Read Installment 1 here

Read Installment 2 here

3rd Installment of

WHEN ANGELS KNOCK

 

Dad’s face is twisted in pain. He can’t face the way mom is: the anger and hate she heaps on him. The fear we live with crushes his mild spirit. Dad who could never say anything negative about anyone, pretends life hasn’t changed, mom hasn’t changed and takes comfort in routine.

     “You have to drive Mom to Goderich Mental Institute tomorrow. They’re expecting her. Here’s the address and call the doctor.” I shove my notes at him.    

     The next day, Mom is angry, but gets into the car without a fight. It’s a long, quiet ride until we drive by the ‘Welcome to Goderich’ sign. Then mom says, “You can’t lock me up. I’m not going. Why do you hate me? How will you manage without me? You don’t know how to pay the bills, collect the rent, make meals, do laundry. You can’t do anything without me.”

     She’s right. Mom’s the one who looks after us and is business savvy. She’s the one who made the decision to move here. She chose the house. It’s a large flat in downtown Stratford above a parts distribution company. She bought the building so we can get the rent from the business to offset the mortgage. Mom maybe mentally ill, but she is still business savvy and unbeatable at bridge, even though we think she cheats; we can’t catch her.

     “Why don’t you tell me off?” Mom screams. “Take charge for once in your life. Be a man! Tell me off!”

     There’s a pleading quality to her voice. Then she leans forward from the back seat poking her head between us in the front. Her high pitch shrill fills the car, “Tell me to shut up.”

     “Shut up,” Dad yells.

     It’s the first time I have ever heard him raise his voice.

     And Mom falls back in her seat laughing then crying, relieved that maybe this time he will take charge.

     Four months later, we travel this road again to pick mom up and bring her home. We are heading out the double-door exit when mom says, “I don’t know what the doctors will do without me. I confer with them on every case. They rely on my judgment.”

     I look at Dad and say, “We’re taking her out like this?”

     Dad won’t look at me. He keeps walking, head down, holding mom’s hand.

     Once home, living our pretend lives for the neighbours, mom curbs her physical violence with cruel, hurtful remarks. Her verbal attacks can last for an hour or more. I plead with Dad to make her stop, but he always answers with, “It’s the illness, it’s not your mother.”

     Like that somehow makes it right when she screams at me,  “No one will ever love you.”

   For the next two years, Mom hasn’t shown any signs of violence and I find myself wondering if she really is schizophrenic. When Mom finds out my boyfriend Bob has proposed to me a couple of times, she makes plans to move to Kitchener to break us up.

     Dad of course agrees to the move, but is surprised when once in our new home, mom kicks him out. With only the two of us in the house, mom no longer has to be on guard. Over time, she learns how to break me down, make me cower. I am the one who sent her away. I am the one who has to be punished.

     “There are only two people in this world I hate and that’s you and your father. But I hate you more because you were the one who sent me away. I hate you.” Her spittle flicks onto my skin. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”

     She knows how to push me into a corner without ever touching me. Making me back away from her and her vicious words, cringing until my back hits the wall with no escape. I can’t retaliate with hurtful words or even the truth because it gets too scary when I push back.

     This goes on for months on end. She’s right. I’m to blame for sending her to that place which didn’t help her and now there are two of us who are broken. Because I never want to be in charge ever again. I will never make decisions where things will be my fault. I will be a follower. Broken. Indecisive. Afraid.

     Eighteen and in grade thirteen, I dread going home after school and work. I try being invisible, tip toeing around, avoiding any kind of interaction. I can’t sleep, her words torment me. Even alone in bed at night, I tremble, my body twitching for hours with me unable to control it, afraid that her demons will get me while I sleep.

     I get up to get a glass of milk. The glass shakes so bad in my hand, I can’t drink from it and put it down when I hear a quiet knock at the kitchen door. I don’t know why I’m not afraid to open the door. It’s late.

     Bob is there. I can’t stop trembling when I tell him what’s happening. He is the only one who cares about me.

     “You can’t live like this anymore,” he says taking charge, confident and controlling. The opposite of my Dad. Bob is the person, I wish my Dad was.

     “We’re getting married,” Bob says.

     My White Knight, my hero rescuing me from this life to give me a happily ever after.     

     The crackly voice interrupts the music again, “Code White, Code White.”

                              ***

     Something so scary happening that they have to use a code to bring nurses and security guards on the run.    

     Shifting in bed, tugging at the blue gown to close the gap at the back, I feel the poetic justice of it all. My mother, forty-years later, finding a way to punish me from the grave, for sending her to the asylum, to make me crazy like her.

 

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