don’t know if this is how every mom is with their children, I’ve never met another one, child or mother. I walk ten paces behind her, yet when I look over, our strides match. We’re both tall, and long-legged, red hair and green eyes. I am her duplicate in so many exterior ways. But inside? Inside I don’t belong. I don’t belong to her.
“When I was your age,” she says, “I’d get in big fights with my mom, your Grandma. She’d insist on ironing my jeans or she’d pack me a lunch for school when everyone else bought theirs in a cafeteria. I’d roll my eyes and be so … so … mean to her.”
I keep looking straight ahead, not responding to her soliloquy. Her talking about her past makes my insides constrict. I don’t understand so much of what she says.
“After we moved into the compound, I spent a long time regretting all the foolish things I did in my past. For months I remember wishing I could just say sorry to her for being so angry over such frivolous things, but it was too late.”
“I don’t know why you’re telling me this. I do what you ask, always. I am not the girl you were.”
“Listen, this isn’t not about teen angst. This is about our life, right now. Eventually I had to accept the person I was and the person I wasn’t. I realized I needed to live in the present – not the past – if I was going to take care of you. That hasn’t changed.”
“It has, Mom. Everything’s changed.” The memories of my life seem foolish now. The smell of the linoleum floor after I mopped it four times in a row for “sanitation purposes” or the science lessons Forest made me memorize, which were really his hypotheses, are reminders of a false reality. I feel duped.
“No, Lucy.” Mom stops and grabs my shoulders. She stares into my eyes with an intensity she always reserved for Dad. “I am still living in the present. The present is survival.”
She lets go and I tremble. She’s never so stern with me.
“Okay. I get it.” I step away and the divide between us widens with each breath we take.
“I don’t think you do.”
The silence returns as we keep walking. Mom tries to start conversations, trying to bridge the gap, but things have changed between us. The unspoken truth we both know is we changed the night Dad died and we lived. Our family, as we knew it, dissolved.
There are more houses as we make our way towards the city, dilapidated and overrun. Mom points out an elementary school, describing again for me how schools used to work. I’ve heard about education systems before, and looked on a map to see where people at the compound had gone to college, but looking at a building is so different than a photograph.
“Nothing looks as bad as I expected, Lucy. There are still houses standing, buildings upright and tall. Everything is just so overgrown. If only Jordan could have seen this.”
I withhold turning my thoughts into words … he could have ; instead I focus on the world around me. The growth is so green, lush, and full. So different than the blatant destruction I’ve always pictured in my head.
After we’ve eaten the last of the apples, and our bottles are near dry, I worry what we’ll do next. My head begins to pound, and I tell Mom about my headache. She tells me to stop stressing, but my worries are founded because soon we walk down what Mom calls an overpass. From the higher vantage point we see where the countryside and the picturesque views of the Puget Sound end, and where the destruction and looting the cowboys have told us about begins.
Mom covers her face with her hands, hiding her eyes from the view, and she stifles a sob.
“It’s okay, Mom. We can always go back to the compound.”
She pulls back her hands and blinks fast to fight her tears. “No, Lucy, we can’t. We need to find a place. A place for you.” Then she keeps walking.
Buildings and houses are on either side of us as we walk up and down streets that turn into big hills with long
“When I was your age,” she says, “I’d get in big fights with my mom, your Grandma. She’d insist on ironing my jeans or she’d pack me a lunch for school when everyone else bought theirs in a cafeteria. I’d roll my eyes and be so … so … mean to her.”
I keep looking straight ahead, not responding to her soliloquy. Her talking about her past makes my insides constrict. I don’t understand so much of what she says.
“After we moved into the compound, I spent a long time regretting all the foolish things I did in my past. For months I remember wishing I could just say sorry to her for being so angry over such frivolous things, but it was too late.”
“I don’t know why you’re telling me this. I do what you ask, always. I am not the girl you were.”
“Listen, this isn’t not about teen angst. This is about our life, right now. Eventually I had to accept the person I was and the person I wasn’t. I realized I needed to live in the present – not the past – if I was going to take care of you. That hasn’t changed.”
“It has, Mom. Everything’s changed.” The memories of my life seem foolish now. The smell of the linoleum floor after I mopped it four times in a row for “sanitation purposes” or the science lessons Forest made me memorize, which were really his hypotheses, are reminders of a false reality. I feel duped.
“No, Lucy.” Mom stops and grabs my shoulders. She stares into my eyes with an intensity she always reserved for Dad. “I am still living in the present. The present is survival.”
She lets go and I tremble. She’s never so stern with me.
“Okay. I get it.” I step away and the divide between us widens with each breath we take.
“I don’t think you do.”
The silence returns as we keep walking. Mom tries to start conversations, trying to bridge the gap, but things have changed between us. The unspoken truth we both know is we changed the night Dad died and we lived. Our family, as we knew it, dissolved.
There are more houses as we make our way towards the city, dilapidated and overrun. Mom points out an elementary school, describing again for me how schools used to work. I’ve heard about education systems before, and looked on a map to see where people at the compound had gone to college, but looking at a building is so different than a photograph.
“Nothing looks as bad as I expected, Lucy. There are still houses standing, buildings upright and tall. Everything is just so overgrown. If only Jordan could have seen this.”
I withhold turning my thoughts into words … he could have ; instead I focus on the world around me. The growth is so green, lush, and full. So different than the blatant destruction I’ve always pictured in my head.
After we’ve eaten the last of the apples, and our bottles are near dry, I worry what we’ll do next. My head begins to pound, and I tell Mom about my headache. She tells me to stop stressing, but my worries are founded because soon we walk down what Mom calls an overpass. From the higher vantage point we see where the countryside and the picturesque views of the Puget Sound end, and where the destruction and looting the cowboys have told us about begins.
Mom covers her face with her hands, hiding her eyes from the view, and she stifles a sob.
“It’s okay, Mom. We can always go back to the compound.”
She pulls back her hands and blinks fast to fight her tears. “No, Lucy, we can’t. We need to find a place. A place for you.” Then she keeps walking.
Buildings and houses are on either side of us as we walk up and down streets that turn into big hills with long
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