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.
