail Mary. I would ask to please, please, please help Mommy, then I’d cross myself like the priest–tap tap tap tap– and get up and go across the hall. 

“Joey! JOEY! Time for school!” I liked to tug on the chain of his lamp over and over. It made the room flicker like a strobe light and helped him wake up. 

Joey usually stayed up late at night playing games, so he always asked for five more minutes. Five minutes was good because I could check on the babies. By that time, Mia and Maya would be rattling the bars of their cribs like little jailbirds. It was how they told me that they had full diapers as they couldn’t talk in sentences yet. I would find their binkies and blankies (which were probably under the TV or wedged in the wall heater), shout at Joey once more, then go check on Mommy. She always said “I need a cup of coffee,” so I always made sure I had a cup of coffee. She tried to be nice in the morning even though she was sick. This is one of the ways that love works. The year Daddy left, they stole Mama’s driver’s license, so we rode our bikes to school. 

I remember what it felt like. We had this dog named Daisy. Sometimes Daisy would climb up on the couch and sit on my chest. She would walk in circles on my belly until she found a good spot and then plop down right on my chest. I know it made her happy because she would lick my face and cry when I got up. She was a big dog, so it hurt. It felt like there was this big rock on my body that kept me from breathing, but I loved her so much so I always let her stay. That’s what it felt like. The feeling of not being able to take a breath, of not taking breaths even when you want to take breaths because you love something so much that you don’t want to hurt it. Mommy is a lot like Daisy. I loved her more than breathing.

One year I decided I would do everything perfectly. I got gold stars on all of my assignments (except gym class because I hated gym class). I thought that if I did everything right, she would stop making herself dizzy and if she stopped being dizzy, then she could love me the way love's supposed to be. I thought it was the perfect plan, but when I came home with all of my gold stars (except gym class because I hated gym class), she still did it. She still drank it. She didn’t love me. It hurt so bad, it felt like a million Daisies on my chest. That night, I cried harder than ever before. Did you know that you can cry and not breathe at the same time? I thought that God did it, but he didn’t. God loved me all along. I just couldn’t see it because I didn’t know the way that love works.

I think on the night that I stopped breathing I cried all of the tears that were inside of me. The next day, God gave me something (or took something away–I’m still not sure). I remember it was a summer day and the air was hot. It felt like I was in a big bubble of someone’s breath. Mommy was sleeping and I was sitting on my bed with my forehead pressed against my window screen. I always liked doing that because when I pushed my face really hard it would leave marks on my face which reminded me of Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street. I remember when the wind was blowing in, I breathed in, and I could smell the grass and the wires of the window mesh and at that moment on that day God showed me how love works.

I always thought that love was supposed to be like the gold stars I got in school. I thought Mommy would give me love if I was the best daughter, the way that my teachers gave me gold stars for being the best student. I was wrong. Love isn’t a reward. It is not something that you earn or win or achieve–it just is. At that moment on that day I realized that I had it. I had love all along. Mommy loved me when she was sad or angry or happy or sleepy or dizzy. She loved me every day, even on the days that she said she didn’t. No matter how much I loved her, I couldn’t make her OK. No matter how much she loved me, she couldn’t be OK. Love doesn’t care, it just is. Love isn’t a gold star. Love isn’t happy. Love isn’t beautiful. Love isn’t butterflies in your belly. Love is a giant schnauzer on your chest that you let stay because you just want them to be happy even if it costs you your breath.

Sara Pompeo is a writer and poet from Beverly, Massachusetts. She has been published in Red Skies magazine, Vineyard Literacy, Poets Choice, and Oddball Magazine.