Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu

Author:Nadia Owusu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2021-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

Homesick

After my father’s funeral, my mother did not call. She wrote one letter. Both my name and Yasmeen’s were on the envelope. Anabel left it on the kitchen table for us to find. I threw it—unopened—into the trash. I don’t think I told Yasmeen about it.

What could my mother possibly have to say? I did not want to know. I still don’t. What could be contained in that letter other than another act of jettison? I was not interested in apologies. There was no offer that would make up for what she had declined to offer. She hadn’t offered to claim me. She hadn’t offered a home.

I was so tired. My thoughts were full of blunt force. They left bruises. They left cracks. I remember thinking I would never again be loved in the absolute way in which a parent loves a child. I remember counting the lives I would have gladly sacrificed to spare my father’s life. That list was long. I named names. My mother’s name was on that list. I remember thinking how horrible I was for making that list. How horrible I was, how horrible I was, how horrible I was. I spent hours obsessing over my shortcomings. No wonder your mother didn’t want you, Anabel had once said. In silences, I heard her say it again and again. One night, I jerked awake, hopeful. The man snoring upstairs sounded like my father snoring. Upon realizing it was not my father snoring, that it was not even his ghost, I felt illogical hatred for the man upstairs. I added him to the sacrifice list. He was a nice man. He always said good morning and held the door open for me. He had two daughters.

I would have slept all day had it not been a struggle to fall asleep, to stay asleep. Instead, I went back to school just two days after the funeral. At school, I could hide in routine. With scissors, I cut bullet-like holes in all my jeans. All day, I drank from a water bottle of gin I kept in my backpack. In class, I took careful notes and answered questions correctly. At lunch, I rehearsed for the school play and gossiped with my girlfriends. Sometimes, the gossip on my tongue was bitter. I was cruel, crueler than I had been before my father died. I targeted girls whose families seemed happy. Girls who seemed light and optimistic. Vapid, I called them, and desperate to be liked. It was jealousy. My girlfriends laughed at my new meanness. I declined invitations to sleepovers and birthday parties. I didn’t want to hear the casual laughter, to see the intimacy of other families. I practiced laughing in the mirror. Laughter no longer came naturally.

At school, I maintained good grades. To teachers and classmates, I assume I seemed largely unchanged, except for the bullet jeans, except for the bitter tongue. No one asked me about grief. No one smelled the gin. I chewed pink bubble gum.

At night, I stayed up shaking.

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