At Eleven, I Didn’t Understand

When I was eleven years old, I witnessed the break. There were many nights I prayed into the silence for silence to cover loud shouting one room to the next— the tearing apart— one human from another. I never thought tearing down. Without comparison, this becomes normal. I did wonder why our mother slept in our bedroom while my father slept alone in his. Then, as the thought entered, it took flight exiting on the same breeze. If this was part of the normal, so be it. It never crossed my mind to ask my friends if their parents slept in the same room. Within my bubble, their unmarried state never registered. Again—normal. We rose to warm breakfasts, ironed uniforms laid out, packed lunch boxes waiting. Most afternoons, she sat in her chair waiting on any and all tales from the schoolyard. She listened. Then came directives: do homework, bathe, dinner was waiting. Only on Sundays would the six of us gather for lunch as a family. Our large, three-bedroom, spacious home held the warmth of easy living. Well, in the beginning it did. The great divide began. My elder siblings had a different father. We, four, all mini replicas of one another. The shock took time to settle into shape. I would not see them differently. We are one. The second turn arrived with cold breakfasts, learning how to use the iron and joining the lunch line at school. She got a job, the silence I had prayed for—grew. Standing in the courtyard lunch line, the sun burned more fiercely than the changes. I weighed the trade-off. Three months later, a foreigner entered still has not left. Shame, previously unknown, settled. My father was a teacher. Tall, fair-skinned, grey eyes and soft curls. He presented well. At sixty-three, he disappeared with a nineteen-year-old wife and sent a note to the landlord: If the rent couldn’t be paid— evict us. My mother’s pleadings for her to continue paying went unheeded. My mother was short, dark-skinned, straightened hair and an increasingly unsmiling face. The “gutter tramp.” His brand. Our mother. We moved. Muddied dirt roads. No breakfasts. Treks with buckets to the nearest standpipe. Clothes hand-washed in a concrete sink. An outdoor toilet. We learned fast. At eleven, I tried to balance the novelty against the burden. It wouldn't balance. Longer days, everything pressed inward— the cramped two-bedroom, the leaking roof, no television. Within the space of five months, my mother aged considerably. My elder sister was pregnant. She was fifteen. My mother separated us, knowingly or not. Unfortunately, I looked most like him. Was I the easiest avenue upon which to place the pain? Was I not her child also? Why did every attack end with: You’re just like him. The divide lasted longer than it should. As time progressed, it filled ugly. Harsh words, biases, regret. Periodically, he would appear in the schoolyard. Smiling, forty dollars in hand for child care for my sister and me. A light step, a promise to visit soon, again. Always with a smile. Delivering it to my mother would somehow remind her of her need to speak. And I would stand there, praying again: Why doesn’t silence last? At eleven, I didn’t understand.