In The Beginning - Pt 5

It wasn’t until the front door banged with a deafening blow that I was broken from my trance. The crunch of stepping feet sounded on the graveled driveway and his car sped promptly away. My watch, which was still curled next to me on the floor, now read eight thirty. I wasn’t sure when it had stopped; didn’t know exactly how it had come to an end. All I knew was that it was over and he was gone. And that time measured by the metronome’s dial had been merciful – it had been swift.


I waited a while, then ventured outside my room. Billy didn’t catch me this time. His door, I saw, was firmly shut, and I crept gingerly down the stairwell. It was dark in the house. Just a single spray of light was slicing through the living room doorway, faintly illuming the hallway as I approached. She was sitting in the far corner of the room, my mother, propped awkwardly on a chair by the window. There was a slight rustle in the air – the sound of her jeans as she struggled to subdue her trembling legs. I couldn’t see her face; the lampshade was too dark, and it cast the light downwards into the wine colored carpet. Besides, she switched the light off as soon as she saw me, plunging the room into total darkness. Outside the window, a distant streetlamp lined the garden with a frosty edging. The leaf tips bore a silver glow, and they lay still in the calm of the cool night. My mother, however, was unaware of the peaceful scene at her side;

a flash of chaos still burned in her fiery eyes.

I inched towards her. A shard of glass crunched beneath my feet as I went. With an unsteady hand extended, I reached out into the darkness to touch her. All I wanted was to calm her nervous shuddering, to somehow make her feel better. But she pushed my hand away. “No,” she croaked, her objection barely audible. “The floor needs sweeping, clear the floor.”

I left. Went searching for a brush and returned minutes later, bending down on hands and knees to clear away the mess he’d made. I pricked my finger on the glass that night, fumbling around in the stinging silence, combing the darkness for the broken pieces. But I said nothing of the hurt. Instead, I let the blood drip down my goose-bumped skin and somehow I felt better for it. Because maybe the pain I was feeling would take some of hers away. And if it didn’t, at least I had found somewhere to focus my own. At least I had found a way to not think about it. And I was to get good at that, in all the weeks and months and years that followed. To not think would soon become a welcome reprieve.