Abandon Ship

by Sophie Stern

  “Excuse me,” I say, getting up from the table.

  “It’s almost time for games,” my mother says, wrinkling her nose, as if the idea of me missing a game is just too much for her to handle.

  “I need to use the restroom,” I say. I need to be polite right now, proper. I need to have good manners even though no one else seems to have them.

  My mother presses her lips tightly together in a thin line and glares at me. Usually, she gives me this look and I cave. We don’t live together. I don’t even see her that often: maybe just twice a month. It doesn’t matter, though. She glares and I obey. It’s what I’ve always done. I’ve always been this huge pushover, but right now, I don’t want to be.

  I stand and climb back over the attached bench, then head toward the restrooms.

  “Well, I never! That ungrateful-” I block out the sound of my mother’s voice and make my way toward the bathrooms. I just need a few minutes to get myself together, a few minutes to calm down and unwind, and then I can go back to being the daughter. Then I can go back to being the well-mannered overweight dork nobody likes. Yeah.

  What a life, right?

  The tears are already streaming down my cheeks when I reach the bathrooms. I push open the door and go into a stall to cry. Somehow, I manage to do this silently. Good. I don’t want to draw any more attention to myself than I already have. The last thing I need is for someone to judge me further. The last thing I need is for someone to know how much their words really hurt me.

  Suddenly, the door to the bathroom squeaks open and I hear giggling and laughter.

  It’s Mandy, my little sister, and two of our cousins. I will myself to be silent until they leave, will myself to be invisible for just a little while. Just a little while and then I can sneak out of here, go back to the party, and socialize for another hour or two.

  We only have these get-togethers once a year. All of the cousins and aunts and uncles from all over Colorado meet up and share an afternoon picnic. My mother promises it’s a chance to “catch up,” but that just means it’s a chance for people to gossip and figure out who’s doing the best for themselves.

  Every year for as long as I can remember, I’ve hated the family picnic.

  It’s never been fun for me and as far as I can tell, it’s not fun for anyone else, either. So why do we do this? Why do we get together and have this charade? Why do we get together and pretend we all like each other?

  Obviously, we don’t.

  “Can you believe what she was wearing?” Adele asks, and I cringe. They’re going to be talking about me, of course. What else is there to gossip about? No one else has screwed up majorly this year. No one got arrested or lost their job. The only fuck-up is me: the fat girl.

  “So hideous,” Mandy says, and Janet laughs.

  “She thinks she looks good,” Janet says.

  “She doesn’t.” Mandy’s voice is harsh, shrill, and suddenly, I wonder why I’m here. Why did I even come? Do I really have a family obligation to be here? Do I really have an obligation to be around people who hate my guts?

  “I feel bad for you,” Adele says. “She’s your sister, you know. Her looks reflect on you.”

  I’m almost 30 years old and I’m hiding in the bathroom because my family hates me. I’m at an event that I chose to come to, and I’m hiding in the bathroom.

  There is something seriously wrong here, and the realization is a little bit freeing, to be honest.

  Suddenly, I understand I shouldn’t have come.

  Suddenly, I realize no one would have missed me.

  Suddenly, I realize it’s time to cut ties with my family and move on.

  It’s time to be strong.

  It’s time to be brave.

  It’s time to be a fucking adult.

  I push the stall door open and walk over to the group of women gathered at the sink. They looked surprised to see me. Mandy has the decency to blush briefly, but Adele and Janet just stare at me.

  “Melody,” Mandy says. “We, uh, didn’t know you were in here.”

  “Obviously,” I say, then I give her a chance to say something for herself, but she doesn’t. Mandy doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t deny what she said, she doesn’t apologize, and she doesn’t make up anything to ease the tension in the room.

  She just stares at me, and I realize I don’t know her at all.

  I never did.

  “You know what, Mandy? Adele was right.”

  “Um, she was?” Mandy looks confused.

  “I feel bad for you, too,” I say, and Adele suddenly grins, but the smirk doesn’t last for long because I keep talking. “Yeah, I feel bad that you’re such a shallow person you have to put others down to feel good about yourself. What is this? Third grade?”

  “Hey,” Janet inserts herself into the conversation. “That’s not nice.”

  “Oh, you want to talk about ‘nice’? Is that what you want to do? Sure. We can do that. Let’s talk about how nice it is that your husband cheats on you with Adele when you’re not around. Let’s talk about how he was arrested for drunk driving three weeks ago. Oh, or we could talk about the fact that you’re still unemployed because no one wants to hire an employee who steals.”

  “Melody!” Mandy tries to shush me. She looks around wildly, like someone is going to hear. “That’s not polite.”

  “No, it’s not polite, Mandy. It’s not polite that Adele is a cheater. It’s not polite that she thinks it’s okay to mess around with her cousin’s husband. It’s not polite that you’ve known about it all year and never said anything. It’s not polite that you’ve slept with him, too.”

  “WHAT?” Janet shrieks and starts hitting Mandy before I’ve even left the bathroom. I should feel bad about everything I just said, but I don’t. For the first time I can remember, I stood up for myself, and it feels really good. It feels great.

  I head out of the bathroom and walk straight to my car. I don’t bother looking over at the park pavilion or peeking at who is gathered there. I don’t want to say goodbye to my parents or aunts or uncles. I don’t plan on speaking to them again.

  After today, they can consider the relationships severed. I don’t know why I didn’t do this before. I don’t know why I wasn’t brave before. I don’t know why I didn’t stand up for myself before.

  The truth is that not talking with them isn’t going to change my life in any way. I’ll still go to work. I’ll still pay my bills. I’ll still study in my free time and I’ll still hang out with my friends. The difference is that I won’t feel guilty when my mother sees me eat food. I won’t feel bad about myself when my father wants to know why I don’t have a husband. I won’t be comparing myself to my little sister.

  I’ll just be able to be me.

  I get to my car and unlock the door, but before I can sit down, I feel someone grasp my arm.

  “Mother?” I ask. Her hair is wild and her eyes are wide.

  “What did you do?” She says through gritted teeth.

  “Did you just race over here? Mom, you know you can’t run. Your asthma is too bad. Do you need a puff?”

  “I do not need a puff, young lady,” she says, but she’s breathing hard and I know she needs her inhaler.

  “For the love of dragons, mother! Take your inhaler. I’ll be waiting right here and you can yell at me once you can breathe again.”

  She glares, but fishes the inhaler out of her pocket and brings it to her dry, chapped lips. She pushes the top of the inhaler and dispenses a single dose of her Albuterol, then shoves it back in her pocket. I give my mother a second to start breathing normally again. I shouldn’t. I should take off, but I don’t. I wait a second.

  “What did you do?” She repeats. I raise an eyebrow, but she just motions toward the bathrooms where Janet, Adele, and Mandy are screaming obscenities at each other.

  “I believe I used the toilet and now I’m leaving,” I say. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to be strong. I will not apologize for what’s ha
ppening in there. Old Melody would have faltered. Old Melody would have instantly said, “I’m so sorry.” Old Melody would have taken the blame.

  I’m done with all of that.

  “You little bitch,” my mother growls at me, and for just a second, my mouth drops open. She’s always been mean to me, but she’s never been this cruel. “I know you said something to stir up shit. That’s what you do, Melody. You’ve always caused trouble for your sister and she hasn’t even done anything wrong.”

  “She slept with Janet’s husband,” I say, baffled at what’s happening right now. “You don’t think there’s anything wrong with that?”

  My mother waves her hand like she’s brushing away the idea that this is an issue. “That’s conjecture,” she tells me.

  “Yeah, you’re not a lawyer, Mom. You can’t just use terms you hear on legal crime dramas and use them to win arguments.”

  She frowns and crosses her arms over her chest. Once again, I’m struck by the fact that my mom is really thin and small, but more than that: she’s frail-looking. When did that happen? When did she start to look old? Weak? When did she start to look so damn breakable?

  “Go apologize to your sister,” she says. “Go fix this.”

  She’s not going to change.

  I like to believe anyone can change if you believe in them hard enough, if you give them enough chances, but my mother isn’t going to change. She’s got no interest in changing, in growing as a person. She’s got no interest in me or our relationship or fixing things between us.

  She’s selfish, and this is it.

  This is the end of the line for us.

  This is the part where I walk away from my childhood, where I walk away from the woman who raised me, where I leave the past behind.

  This is the part where I accept there are some things I can’t change and I move on.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong, Mom,” I tell her. “And I’m not going to apologize. I’m not going to fix this. Mandy got herself into this mess and she can get herself out. I know you don’t love me or want me around. I know I’m just the fuck-up to you, and you know what? That’s fine, but I don’t have any interest in being the person you blame for everything. Not anymore.”

  For a second, I think about telling her she can call me when she changes her mind, when she decides to change, when she pulls it all together, but I don’t.

  I whisper a soft “goodbye,” then I get in my car and I drive away, leaving my mother standing at the edge of the parking lot looking confused, looking weak, looking tired.

  But she also looks angry, and I know I made the right choice.

  I hope I made the right fucking choice.

  2

  Melody

  I’m not a pretty crier.

  Some girls can cry for hours and never mess up their makeup, never get frizzy hair, never get swollen eyes.

  That’s not me.

  When I cry, I cry ugly, so I pull into a rest area, turn off the car, and have my cry. I let out everything I’m feeling, everything I’m going through. I let out everything and I just cry and cry and cry.

  I’m not sure how long I’m supposed to cry for. I feel like I shouldn’t cry for a long time. Maybe twenty or thirty minutes is enough. That’s long enough to get the tears out, but not so long that my crying becomes ridiculous.

  After all, it’s their loss, right?

  It’s easy to say, but harder to live with. It’s difficult to be able to say, “Yep. I fucked up. I should have severed ties with these people a long time ago.” Part of me wonders why I didn’t. I know why, though. When I really, actually think about it, I know why. They’re my family and I can’t stand the idea of hurting them. Then again, I don’t think this really hurts them.

  In order to be hurt by someone, you have to care.

  They don’t.

  They never have.

  They care about themselves, and maybe they even care about one another, but they certainly don’t care about Fat Melody. They certainly don’t care about the elephant in the room.

  That happens to be me.

  I made my choice, though. When I return to Morris, I won’t have to deal with them again. My family lives far enough away that they would never stop by for a social visit. They’d plan anytime they wanted to see me. After today, I’m guessing that will be exactly zero times. Zero visits. Good riddance.

  Finally, I dry my tears, turn on my music, and set the GPS. It’s time to get back home. It’s a three hour drive from Centerville to Morris, and I only drove for twenty minutes before pulling over and giving in to my tears.

  It’s already getting dark, and if I’m not mistaken, there’s a storm brewing. The last thing I want is to get caught in a storm on the mountain drive back, so it’s time to leave. I take off, singing along with my favorite bands. The Violet Burning and Brave Saint Saturn take my mind off the way my heart feels like it’s drowning. I can’t even really explain why this all hurts so much. I don’t want to.

  I just want to be done with it.

  When I get back to Morris, I can throw myself into work. I have a presentation on Monday morning to discuss ways we can improve the call center I work at. I’ve come up with several strategies to reduce call wait time and improve the productivity of our agents. While everyone works really hard at my office, I firmly believe in worker smarter: not harder. With a few minor changes, everyone can relax a little bit while experiencing improved performance.

  At least, that’s the goal.

  I’m lucky to have a job I enjoy and good colleagues at my office. When I first joined McQuaid Technologies, I wasn’t sure what to expect. You never know what that first job out of college is going to be like. Are you going to hate it or love it? Will your boss be garbage or incredible? Will you be terrible or will you flourish?

  Luckily, it was all positive for me.

  Within a year, I’d been promoted to team leader and two years after that became a division manager. Now I’m in charge of the entire call center and while my life is insanely busy, it’s a good kind of busy. I realize now that instead of worrying about my family and their treatment of me, I’m going to have a lot more time to focus on improving the office where I work.

  Snow starts falling suddenly, and I realize that I’m definitely going to be dealing with a storm on the trip. Luckily, I’m more than halfway home now. I’ve just passed the last exit for awhile. Although I’ll be driving in and out of the mountains the rest of the way home, I’ve made this trip so many times I feel comfortable continuing on.

  There will be another small town half an hour or so up the road. If the storm worsens, I can stop there. It won’t be a problem.

  I slow down and notice my GPS losing signal. That’s not uncommon. I keep a couple of maps in the glove compartment for instances like this. The windy mountain road I’m on right now tends to weave in and out of really rocky areas and that can affect the signal. It’s not a big deal. I just turn my headlights on, decrease my speed, and keep going.

  Everything is going to be fine.

  My phone has seven missed calls from my mother. Now that I’m not getting cell service, maybe the calls will stop. Maybe they’ll start going right to voicemail and she’ll realize I don’t want to talk to her. Part of me is surprised she cares enough to call, but then, she always was a little bit dramatic.

  Chances are I’m going to delete her voicemails without listening to them.

  I’m not a glutton for punishment any longer.

  Nope.

  No more.

  My days of dealing with her drama are over. Maybe there will come a time when we’re able to work through our differences. Maybe in a few years, we’ll get together and talk and things will be different. We’ll have both changed and grown and things won’t seem so bad, but I don’t think so.

  With a sigh, I try to stop thinking about my mother and instead focus on the road. The snow is coming down harder now and I’m starting to feel a little nervous. Maybe I will take the next
exit and find a cheap motel to crash in for the night. Colorado weather is notoriously unpredictable and despite the fact that it’s April, snowstorms aren’t that unusual.

  Suddenly, the car slides a little and I realize the road is icing over. I slow down even more. I’m barely moving at all. The car is slowly crawling along the deserted road now. My wipers are going back and forth as quickly as they can, but it’s just not fast enough. I can barely see and I slow down even more.

  Panic mode hasn’t set in yet. This is good. The last thing I need to do right now is panic. I just need to think. There are mountains on either side of me and the two-lane road is totally empty. Luckily, there aren’t any nearby ravines or cliffs I could slide off into. Even if I swerve and hit something, I’ll be hitting the side of the mountain: not falling to my doom.

  Somehow, the thought isn’t as calming as I think it should be.

  Suddenly, I slam on my brakes much too hard and my car slips and slides and finally stops just in time to miss the boulder that’s fallen and blocked the road.

  I’m trapped in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a snowstorm and that’s when panic mode finally arrives.

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