Filling the Void
by Rose White
As Lily waved from the front stoop of her attached house, she forced a smile on her face. She shivered in the cold February air as the carpool sped off with her girls. The sun glinted from the chrome luggage rack on the top of the station wagon and Lily attempted to miss her children. She did not succeed. She could only wonder how she would get through this day.
This morning her husband had reminded her. "So this afternoon you have your lunch with your parents for your mother's birthday, right?" Robert said as he put on his tie.
Once upon a time, Lily would have tried to hide her despondency from her husband and children. Happiness was easily counterfeited. But Bobby recognized Lily's happy façade for a mask. So now she did not even try. This morning Lily had rolled over in bed so she did not have to face him. She just wanted to go back to sleep.
"All right, Honey, I'm off to work. The girls are dressed and are eating breakfast. Stevie is playing in the playpen. I'll see you in the evening." Lily hated his fake, cheerful voice. He knew that she did not want to see her parents. Why was he bothering her? Why did they always bother her?
"HONK!" She frowned at her neighbor as he honked his horn and waved from his black Lexus. She looked down and realized that she was still in her pajamas. Muttering to herself that she needed to get dressed, Lily reentered her house.
Once in the living room, Lily tripped over a brown, wooden toy dog.
"Oh shit!" She did not bother to stop her words from reaching the baby's ears. The toy had black plastic wheels on the bottom and a red string attached to its painted-on collar, so her three children could pull the doggy through the house. The kids left toys all over the place. Robert said their house was a mess. Still, why should she clean up? The chaos wasn't her fault.
Lily ignored the toys littered throughout the living room, as well as her son playing on the brown carpeted floor. The monochromatic room, with brown and ivory-specked furniture, ivory walls, and soft, dirty, tan, child-friendly carpet on the floor, did not appeal to her. This was supposed to be Lily's home, yet she did not feel as though any of it was really hers. Everything belonged to someone else.
Aside from her children's toys, there were her grandmother's paintings adorning the walls in no specific pattern. Mommy insisted on hanging them up. It did not matter that Lily disliked the mismatched collection. The paintings needed to go somewhere. Mommy firmly believed that anything even semi-valuable should not be thrown out or even given away. Mommy was sentimentally attached to the artwork, so they were on Lily's walls to make Mommy happy.
The couches were from the roach infested apartment that she and Robert had lived in when they first got married. Some of the fabric was worn and there were spots where Lily could see the foam of the cushions peeking through. Lily was tired of the couches. She was tired of them painfully reminding her about a time when she could look to the future and hope.
Lily needed coffee. So she waded through the sea of playthings to the kitchen. Stevie followed her, calling out. "Mama." Lily did not care. The only voice that mattered was the one calling out for caffeine.
As she entered the white tiled and brown Formica-countered kitchen, a sour putrid scent enveloped her senses. Eyes watering, nose scrunched, Lily noticed that the dishes piled up in the sink were covered in a vibrant array of multi-colored food pieces. Lily knew that the smell emanated from the dishes that had already resided in her sink for five days. Still, she could not bring herself to pick up the sponge. It was hard to remember the love or happiness of taking care of others.
Joy was something that was felt by the deluded. Hurt and pain, those were real. Unable to teach her children the joy in life, Lily taught her daughters and son to expect disappointment.
Why, just last month, Rosie, her eldest, was complaining about something on the back of her neck. It was just a pimple. So Lily said to her little girl, "Oh, it looks like a red ant. Red ants bite and it hurts. See." Lily squeezed out the pimple as hard as she could. As Rosie cried out, Lily welcomed the feeling of satisfaction.
Sometimes Lily thought her children would be better off without her. She explained it to her husband. There was no connection with any of the people that called themselves her family. Not with her children, her parents, nor her husband. They were all just foreign bodies invading Lily's life and forcing her to go on. They just asked more and more of her, adding responsibility on top of responsibility. The weight of all that responsibility just made Lily want to escape.
Lily turned on the faucet and tried to fit the kettle over the pile of dirty dishes to fill it with water. Everything was a struggle.
With some fancy maneuvering, she filled the kettle and slammed it down on the stove top. Stevie picked this moment to crawl forward on the black and white checked linoleum floor and pull his weight up on her legs. Lily looked at her son, her constant companion, at his grubby little hands holding on to her knees, at his chubby face all covered in drool, and tried to drum up the feelings that she knew she should feel. Yet Lily only resented the sweet face that looked up at her.
Lily laughed bitterly. The sound startled Stevie and he fell down. He started to cry. As the high pitched wail grated on her already fragile mood, Lily grabbed twin handfuls of her short hair on either side of her head and pulled them in frustration. With a forceful exhale she looked down at her son.
Knowing that Stevie was just startled and not really hurt, Lily picked him up anyway. It was the only way to quiet him. The child really was needy. He was almost as bad as Mommy.
As she stood looking at the cause of her misery, a sickly sweet aroma emanated from her baby's diaper. Scrunching her nose, she swung Stevie up into her arms. Baby on her hip, she moved her still cold kettle to the counter, resting it under the shade of the cabinets. Lily exited the kitchen and walked purposefully towards the stairs.
As she heard her slippers softly hit the ratty tan carpet of the living room, Lily realized that she had no emotions left, no volition. It was as though she was a robot, doing things for no reason except that it was what was expected of her.
She walked into Stevie's room to begin the stressful process of changing a squirmy, stinky one-year-old boy. The crib and changing table cast dark shadows on the light blue walls. A mobile, with a rainbow, a heart, a person, and other colorful objects that Lily had sewn a lifetime ago, hung over the crib. Lily hated the mobile. She had made it before Stevie was born, when she could still feel the excitement of welcoming a new life into the world.
The baby rubbed his eyes and Lily realized that Stevie seemed tired, so she put the newly diapered baby into the mahogany crib. He started to scream.
What did he expect her to do? She walked out of the room and slammed the door. Yet even the door did not muffle the cries that were fast becoming hysterical. How could she quiet him?
Lily went to the kitchen. She looked at the knife on the counter, but then shook her head. Lily found a bottle in the refrigerator and went back up the stairs. She opened the door to
Stevie's room and threw the cold bottle at her son. As he busied himself with the milk, she left the room without a backwards glance. She walked through the small hallway to the bedroom she shared with Robert and thought that maybe Stevie would finally let her be in her thoughts.
Lily reveled in the memories of a time when she could feel the pain and desolation. Right after she became pregnant with Stevie, her body's hormones started to change and Lily began to feel different. Soon she began to have an obsession with death. There were so many ways she could kill herself. Lily even enjoyed figuring out intricate ways to do herself in. Yet her husband, the man who was supposed to support her, was unable to accept her new passion.
When Lily would try to explain how he should go on with his life when she was gone, he would just change the subject. Feeling ignored, Lily wondered if Robert would ever try to understand her zeal. It filled the void that had been haunting her heart. It gave her purpose when before there was none.
One day, when home alone, Lily tried a simple thing - she took a knife and sliced her arm from wrist to elbow. As she rested in the warm water of the bathtub, she was mesmerized by how the red tint of her blood swirled about in the calm of the water. Lulled by her numbing sensations, Lily began to feel sleepy. She closed her eyes to welcome oblivion.
Suddenly, she was awake and in a hospital. Anger filled her. Where was the yearned-for respite from her life? Who could have ruined her plans? Then she looked to her side. There was her "dear husband" with tears falling down his rounded cheeks. There were purple half moons beneath his eyes. His straight black hair was slick with the natural oils that build up from not showering. Robert's usually clean shaven jaw was covered with short, uneven, black stubble. There were dark sweat marks on his shirt below his armpits. She glared at him with all the fury she could muster.
"Why?" was the only word that came from his lips. In that one word she was able to hear his hurt and his confusion.
But Lily knew that he had no right to feel hurt. He had ruined her plans. If he had made even the slightest attempt to understand, he would have let her escape.
"This isn't about you," was Lily's soft reply.
"The doctors say that you need to stay for a while for observation. For your sake, and the baby's," he said, his voice faltering.
"Fine," she replied.
She added, "Maybe this is what I need, a break from all those people who are always around me."
Robert sat for a little while longer next to her bed. Uncomfortable silence filled the room. Then he mentioned something about the babysitter, the kids, and that he needed to go.
"I'll come back to visit you whenever I can," he added. Lily expressed her exasperation by blowing her breath through her nose with a whoosh. She knew he still did not understand.
Robert got out of the chair and leaned over to try to kiss her forehead. Lily turned her head away from him. She was still facing the other side of the white walled generic hospital room as she heard the squeaks made by the soles of his shoes move further away. The door shut. The noises of the outside world were muffled by the heavy metal door. Lily fell back asleep with a feeling of relief.
The phone rang, jolting Lily from her memories. Looking up at the digital clock resting on the white plastic table next to her bed, Lily realized that it was almost 11:30AM. It was probably Mommy. Lily dreaded her calls with Mommy. The one-sided conversations would go as follows: "Why don't you call every day? It is Bobby's fault that we can not see each other more often. The doctors don't know what they are talking about - nothing is wrong with my daughter. Could you drive me to my cousins house three hours away? Could you bring the kids to visit your aging mother?"
Maybe today it would be different. After all, it was Mommy's birthday. Maybe Mommy was just calling to talk about where they were going for lunch. Sighing, she picked up the phone and said, "Hello, Mommy."
Her fingers nervously played with the cord as Mommy asked how she was feeling. "I'm okay, Mommy. When do you and Daddy want to go out?"
"Lily, I need your patience," her mother began. Lily knew this was going to be a typical Mommy call.
"I'm not feeling well today and I can't go out with you. My head hurts and I feel so tired. You have to understand I just can't go out today."
Lily let out a sigh of relief. Her mother did not want to see her after all. "That's fine Mommy. Good bye." She hung up the phone and pulled the cord out of the wall and then detached it from the phone. She left the bedroom hugging the cord close to her body.
Now there were nobody else's plans, no responsibilities, and nothing else to worry about.
Lily began to hum to herself. The distant ringing of the living room phone added to the cadence. Lily let the call go to the phone's answering machine.
"Hello. Lily? Pick up, it's Bobby. Your mother just told me that she couldn't go out with you today. I am coming home to take you out for lunch…Lily? Please pick up…Okay, I will see you soon. I am leaving right now."
Lily continued humming and looked in on Stevie. He was still in a deep sleep. She would not be interrupted. Her wordless song was her only accompaniment as she walked into the bathroom.
There would be no more responsibilities ever, no more guilt, and no more pain.
She opened the stall and tied one edge of the phone cord to the shower head. She pulled on it hard, making sure that it could handle her weight. Then she took the powder blue stool that her kids used to reach the sink and put it on the shower floor. She stood on the stool.
Finally it did not matter what her husband tried, what her kids needed, what her mother wanted. She was in control.
Still humming she tied the other end of the cord around her neck and stepped off the stool.
Rose White is a mother, wife, and yoga instructor who lives in West Hempstead, NY. She has completed three Gotham Writing Workshops. She is also an active member of the West Hempstead Writers Workshop.
Also in Fiction
Snow Angels and Somersaults
The Night I Left Mom