When I was 14, my mother moved a stranger into our apartment. A few days before he arrived, while we ate our TV dinners in the couch as we watched the channel 7 news, she said that someone would be coming to stay with us. Who? I asked. My husband, she said. I paused and looked up at her, her diamond ring a tiny sparkle seeming out of place as she shovelled food from the container into her mouth with a plastic fork. Oh? I asked, even though I knew that she had gone down to Jamaica three times in the last two years, returning with a gold band and diamond ring after the most recent trip. She wore it with a boastful silence, placing a plastic bag over her hand to mop the floor or take out the garbage. But never had she mentioned the words marriage or husband to me. Her admission relieved me of any guilt I had felt when I found and read more than a few of the mystery man\u2019s love letters to her when I rifled through her dresser drawer, searching primarily for loose change, but in the back of my mind hoping to happen upon secrets. If not for those stolen glances, I would have choked from surprise. That\u2019s right, she said in a tone that discouraged further discussion on the matter.<\/p>\n
I took another spoonful of the watery mashed potatoes and returned my gaze to the television. Someone had been stabbed in the parking lot behind our building. A tragedy, the reporter called it, because the victim, a 15-year-old boy, was so young. My mother kissed her teeth and rolled her eyes. Victim? she scoffed. Like he was some saint. He was probably out there running with the gangs, shooting up the place. She belched loudly then changed the channel. Matlock. I rolled my eyes and sighed, she seemed to have a knack for loving things that I hated. I got up and she asked me where I was going. To my room, I said. You know how much I hate Matlock. It sucks. She cut her eye at me, sharp like she wanted to lash my skin with just a look. Watch your tongue, she said. I want no attitude from you when he gets here. You hear me?<\/p>\n
I wanted to slam the door when I got to my room, but I knew she\u2019d only return my insolence with blows and licks that would swell purple and bluish-black bruises across my skin. I wrote in my diary instead, calling her all kinds of nasty names that would probably have singed the halo that hung over her holier-than-thou head. By the time I penned the last vitriolic sentence in my entry of contempt, I felt better. I spent the rest of the night hanging my head out my window, peering 12 storeys down at the basketball court, listening to the screech of sneakers and the rubber echo of the basketball bouncing off the asphalt. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He came that same week. When I got home from school, my headphones on and my CD player volume bucked all the way to the highest setting, I casually turned the key in the lock and, finally, let out a fart that I had been holding in the elevator ride up. My mother, who was sitting in the couch with her back to the front door, turned her head and glared at me. You nasty child, she hissed. You\u2019re lucky he\u2019s in the bathroom and didn\u2019t get such a warm welcome from you. I apologized and said that I did not know she would be home. I took my runners off at the door, placing them at the opposite edge of the door mat, as far away from the man\u2019s leather loafers that were already there. Come take a seat, she said. I sat in the loveseat, next to the couch and placed my backpack on the floor by my feet. I glanced at my mother, sitting up straight and proper, with her legs crossed and her hands resting lady-like in her lap. She was wearing make-up and her black pin-striped pant suit, two things she only wore on parent-teacher nights. Her hair was freshly done too, her roller-set curls tight and crisp with a healthy black sheen. You look nice, I said. Really? she asked, smiling nervously. You think so? I nodded and winked at her with a thumbs up, our mutual sign of approval.<\/p>\n
I heard the muffled sound of the toilet flushing and hoped that our guest had flushed himself away. All the way back to wherever he came from. But against all my wishing, a tall dark-skinned man with a chiseled, hard jaw and heavily lined forehead emerged from the washroom. His face was clean-shaven and his hair cut so low, it gave the impression that he was bald. My mother breathed out coolly and smoothed her hands over her thighs, then introduced me as her daughter, Deirdre. But you can call her DeeDee, she said and though her gaze was still fixed upon the stranger, I think she must have felt the daggers I was cutting into the back of her skull, because she immediately added, but she prefers Dee. <\/p>\n
The stranger held out his hand and smiled, turning up only one corner of his mouth, while the other side stayed flat and cold. Pleased to meet you, he said without introducing himself. He took a seat next to my mother, settling back into the plush cushions with an arm around her shoulders and his left leg casually folded over his right knee, a little too comfortable for a man who had only just arrived. So, how was school? he asked. Alright, I said. What are you studying? Everything, I said. My mother\u2019s eyes narrowed and her lips shrivelled into a tight knot. Math, biology, English, I added. You know, the usual stuff. He nodded, but he was staring at my mother and stroking her back, while she rubbed his thigh with her palm. I shifted in my seat and adjusted the collar of my shirt. I didn\u2019t like what they were doing. May I be excused? I asked. Sure, he said, even though my question had not been directed at him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I tried to do my homework, but it was impossible to focus. I wasted the hours tossing a tennis ball above my head, doodling in my binder and writing in my diary, all the while circling my thoughts and feeling sorry for myself. Who was this man and what was he doing here? When did she get married? Why didn\u2019t she tell me? There was a knock on my door. My mother asked if I wanted something to eat. I answered no and tried to return to the calculus laid out on my desk. I had only half-heartedly worked my way through one question when I heard footsteps padding down the hall and the soft click of my mother\u2019s door being closed. I sat up tense and silent in the darkness, my stomach in knots over what would come next. It was only a few minutes before moans massaged the walls and the squeaky springs of my mother\u2019s bed began to strike off-key chords. I put my headphones on, pressed play on my CD player and turned up the volume while I fumed at her betrayal. How could she do this to me? I don\u2019t know this person from Adam. Finally, anger simmered to sadness and tears soaked the pillowcase as I tried to muffle my cries with my face pressed deep into the pillow. <\/p>\n
I awoke to a loud growl in the hollows of my stomach. My cheek was sticky and crusted from drool and dried tears. I peeled myself out of bed, wondering what time it was. The hallway and living room were bathed in dark and shadows, the glow of the full moon casting just enough light to see my way to the kitchen. There was a take-out container left on the counter, \u201cDee\u201d written in black marker across the Styrofoam lid. I opened the container to find rice and peas and oxtail, my favourite, with a spoon\u2019s round impression left in the bed of rice and a crater in the mound of meat, where someone had clearly removed a piece of oxtail. Though my mother and I often shared food, deliberately ordering two different meals just so that we could try each other\u2019s, I was disgusted and threw the entire container out and made myself a cheese and jam sandwich instead, which I took out onto the balcony. <\/p>\n
Outside, the stars were dull specks in the haze of streetlamps and lit rooms scattered in buildings so tall they seemed to touch the sky. Voices rustling in the wind, heels clicking on the concrete, honking horns and humming engines breathed life into the night air. With my elbows balancing on the rusted railing, I chewed silently so that I could relish the familiar sounds of my neighbourhood. On nights when my mother worked overtime, I would leave the window open, so that noise would come pouring into my room, drowning out the fear-filled silence of loneliness. When I finished my sandwich, I pitched the crusts over the balcony and watched them fall to the ground, inches away from the garbage bins. Damn, I missed. I returned to bed, feeling better and more hopeful for tomorrow. Maybe I\u2019ll wake up and he\u2019ll be gone, I thought. Maybe, this is just temporary. She\u2019ll realize she doesn\u2019t like him and send him back, like an impulsive buy returned the next day.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t temporary at all. When I awoke, even though I did not see him, I knew that he was still there, sleeping in while my mother dressed for work and I got ready for school. Shhh, she said as I noisily removed a bowl from the cupboard. He\u2019s sleeping, she said. I recoiled from her hug at the front door and stepped on the shiny toe of his loafers with my scruffy sneakers, grinding the pattern of my sole into the leather, half by accident, half on purpose. My mother scowled and shooed me away before fetching a piece of paper towel, which she moistened with her spit and used to wipe away the scuff. I rolled my eyes and left without saying goodbye. She leaned her head out into the hallway and hissed my name. You better check that attitude, she said. You have no manners \u2013 leaving without so much as a word. I told her that I said goodbye, without turning around. You just didn\u2019t hear me. I pressed the elevator button and waited with my back still facing her. Look at me when I\u2019m talking to you, she whispered harshly. Thankfully, the elevator came and it was empty. I immediately rushed inside and pressed the close button repeatedly until the steel doors slid shut. I exhaled finally, feeling as though I had been holding my breath since the stranger\u2019s arrival. I tilted my head back and blinked away the tears welling in my eyes.<\/p>\n
In spite of all my earnest prayers, when I returned home from school he was sprawled in the couch watching some reality judge show, his cotton robe splayed open, revealing his hairy chest and plaid boxers. He glanced back when he heard the door slam behind me, but returned his attention to the TV after only a slight nod. Cigarette smoke scented the air as wisps of smoke curled from a freshly outted butt on a coaster turned ashtray. Wait till my mother finds out, I thought as I unlaced my shoes. I grumbled hi as I torpedoed to my room, afraid that he\u2019d tell my mother that I was being rude. And although I tried to be strong, the tears fought their way to the surface and I found myself lying face down, crying into the pillow again. I waited up to hear my mother tear him a new one when she came home and found out what he had done to her wooden coaster, but there was only tenderness and warmth in her voice \u2013 she never even brought it up. I kept thinking, if it had been me\u2026 <\/p>\n
It went on like this for weeks. I would come home and head straight to my room, where I would waste away the hours barely doing any homework and receding into a dark place of yearning and hatred for my mother. On the weekends, I spent the mornings at the library and the afternoons wandering the streets, perching on park benches to people watch or read a few pages of a novel. Before, my mother had set strict curfew rules, but now she was too preoccupied to notice when I strolled in half an hour, sometimes even a whole hour later than allowed. Meals were eaten with as few words as I could get away with, without being technically accused of having a rotten attitude. By the third week, I cried my final tears and coloured pages of my diary with black ink; the stranger was here to stay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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