That summer I turned four. My mother baked me cake, a beautiful chocolate cake with a vividly blue butterfly made from marzipan. Happy birthday, sweetheart, she smiled. She smiled and my whole world shrank to just that one moment. Mommy and me, just the two of us. She reached into her pocket, her long fingers searching within the folds of her dress.
That summer saw the goings of many things. The stillness of night broke with the shouting and screaming that grew louder and louder. I would lie awake on my pillow, feeling the warm breeze tickle over me, wishing for the anger to cool, and the yelling to finally stop. Every day, my mother faded more and more into shadow, her eyes red and swollen, and her face dark and withdrawn. And every night, the harsh voices and crushed cries drowned out the gentle chirps of the crickets. I was five years old.
I didn’t know then. I didn’t understand. I only wanted her to keep laughing forever, a strange tinkling sound I’d never heard before. I only wanted her to stay.
Too soon, the leaves lit in vibrant shades of gold, fire and titian. The chilly air of fall slinked in through the door, and settled itself throughout our house.
That day, in our frosty house, I sat playing with marbles, my feet touching the oak floor. They were cool glass, smooth, and I listened to the bare sound they made rolling across the floor. My mother was flitting around frantically, murmuring to herself as she dropped clothes into an old duffel bag. Finally, I heard the swish of the zipper, and she dropped the bag onto a rocking chair. I looked up, and she laughed, a strange metallic tinkle, over the creaking of the chair. Reaching down, she picked up my marbles and handed them to me absently, “Don’t roll them around the floor, someone might get hurt.”
I didn’t listen to her.
That night, she left. She left at the darkest time of night. The moonlight filtered in sickly through the open window in my bedroom. It was quiet now, the raw hurt that had splintered through the night earlier a crippled memory.
I could not sleep. In my head, the raspy, hopeless sobs echoed. I wanted it to stop. I wanted the sounds to stop. I just wanted the pain to go away from our house. I only wanted my mother’s laughter again.
In my childish hands, I held those glassy marbles, and I sat next to the staircase, watching the wan glow of the moon reflected multiple times in those marbles. I watched as, one by one, each marble rolled out of my hands to a gentle rest at the top of the stairs.
I must have fallen asleep, a fitful sleep. I remember waking to my father, shaking me roughly. The dark hollows under his eyes, and the shadow of a beard. I remember the broken sound of his words, “Your mother is in the hospital.”
I can still see the glint of the marbles, taunting me. My fault. A broken memory that I want to forget, need to forget. She had wanted to leave, to escape, and I, in my foolishness, in my willful disobedience, had choked her escape. Her glassy eyes had stared empty, but I had thought, I had thought…My fingers clutch at the pendant as I stare down at the smooth white marble. Loving wife and devoted mother. A single white tulip marks the anniversaries of my guilt and pain. Mother, I love you. Somewhere, the butterfly flickers away unhurriedly.
