Escape

Everything is glowing bright in the setting afternoon sun, the light covering the world in a million shades of red. Smoke is hanging thick in the air, making the heat of the disappearing day even more unbearable.

The neighbours all around are bidding the summer farewell with a last barbecue. I can hear the children laugh, and play, and cry. I can hear the grownups laugh, and talk, and shout. I can hear dogs and cats and cars. I can hear sounds all around. I can hear sounds everywhere, except in our house.

Our house is empty and quiet. No one has said a word, acknowledged the other one’s presence or tried to make oneself heard. I have tried. I have tried a hundred times. The other times I pleased my mother and stayed quiet, showed everyone the perfect daughter. She tells me then that she is proud of me, that she loves me, that I am all she ever wished for.

I love her. She made me the person I am today. She gave me the strength to leave and never come back. I love her. And that’s why I haven’t told her yet, that’s why I haven’t told anyone. It will destroy her. Losing both her children exactly one year apart.

My bag is packed, stored under my bed. I will get it out when everyone is asleep. I am not sure I should have packed it, not last night. But it’s too late for these kinds of thoughts now – I made up my mind.

The grandmother clock in the foyer chimes six. The sound moves through the whole house, through every part of my body and I close my eyes for a moment.

‘I hate that fucking thing!’ I hear her voice as if it were yesterday, but it wasn’t yesterday, it’s been exactly one year. My sister was the smarter one, she was braver and prettier too, she was… is… everything my mum loves about me. Will I find her on my travels in my new life?

The sound fades and shortly after, like clockwork, I can hear my mother working in the kitchen. I can’t hear her, just the pots, and pans, and bowls clanging together. My father will be in the living room, in the big worn armchair facing the garden, reading the newspaper.

At seven we dine. Not a word is exchanged. No need for those. I said my goodbyes – with pen and paper, to be delivered two days from now. My mother never speaks if it isn’t absolutely necessary, and my father is a naturally quiet person. Everything is as it always was. And nothing will change when I am gone.

It’s seven twenty-three as I glance at the clock, and seven thirty-five as we finished dinner and I make my way up the stairs. Just a few hours left until I am finally free.

In my room I finish up a homework and then fold some paper birds out of colourful paper to pass the time. As I am hanging them up by the window and watch how they dance in the breeze it knocks at my door. My mum is standing in the doorframe, wearing her apron.

‘Your dad and I decided to have a barbeque tomorrow. Could you help me get the meat out of the freezer?’

‘Sure,’ I respond and jump down from the window seat I had been standing on to pin the paper birds to the ceiling.

I follow my mum, down the hallway and down the stairs, contemplating if she is aware that we had a barbeque last year, too, after my sister left.

We continue along the hallway of the ground floor towards the door to the basement. She opens it and lets me descend the steep steps first. I let my fingers brush past the rough stone walls. I always loved the feeling: cold, somewhat sandy, close to painful but never hurting me. Today they prick my finger and a drop of blood appears. To not get any stains on my clothes I put the finger in my mouth. I hope my mum doesn’t see.

‘I hope you didn’t get any of that blood anywhere near your clothes. Let me see!’

Shit. I turn around at the bottom of the stairs, holding out my finger for my mum to see.

The next thing I know, I am crouching on the ground, the white tiles splattered with red dots. My head is hurting terribly and something is dripping down the side of my face.

 ‘Look at me!’ Her voice doesn’t leave any room for protest, so I do. She is looking down on me from three steps up. Her hair is perfectly arranged in a neat bun at the back of her head, her dress showing wrinkles under the apron, her make-up smeared at her eye. Did she cry? She isn’t looking her usual self. Did something happen?

‘Mum, are you okay? Were you crying?’ I ask in a weak voice. My eyes are heavy, my head hurts and my body tells me to stay down – getting up would be a bad idea. It is then that I see the hammer in my mother’s hand, dangling on her side, her knuckles white, drops of blood falling to the concrete steps.

‘Mum, what is going on?’ My voice quivers now and I try to get up, try to create more distance between us, but my legs give out under me, and I fall, once again, to the floor.

‘You slipped and fell. But that’s okay, we all make mistakes. Let me help you,’ she says, her voice sweet now. But she doesn’t move.

‘Mum?’ I plead as the edges of my vision become darker. I raise a hand to my head and realise that it is blood that’s running down my face and shoulder, onto my clothes and the floor. Is that bone I feel? How am I still awake, conscious?

‘Mum?’ I whimper again. Why is she just standing there?

‘You glanced at the clock, twice.’

‘What?’ I voice my confusion, not knowing if she heard it, my strength declining by the second.

‘You really thought you could outwit me and just run away?’ She leaves a short pause. ‘You are just like your sister.’

She just stands there watching me as I slowly sink further to the ground, soaking my clothes with the blood that has been oozing onto the floor. My eyes are so heavy and all I want to do is sleep. In the daze that is trying to pull me under, I hear the basement door open.

‘Dad?’ I whisper, knowing that he can’t hear me. There are no shouts, no pushing, no steps, no words from him or anything that would indicate that he is going to help me. What I hear instead is my mum speaking calmly and quietly to him, using her everyday voice as though nothing is wrong.

‘She was like her sister.’

My father’s response is tired, heavy, almost bored, as if he has been through all of this before and knows that he can’t change a thing, and still he asks, wants to know. ‘Carol, honey, was that really necessary? She was our daughter.’

 ‘She was a disappointment, a disgrace, weak, like her sister before her. She is no daughter of mine. Now go upstairs and send the invitations!’

I can feel my eyes closing, there is no use fighting it anymore and still, I feel sorry. I am… What am I? Sorry, free, happy, dying, surviving, fighting, loved? A few tears roll down my cheeks and I am suddenly certain that I will see my sister sooner than I had planned and hoped and with a smile on my lips everything goes dark.