Janie and the Truth

Language lives in the cupboards of Janie’s house, tucked away among curios and bubble-wrapped memories too small to occupy a room of their own, and too fragile to be displayed.  She stumbles upon the language when cleaning, or listening to music, or talking to her mother, whose monologues tend toward tantrums. “Your father...” her mother says through tight flat lips as she pulls out drawers and dumps out the contents, paying no heed to what is fragile or cherished or real. “Your father...” she continues on and on blasting the dead man, the drunk, the philanderer, the unwell, the terribly unwell man who occupied the hull of Janie’s father and tormented her mother and..

“Mother,” Janie says. “He’s dead. You won the fight.”

Janie pricks an eyebrow when she says this, and attempts a wry smile. She imagines this will be a game-ender, that her mother will nod and leave her to clean up the detritus from the up-ended drawers of memory. Instead, her mother slouches onto the sofa in dramatic defeat, where she will stay for another hour, softly reciting the ills brought upon her by Janie’s father and Janie’s aunt, and Janie’s siblings and random Jim, who married neighbor Nancy who never had an ounce of sense.

“You don’t know what’s real,” Janie’s mother finally says. 

Janie moves her face, stretching the skin tight around her cheek bones, using her chin as a pull strap, letting her jaw pop before she begins moving her tongue across her teeth. Her mother becomes agitated, so Janie takes her time, savoring the flat smooth surfaces of each tooth before beginning to search for poppy seeds or bits of celery string from lunch two days ago that might be lodged in between. She is just beginning to repeat the loop on the outside of her lips when her mother announces that she needs to go.

“Okay,” Janie says. “Goodbye Mom. I love you.”

Janie slouches into the warm spot on the sofa that her mother has just given up. She has always thought that her failure to distinguish what is real had been a gift of sorts - allowing for better communication with the dead, for example, and a slight reprieve from the glare of mottled truths that fell out in her mother’s words.