The Counting-Downers

by A. J. Compton

My photo wall grounds and centers me in a way I can’t quite explain. Not only is it evocative and nostalgic, but it also reminds me why I love life and who I should live it for. Whenever I have a bad day, I spend time looking at each of the photographs and bringing the frozen moment to life in my mind.

  Bad days happened in between the photographs, as they always do, because people rarely capture the bad moments on film.

  But for me, the photographs serve the purpose of reminding me that even though life happened between one shot and the next, things became better enough to take the following shot. Things will always become better, the sun will always shine again, and life will one day be good enough again for you to take another photograph.

  My second favorite feature of my room is the wall behind my bed, opposite the flower photographs. My quote wall was my dad’s idea. He’d always say these sagacious and inspirational lines or phrases that came from his mind or ones wiser, and I always forgot to write them down.

  Around the time I was thinking of redecorating again, I mentioned to my dad that I needed to buy a book so I could make a note of every life-affirming quote or lyric I heard, and he suggested writing them on my wall instead. He got me like that.

  So in the different colors of the rainbow, painted in a mix of my curly and my dad’s jagged handwriting, are incredible pieces of advice from some of the world’s most perceptive people.

  Several spaces are blank, but I have leftover paint in one of my closets for future words that may speak to my soul. In light of recent events, it means even more than it did before to have dad’s words immortalized in color and air.

  The rest of my room speaks to my inner flower child. Fairy lights in the shape of a daisy chain hang over my window opposite the door, which looks out onto the garden and meadow when the golden drapes are open.

  While on the opposite wall by the door is a huge bookcase full of everything I ever need to escape reality for a little while: books, CDs, DVDs, and my cameras. They’re all I need.

  I didn’t want a clock in my room. I can’t stand the tick tick ticking. It stops me from sleeping.

  Heading over to one of my bedside tables, which doubles as a chest of drawers, I pull out my sleep shorts and one of my dad’s old t-shirts that I stole from my parent’s room a few weeks ago. It’s nothing special, just plain grey, but it still smells like him, and I’m dreading the day when it needs to be washed and the water takes my dad away with it.

  I’ve only been wearing it sparingly for that reason, but today is one of those days when I need to be surrounded by my dad. It’s the closest I’ll get to one of his comforting and protective hugs for the rest of my life.

  My dad’s hugs were like a force field, shielding me from reality and all that’s bad in the world. I can’t believe I’ll never be able to experience one again. It’s the smallest things you take for granted that end up being the things you miss the most.

  Never being hugged by my dad again is a depressing thought, so I try not to dwell on it as it can easily drag me under when I’ve been doing so well today. Placing the clothes on my bed, I remove the flowers from my hair. They don’t make a sound as I rest them on the table before undoing my long braid and running my fingers through it so that it ripples in oceanic waves which glide down my back and crest around my waist.

  I head to my en-suite bathroom to finish my nightly routine. I’m extremely low maintenance, so usually there’s little to no makeup to take off and it’s just a case of a quick shower, changing into my pajamas, and brushing my teeth before I’m done for the day.

  As I switch the light off in my bathroom, I realize I’m a little thirsty, so I head downstairs to get some water before going to bed. My room is directly above the kitchen at the back of the house, so the two rooms share the same stunning view of the garden that only provides a coquettish hint at the meadow beyond.

  Leaning back on the kitchen island, I gaze out at the darkness through the window as I allow the refreshing liquid to chill my throat on its descent. Because I’m thinking about everything and nothing, it takes me a while before I realize that the back deck light is on.

  Once I’ve finished with my drink, I rinse it and put the glass away before heading toward the window and leaning around the kitchen dining table, which looks out over the garden, to the see if anyone is on the porch, or whether the light was left on by mistake.

  My brain struggles to make sense of the strange figure in a baggy man’s t-shirt and ill-fitting sweatpants with messy shoulder length blonde hair and vacant eyes. It takes me a good minute to realize that it’s my normally unflappable mother. She seems unraveled and I am unsettled.

  As ridiculous as it sounds, it’s one of those moments when you realize your parents are human. You know what I mean. We all talk about how children think their parents are omniscient and invincible; then the children grow up and realize they aren’t. But I don’t think that’s true.

  In theory we learn that our parents are fallible and don’t have all of the answers, but I don’t think we ever truly acknowledge this in practice. It’s why adults still come to their parents for advice, or become shocked when they become frail and elderly. On some level, we still see our parents as different to us: better, stronger, wiser.

  My mom is the definition of strength. I struggle to remember a time when she’s let me see her weakened. Now I’m confronted with it, and I don’t know how to handle it.

  I’m sure she’s only out in an open space because she thinks everyone is asleep and I’m also sure she’d prefer me to go up to my room and pretend I’d never seen her at less than her best, but for some reason, I can’t leave. I’m drawn to her. Moth to flame. Like the lowering of her defenses has lowered mine at the same time. She’s vulnerable, but I don’t want to attack. It makes me want to be vulnerable too, for us to be vulnerable together.

  Without conscious thought, I find myself opening the back door and sitting next to my mom on the porch swing, both of us silent as we stare into the darkness.

  She’s so lost in her own thoughts, maybe thinking about all the times she’s sat with my dad here, on this very swing, that it takes a while for my presence to filter through to her senses. She jumps a little as she turns to face me, as if noticing me for the first time.

  Right away her hands go to her hair as she tries to smooth it down in an effort to look more presentable and put together. I reach out and grab her hand, pulling it away from her hair and down into her lap where I entangle it with mine.

  I don’t want the perfect, glossy version of my mother tonight. I want this one, made up of broken mosaic pieces, shattered, lost, and exposed.

  Looking down at our entwined fingers, she takes in a shaky breath as if she understands this, squeezing my hand once she comes to some kind of acceptance.

  “What are you doing out here? I thought you were asleep.” Her voice is scratchy with tears and underuse.

  “I was, I just wanted to get a drink of water before bed and saw you out here. Are you okay?” I venture to ask. Even though I know the answer, I want to see if she’ll be honest for once. How she responds will set the tone for the conversation to follow, the conversation we need to have.

  She glances back down at our hands for strength before admitting on a speaking sigh, “No, I’m not. I’m not sure I ever will be again.”

  Something happens as she speaks. At once, I feel closer to my mother than I have in months, maybe even years, aside from the day my father died when we clung to each other in grief and despair. We’re not just physically close, but emotionally too.

  In this second, no space exists between us. Like magnets that have switched poles and now attract instead of repel each other. Making my intentions clear and giving her a chance to pull away, I rest my head on her shoulder. “Me neither.”

  I don’t want this fragile connection to break, so I offer an olive branch. “I’m sorry about today,” I tell her, more because I think I should than because I am. I’m not sure if she senses this, bec
ause instead of relaxing as I expected, she stiffens against me.

  She doesn’t speak for the longest while, and I wonder if the moment is broken before she says, simply and softly, “You need to grow up, Matilda.”

  And it’s me that breaks it.

  On the defensive, I sit up straight and untangle my fingers from hers. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I demand.

  She gives another speaking sigh which says, ‘You’ve just proven my point.’ “I mean that although you’ll always be a daddy’s girl, you’re not a little girl anymore. You’re nineteen, not nine. Throwing a tantrum like you did today was unacceptable and immature.

  “Not to mention that Oscar looks up to you. What kind of example do you think you set for him today? That it’s okay to disrespect your parents? To cause a scene? To walk away from a serious situation to go and play in the sea? Believe it or not, I admire your strong spirit, Matilda, but there’s a time and place. And today was not it.”

  “I already said I was sorry!”

  “You did, but why are you sorry? Are you sorry for the things you said, or for your actions? Do you think you did anything wrong, or are you just apologizing because you know I think you did something wrong?

  “Regrets are a waste of time because they’re just the consequences of our conscious choices. You had a choice and you made it. Not often are we oblivious we’re about to do something we might later regret, but we do it anyway. You can regret being selfish and impulsive, but there’s no point regretting the action itself. You did exactly what you wanted today, knowing there might be consequences and repercussions. So make sure you’re apologizing for the right reasons otherwise I don’t want to hear it.”

  I think about it for a second. And maybe the fact I have to think about it proves her point, because she seems to take my silence as acquiescence and continues. “I know you have it in your head that I don’t understand you, and I didn’t understand your father, but we were together for over twenty-five years, Matilda. I knew and understood him better than you ever will. You only ever saw him at his best, I saw him at his best, his worst, and his in-between. And vice versa.

  “I’m glad you have only amazing memories of him, and I’d never want to tarnish them, but don’t ever say that I didn’t understand my husband, publicly or privately. Without me understanding him, you wouldn’t exist. All of this”—she waves her hand gesturing to the garden and our family home with my brother sleeping inside—“wouldn’t exist.”

  I know she’s right, and guilt flows through me for saying that to her, for thinking it of her. Of course, she knew and understood my father better than I did. They were soulmates in the purest sense of the word.

  But then, so were my father and I. If my mom and dad were yin and yang, two parts of a whole balancing each other perfectly, my father and I were the whole. One and the same. To this day, I still don’t know where he ended and I began.

  “I know you knew him outside and in, but I knew him inside out,” I tell my mother, doing a poor job of articulating the thought I just had. I try again. “Just because you knew him well, doesn’t mean I didn’t either. I knew and understood him in a different way than you did. Daddy and I were essentially the same person; he was my soulmate too. My soul recognized its twin, while yours recognized its counterpart.

  “And when you told me today that he would have been disappointed in me, I became angry because I knew it wasn’t true. He wouldn’t have wanted me to embarrass or antagonize you, but he wouldn’t want me to do something that didn’t feel true or real to me. Oscar said something funny, so I laughed. I was dead inside, so I did something that made me feel alive. It’s as simple as that.

  “I felt Daddy in the sea today with us. He was there in spirit. And if he was there in person, you know just as well as I do that he’d either be playing right along with us, or would have stayed next to you out of solidarity, but would have been cheering us on in secret.

  “I’m not going to change who I am to fit a situation or please someone else. I am who I am, every time, everywhere. He’s the one who taught me that, so no way would he have been disappointed in me for following my heart, staying true to myself, and living.”

  My speech might as well have been a soliloquy judging by my mom’s unimpressed face.

  “This is exactly what I mean about growing up, Matilda. You need to understand that part of being an adult means placing limits on how much you can follow your heart and stay true to yourself. It’s not always possible to be one hundred percent yourself, one hundred percent of the time.

  “If everyone just did whatever they wanted and said whatever they thought, regardless of the consequences, there would be anarchy. Adults have duties and responsibilities that sometime conflict with or inhibit their truest selves.

  “Do you think I wanted to attend my husband’s funeral today? Do you think I felt like catering to fifty people when all I wanted to do was be alone with my memories and what’s left of my family?” I wince as the questions hit me hard, but she keeps going.

  “Do you think I wouldn’t prefer playing in the ocean to playing hostess? Or that I don’t just want to curl up into a ball and stay in bed all day until the time comes for me to join my husband? Instead of getting up each day and looking after you and your brother, going to work, and doing mundane tasks? I don’t have the luxury of always ‘following my heart,’ Matilda!” she shouts into the silent darkness.

  For once, I don’t know what to say. I guess I’d never thought of it like that, and maybe she’s right that the older you are, the less you can be yourself. I’d never seen always being true to yourself as a luxury only reserved for children, selfish people, and anarchists. The idea doesn’t sit right with me.

  My mom has a point about responsibilities restricting the authenticity of self in certain situations. However, I would never want to turn into one of the world’s millions of mindless sheep, who just do as they’re told, never brave enough to do or say what they want, not strong enough to be whom they really are inside, or to become who they’ve always wanted to be.

  I make a decision then and there never to be less than seventy-five percent myself, one hundred percent of the time as my concession to adulthood. It’s the best I can do, and I’ll always aim for one hundred percent, even if I’m not always able to reach it.

  But I don’t need to tell my mom about my revelation and decision. It’s between me and my conscience, me and my heart. Besides, she wouldn’t understand. The gulf has once again widened, leaving us standing on two opposite sides.

  Feeling the familiar distance, I lapse back into old routines and lash out, turning the focus back onto her and her faults instead of mine. “Well, maybe you should follow your heart and be yourself more often, Mom.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen the real you. I think the only person who ever did was Dad. This is the most real I think I’ve ever seen you,” I say, gesturing to her present unkempt state, “and it’s refreshing. You want to talk about messages to Osc, what do you think you’re showing him by never showing weakness or vulnerability? By being nothing less than perfect? By repressing your emotions and lying to yourself and others? By shutting out those around you and isolating yourself instead of reaching out and letting them help you?”

  Although said in slight spite, my words are honest and long overdue. Guilt gnaws at my conscience for hurting her, but I’m relieved to have rid myself of a lifetime of words unspoken. My mother reels back in shock, pushing the porch swing backward. “I don’t do that, do I?” She seems horrified at the thought.

  Her devastated expression drains my blood of the anger coursing through it, leaving behind guarded openness. I love my mom, and I don’t want her to think she’s a bad parent, especially now that she’s the only parent I have left. But in order for her to be a better one, she needs to know the truth.

  “You do,” I admit. “You always have. I think that’s why Dad s
pent so much time and energy teaching me to be open and honest with my emotions, and that it’s a sign of strength to be vulnerable, not a sign of weakness.

  “He made sure I knew that I shouldn’t waste my life with the impossible pursuit of perfection because I was already perfectly imperfect.” My lips quirk up at the last two words, thinking of the phrase my dad so often spoke to me.

  The fight seems to drain from her at my words, causing her to fold into herself and tears to fall. “I… I didn’t mean to. I had no idea,” she mumbles, almost to herself. “I… I’m sorry… if I ever gave you the impression that you had to be perfect, or that you couldn’t be vulnerable or come to me for help and support. You can; you’ve always been able to.

  “I always thought you didn’t because you preferred to receive advice from your dad, not because you believed you couldn’t come to me at all. I’m so sorry,” she says, looking me in the eye through the tears in her own. “Please forgive me.”

  I’ve never seen this version of my mother before, but I love her. Truly, deeply, freely. I love every version of her, the antagonistic one and all the others, but this is my favorite by far.

  “It’s okay, Mom.” I hold out my arms in a tentative peace offering, which she accepts with gratitude, launching herself at me and sobbing into my chest. “It’s okay.” I stroke her hair, reversing the traditional roles of parent and child, but content in being the strong one she feels comfortable enough to lean on.

  I don’t want to speak too soon because I’ve been wrong before, but this seems like an irrevocable breakthrough in our relationship. And for the second time today, I sense my father’s spirit present. And I know that wherever he is, he’s smiling. So I smile back into the unquiet darkness.

  We sit there for a while, my grieving mother, my invisible father, and I, comforting each other with love and silence.

  After an indeterminate amount of time, my mother’s sobs subside and my father’s spirit disappears, trusting me to take care of her. She rights herself, and once again takes my hand for support, which I gladly give.