They say you have to take it day by day. That’s a lie. It’s hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second, while every fiber of your body tears and screams and fights with you, resisting, insisting, asking for just one more, just one more and then you’ll really stop this time. I swear I’ll really stop this time.
I didn’t know what it would be like, coming back to that house. It was worse than I expected. I don’t know how I slept that night, the room teeming with memories. It was this house where I’d tripped and skidded across the wooden floor when I was a seven, the skin on my knee peeling off in one clumsy move. I rubbed my knee where one spot was still shiny and bald. With one hand I absently smoothed the blankets over the mattress, feeling the bumps of loose springs. It was too small for me by a few inches, so I had to lie in almost a fetal position when I slept, legs tucked up to my chest in the bed I’d occupied from ages six-and-a-half to seventeen-and-three-quarters. Everything in the room was the same, from the striped, sailor blue curtains to the dent in the wall. I slipped my hand into it, feeling the cool plaster beneath my palm. A perfect fit. I removed my hand and treaded down the staircase.
Mom was the first one up. That hadn’t changed either. I smiled at her back
as she puttered around the counter in her terry robe. She turned around, her bare eyes small and beady. She looked strange without her glasses. Like a memory of herself; it was as though she was frozen in a moment I had seen when I was twelve, drinking my first cup of coffee.
“Hey sweetie,” she said, stifling a yawn. “You sleep okay?”
“Sure, better than I have in a while actually.” I said. I regretted saying it right away. It was true, of course, but I could see the phrase hanging in the air, sprouting limbs and clinging to mom’s head. It conjured up images of seedy motel rooms, wallpaper yellowed and peeling, mattresses thin and grimy. I swatted it from the air and changed the subject.
“Is that a new coffee? It smells new,” I said, lying. It smelled exactly the same.
“No, just the same old instant crap. Your dad loves it, God knows why. That man will never change.” She turned back to me and I was fourteen years old, my brand new (to me) Doc Martens laced up and a fresh cup of coffee in my hands. Fight it, fight it, fight it. Replace the thought. Rejoin the synapses. She handed me a mug of coffee and I was back, twenty-three and longing for a drink. Resist, insist.
“Thanks,” I said, and looked down at the cup in my hands. It was the same honey-comb patterned mug I’d always had my morning coffee out of, with the same worn-yellow glaze and the same chip in the rim. I sipped the coffee. It tasted like the day I’d woken up to find the front door ajar, the car gone, and my father sitting silently at the kitchen table, head in his hands. Can you do it? Can you endure for another second? Drink your coffee.
“How’s Mirel doing?” I said. “I’m surprised she didn’t come wake me up.” Mom dropped the plate she was cleaning and I heard it crack in the sink and the crack brought me back to twenty-three; I’d slipped into fifteen for a moment. Mirel was dead. I was here for her funeral.
“Mom,” I said. My heart felt heavy in my chest, as though it was a bird with wet wings, fluttering pitifully in a puddle. “Mom, I'm sorry. I don’t know what happened, I just–I forgot.” She turned around and looked at me, chewing the inside of her cheek. She sighed.
“How I’d love to forget. It must be nice being you.” She turned back to the sink and began gathering the shards of the plate. I sat. I was sixteen years old and I was about to drive myself to school in my own car, the old yellow peugeot that I’d been saving for for two years. Take a breath. Wait ten seconds. Let it pass. I stood up, opened the door, and walked out. The morning sun was peeking through the trees, blinding me momentarily. I stood and breathed, the chill air turning my breath into vapor. I sat in my car – the same one I’d had since high school – grabbed the keys from the visor and turned on the ignition. I looked in the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of curly red hair. I whipped around, my heart pounding.
Empty.
They say you have to take it day by day. That’s a lie. It’s really hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second. And at the end of each day you’re left alone in an old car with nothing to keep you company but a memory.
And a drink.