Mari

I hate my life. I hate my job. I hate the crappy apartment that I have to exist in because I can’t afford anything else because I send money home to my parents.

Most of all, I hate that right now I’m sitting in the bathroom crying because I didn’t have the courage to do what needs to be done. Suddenly I can’t see anything better than my shitty one bedroom and the mould in the corner of the living room that I’ve painted over so many times I’m convinced it’s a demon stain and not natural.

And my job. I love that now and would do just about anything to keep going into that office where Ben the office good time boy keeps grabbing my ass.

And my life. I want this life back now that I know I can’t have it.

I cry a little harder, biting into my lip with a force that has me tasting copper and wincing at the ache. I can’t do this. I shouldn’t do this. I mustn’t do this and yet…

“You need to move home, Marionetta, and take care of me. Your father works too much and I can’t rely on your brothers and their wives. They have lives.”

As if children suddenly make them so much more important than I am. To mom, if you’re single and not in any hope of having a man and a family, your life means nothing.

That’s my mistake. I am the good daughter. The spinster as mom tells her friends.

And you’re probably thinking I don’t love my parents. I do. I adore them because my mom is exactly how you’d picture a good Irish Catholic wife. She makes breakfast every day and goes to church and irons my dad’s shirt like he’s going off to an office job instead of driving a dump truck.

And dad is a pill. He likes his hooch, but he’s always reliable. Mom’s short and round with hair set to within an inch of its life even if it’s started going grey. Dad’s huge, a little round from mom’s cooking, and jovial.

If he wasn’t a salt and pepper dark haired behemoth, I’d think of him as Santa. Prison Santa true, but Santa never the less.

I love my family, but my parents drive me crazy and my brothers…I shudder just remembering those assholes!

“Open the fucking door already!” I hear right before banging commences, announcing Ing and whatever the hell has crawled up her ass in the last day or so.             

Sighing wearily I rise to my feet, check my face to ensure that I don’t have a sign of the tears I’ve just shed all over it, I stomp to the door, make a concerted effort to scowl over the misery I feel and yank the door open.

“Jesus, Ing, what the heck? It’s freaking Sunday. Sunday, Ingram, you know the day God says it’s okay for us to be gross and lazy?”

Ing just rolls her eyes and storms passed me, shoving the door closed before stalking into the kitchen and yelling for me to follow.

“Here. Eat this and drink the coffee. You look like hell and from those red eyeballs of yours you’ve been crying. You know you can’t hide that shit Mari, I’ve seen you cry before and it leaves you ugly for at least a day.”

I comply only because the last time I ate was at yesterday’s party and Effie’s and I am starving. I have zero food in the cupboards and my fridge looks like a science experiment of mould and old takeout that I must have ordered sometime in the last year. I think.

The bagels taste great with the cheese Ing prefers and the blueberry muffins are soft and moist and so good I moan when I take the first bite.

“What’s going on?” Ing asks after I’ve fed myself and walk back to fall onto the couch with a groan.

“Nothing.”

I do not want to talk about this at all. I want to pretend for just a few more hours that I don’t have to hand in my notice tomorrow and tell my land lord that I have to get out of my lease.

I want to tell myself that I’m gonna phone my father and tell him to hire a nurse for mom because I am not dropping everything to move back to his house.

Just thinking about it makes me break into a cold sweat.

“Mari.” Ing says sharply, forcing my legs onto her lap as she takes a seat.

“Fine. They want me back home. Mom has some heart thing apparently and the doctors say she can’t be alone. Or do chores.”

“So basically you have to just end your life as it is, go home and be a slave? Hell no! Call him and tell him to go to hell Mari.” She yells, making me smile at the scowl on her face.

I love Ing. She’s the only person in my life who knows exactly what my brothers were like growing -up.

When I needed a shoulder she was there. When I was in pain she’d sneak some of her mom’s pills and stay with me when I was high. Ginny and Rox, my own cousin, still think I was quiet in school because the nuns scared the bejesus out of me.

That’s still true. I am terrified of nuns after my brothers burst out of my closet wearing bloody habits, knives held high, their faces painted to look like monsters.

I used to piss my sheets for months after that until…I learned to sleep on the floor after that until I got my bladder under control.

But mostly, in school, I was so high on painkillers I couldn’t tell you my name if you asked me. It’s funny, my brothers are huge. They have been since they crawled out of mom’s womb, struggling for life. My father and mother never once raised so much as their voices to them though. God help me I wish they had.

“Mari.”

“What if she’s really sick Ing? If I don’t go and she keels over washing dad’s underpants I will never forgive myself.” I say softly. “And besides it’s no big deal. They live right here in the city, a block away from Lizzie and Ian.”

“No! I won’t accept this do you hear me. You worked so hard to get out of that house Mari. You made it out and I won’t let you go back there.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do Ingram! This is my family.’ I say hotly, hating the way her face goes blank.

“Fine. Do what you want but do not come crying to me when it goes bad. Fuck!”

She leaves before I can say sorry and leaves me just as I was when she banged on the door. Crying.