Town With No Memory

SAMANTHA

I pull into what looks like a cul-de-sac. Trimmed grass-and-doormat type town. I could see myself in one of these lookalike houses.

These are the places of fake smiles and barbecue parties. A place where your neighbors know your name but nothing past that. A place to blend in and blend in only.

I pull up to this quaint little mom-and-pop store and buy some snacks for the road. Then as I walk back to my car, the music of an ice cream truck catches my attention.

Children, forgetting hopscotch and foursquare, pour out of every crevice, running into the street without thinking—or looking—twice, with mothers running out after their children.

One woman with soft brown hair runs out of a yard after her little girl. The girl has long curly hair, shorts, a pink top, and a sparkly, fake butterfly tattoo.

She runs ahead, not waiting for her mother. She jumps up and down trying to see inside the ice cream truck. Her mother finally catches up to her, picks her up, and balances the girl on her hip.

My mom used to do the same thing to me. She would run out almost as fast as me. She would pick me up, and after some debate about which one to choose, we always ended up with Dilly bars.

We would run back through the gate and into the backyard, almost like we were hiding our treasure. And we would eat our ice cream on the crooked old swings.

It would drip down our hands and we would have to lick our fingers clean. All smiles and sticky fingers.

For once, I’ve remembered a good memory. It feels good to be happy, to remember a happier time. But a good memory is still a memory nonetheless.

And with that, I throw the Pringles in the passenger’s seat and drive off. Again. Maybe I will never find what I am searching for.

Maybe it is something I have made up. Maybe it is impossible to forget. I’ll probably always be looking. Always running from my fears.

It almost feels like I have to keep looking. Like there is nothing else for me to do. Nothing else I can do. Even if I drive around the country for years, it would not be so bad.

***

I’ve made it my goal to make my way to New York. I’d like to have a cramped little apartment that’s so small you can sit in two rooms at the same time. I’ll order out every night.

I’ll sit in Central Park on the weekends and have little picnics. I’ll be stuck in an awful job in a cramped little office and complain about the boss to my coworkers.

I’ll live a normal and adorable life. But for now, I’m still driving down this winding road.

Whenever my mom and I baked, we would dance all over the kitchen. She tended to stumble more than me, silly Mommy. She loved baking way more than cooking.

We would make cookies, brownies, and cakes. She always added her secret ingredient, and when Daddy came home he would be so proud of us.

I shake my head, trying to physically shake this feeling from me. My mind is a dangerous place. It’s like walking across a minefield.

It all looks clear. You’re walking across flat ground when a second later, your leg is blown off. Your heartbeat is pumping faster.

You hear screaming but don’t notice they are your own screams until it’s too late. You’re already in a thick puddle of your own blood.

This time it brought me to the last time I tried to bake something. It was for my mom’s birthday. I don’t seem to have the energy to fight off the memories today. Boom, there goes the other leg.

I hear him pull into the garage with a loud bang. He must have hit something. I stand in the corner of the kitchen, trying to hide as best as I can.

I pray he can’t smell Mom’s birthday cake in the oven. It’s the only gift I’m giving her this year. I have grown too old to make her a card and we stopped giving gifts years ago.

The least I can do is make her a cake.

He storms in. “Come out here, bitch.”~ He didn’t even wait for her to come down. Instead he climbs up the staircase, taking two steps at a time. ~

I’d learned by then to stay out of the way.

I quickly take the cake out of the oven while I still can. I’m frosting the cake in her favorite color when he comes back down half an hour later.

He slams down on the table and lights a cigarette. “And what the fuck are you doing?” he asks. The fact that his knuckles are red and bloody doesn’t surprise me or go unnoticed.

“B-baking a cake,” I whisper.

“For who? That lazy ass whore upstairs?” he yells, standing up from his seat. “She doesn’t deserve a damn thing!”

“It’s her birthday today,” I say stupidly, while glancing away from him.

“Did I stutter? That dumb cow doesn’t deserve to get anything until I say so!! No one in this house does anything unless I say so!” he says before he grabs the cake from the counter.

He throws it on the wall behind me. Next, he throws me down on the ground on top of the glass fragments. He then grabs me by my hair and pins me to the wall.

“That goes for you too! Don’t ever cross me.” I try to stay calm but I can’t breathe with his hand around my neck. My hands instinctively fly to try to pull his hand away with no success.

“Don’t ever forget who’s in charge here,”~ he says, throwing me back to the ground. I catch my break as I protectively curl into the corner.~

“I-I’m sorry,”~ I stutter out as I feel a bruise forming around my neck.~

“Clean this fucking mess up,”~ he slurs while throwing me one more time against the wall. He walks out of the room while I fall down onto the glass.~

I can still feel the cuts on my knees from the broken dish.

At this point, I can‘t see through my tears and have to pull over. As much as I try to wipe my tears away, new ones come in their place and I can no longer hold in the loud sobs.

I give up and sit there with my knees to my chest and sob out the pain while tears stain my face.

I was already lying in a puddle of my own blood.

Sometimes broken things stay broken. Sometimes you move on and learn to live in a world with one leg.