Mother's Day

by Ferris Knight

Five things I can see: The bright sun shining in, waking me up. The door, its round handle oxidised, its colour patching. The crown moulding chipping. A pile of ducks almost high enough to reach the ceiling, looking chaotic but precisely organised. Becca, beautiful. 

Four things I can touch: Becca’s nape as she breathes softly, in and out. The doona, a cheap but reliable cotton. My fingers, moving as though playing a piano. My ribs going in and out as I breathe as well, though quicker, paced with anxiety. 

Three things I can hear: The wind pelting against the window as autumn has well and truly settled in. The kettle boiling. My anxiety rising. 

Two things I can smell: Armaan’s making coffee in the kitchen. The linger of someone’s perfume, hers or mine. 

One thing I can taste: Still the metallic blood lining my lips. 

Becca is asleep next to me. She spends more and more time here. I’m not sure if it’s for her or for me. Sometimes I think she’d be better off with someone else, someone more normal. She lightly snores and I don’t know how to say anything, instead just living in this picturesque moment, etching it into my memories in case it disappears.

Dad has been texting all week. Generally it’s uncharacteristic, but Mother’s Day is approaching. We have this morbid tradition that goes back years, even in part before he met mẹ. Morning of we’d get up, get dressed in our nicest but modest clothes, complete with rosary beads we’d been given at birth, and go to early mass. As children Lizzy and I were taken to church weekly and it was a much more casual affair, but because we were there for our mother we were instructed to get all dressed up. Once we were old enough we’d follow mass with confession, in part asking forgiveness from our mother for whatever we’d done, usually allocated ten Hail Mary’s to atone for forgetting to take the trash out or for watching a M rated movie with friends and not asking permission first. Then, with mẹ and then Khoa, we’d go to the later morning mass together. One mass per mother. This was all before the more regular lunch with mẹ and then Lizzy and I were bundled off to the cemetery to mourn a woman we’d never known. I was grateful for her, and I did love her in my own way, but I was visiting a stranger. It was less Mother’s Day and more Father’s Day in a sense, doing what he wanted in the absence of what she would have wanted. 

He’s asking if I’ve remembered that Mother’s Day is coming up. He’s asked seven times before I’ve woken up in the morning. I reply that of course I remembered, even though honestly time had gotten away from me and I didn’t realise how close it was. He reminds me what time church is, as though we haven’t gone every year. I tell him simply that I’ll see him there, and get up, looking for my rosary beads. They were a gorgeous rose quartz set that clashed against my entire personality, but sometimes I think of my mother and her picking them out after she learnt she was having a girl. It’s a very two dimensional image though, built entirely out of photographs. As a child I’d prayed on them literally religiously, asking them to make me fit in, to stop doing the wrong thing (though I wasn’t entirely sure what that was, which is why I kept doing it), to absolve me of the crushing guilt from whatever sins a child can actually commit simply by the virtue of being a child. Now I just hoped they were in my drawers and that I wouldn’t have to tear the room apart looking for them.

Becca stirred as I was making more noise than I intended.

‘I’m so sorry hon. Go back to sleep,’ I whispered.

She blinked sleepily. ‘Honestly, your phone has been buzzing for an hour or so now. Seriously, who is both up and social at this time unless they haven’t gone to sleep yet? Besides, I’ve got work today, so I do actually need to get up.’

I grinned. ‘It’s my dad. Mother’s Day is coming up.’

‘Oh shit. I need to get a present for mine. Do you still?’ She wormed out of bed, nothing on. 

‘I just do flowers. What about the boys?’

‘Yeah, I better take them shopping too. They’re too old to get away with art from school anymore. Could you pass me my skirt?’

She slowly dressed as I kept tearing through everything. 

‘What on earth are you doing?’ she asked. The rosary beads weren’t in my drawers or jewellery box. 

’Rosary beads. Can’t find them anywhere. He’ll kill me,’ I said, getting breathless. ‘He’ll fucking kill me. These mean so much to him.’

‘Breathe, breathe. They’re in a box in the back of your desk. You got thrown off one day seeing them so you thought you’d put them somewhere safe. Apparently so safe you forgot about them.’

I rushed over to my desk and pulled the draw so hard it fell out. At the back was a small jewellery box, probably repurposed from something else. The beads were in there. I kissed Becca on her cheek while she was still buttoning her shirt. 

‘What are you going to do today?’ she asked, forcing a casual tone. 

I shrugged. ‘Read? Maybe? I want to catch up. Go for a walk. Maybe go to the pub?’ It was mostly true. My shaking leg was like a polygraph that she chose to ignore.

I kissed her goodbye, as though my lips were made for her.

I bought a new jade shirt, matching it to old striped pants. I worried that dad might think it too butch but I didn’t have the budget to buy much more. He and mẹ helped me out financially while I was still studying, but I felt enough of a burden without asking for a new dress. My rosary beads were casually in my pocket to pull out during the mass. It wasn’t common to bring them, but we did it for mum. For dad. 

Dad and Lizzy were already at the church, dad checking his watch and Lizzy yawning. I raced over to meet them.

‘Sorry, am I late?’ I asked, knowing I wasn’t but I might be by my father’s time.

‘Just on time. Just,’ he said. ‘Let’s go in.’

I couldn’t help but pause on my way in. Our church was one of the old gothic revival churches, spiers reaching up as though to heaven itself. The red-brick was old yet timeless, standing as strong as when it was built, supported by ornate flying buttresses, likely cast by hand. I say ‘our’, as though ownership or community or, at minimum, comfort, though it was neither anymore.

The early morning mass was quite bare. Just a few elderly parishioners who’d probably woken up at the crack of dawn. It reminded me of a joke I’d heard once, about someone sticking with the church even when they weren’t sure they believed anymore, just because they were so old now and had put in all the hard work, so if there was a beyond they wanted to go there.

No matter how long it’d been I fell into the rhythm of the mass, when to sit, when to stand, when to kneel, when to respond. The sun had woken and streams of coloured light came in through the stained glass, each telling its own biblical story.

We got up for communion and suddenly this chill went up my spine, as though I only woken from passivity. I didn’t belong in this place, not anymore. Wedged between Lizzy and a stranger, I wasn’t sure what to do. It felt sacrilegious, even dangerous, here. Dad led us and I walked behind them, every step heavy. He went first, then Lizzy. When I got I made a short, shaking motion and instead made the sign of the cross, then quickly followed Lizzy, kneeling as though I’d taken the wafer even though I hadn’t. 

After the mass was over we hung around, waiting for confession. I had no idea what I was supposed to do - I wasn’t ten anymore, I didn’t accidentally break a DVD. We waited til last considering we were going to stay around the church anyway. Dad and Lizzy were brief for different reasons. Then it was my turn.

The little room was claustrophobic, designed to obscure myself from my sins. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was a year ago. I guess I only come here on this day. I guess that’s a sin, too?’

He said nothing and I knelt there, my hands folded over each other, my chin resting atop. 

‘I never know what to say here. You bring kids in at ten as though they’re capable of sinning. Sure, kids can do the wrong thing, but they don’t understand the consequences yet. But you’ll tell them they’re going to hell for leaving their toys on the floor. All fire and pitchforks and eternal damnation. If it was a Furby or some Lego I’d kind of understand, they’re kind of evil in two very different ways, but dolls or teddies?’

I paused, considering my words. ‘I guess I have a question for you though. If I were to say I was gay, what would you say to me?’

He took a moment. ‘The sin isn’t in the thoughts, it’s the actions. To have these feelings isn’t the problem, but if you were to act on them, then that would be the sin.’

‘I have a partner, Becca. I love her. How is my love a sin? Isn’t it a sin for you to wear two sorts of cloth?’

He sighed, but spoke with apprehension. ‘It sounds like you were raised Catholic, so you know what the Catholic views are. Any sex outside of marriage is a sin. I can tell you what a sin is, but it sounds like you’ve made your mind up. I will be here, though, if and when you do want to confess. If you do want to be absolved today, do ten Hail Mary’s and examine your behaviour and thoughts. It doesn’t need to be here if you don’t like, you can do them at home and it will still be the same.’

Literally pray the gay away? I left, not saying that I was sorry for my sins. We waited around for mẹ and Khoa. They were running late and when they arrived Khoa was in tracksuit pants and a t-shirt. Mẹ’s hair wasn’t done to the ninth degree, showing some sort of difficult morning.

We went in together, sat in the same spots (mẹ and Khoa on his other side), and I sat back as everyone got communion again. ‘I already did it today,’ I lied while inside a church. It looked as though the stainless window of Mary was judging me for it. I wanted to tell her to bite me.

Breakfast was a mute affair. Khoa seemed to rock in his chair to the beat of my shaking leg. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. Mẹ handed over the keys to dad and told him he was driving as she ordered a third mimosa. I decided to join her, recent declaration voided, while Lizzy was already ahead. We all bundled into the back of dad’s car, just a regular sedan not designed for three adults, or near-adults, in the backseat. After dropping mẹ and Khoa at home we went to the cemetery.

I’m not sure that cemeteries are ever actually crowded, but Mother’s Day had a few people around - those who lost their mothers, and those who’d lost the role of mother. Our mother was in a simple lawn grave with a headstone atop. We all stood there awkwardly - this never gets easier or less weird. Below the ground was a woman that, without whom, I wouldn’t exist, but also I couldn’t miss her, or at least not the way dad did.

Dad laid down some flowers and turned around, Lizzy quickly following him.

‘Do you guys mind if I have a minute?’ I asked.

Dad smiled. ‘Of course. We’ll just be at the car.’

I sat on the grass, forgetting the stripes on my pants. 

‘Hey mum. Or would I have called you mamma? I’m not sure. I do want to say thank you, but also I want to apologise. Sometimes, whenever I remember that I love mẹ, I feel like I’m killing you. And then I’m sometimes angry that you died, and then that’s saying that I don’t want mẹ around. I can’t mourn correctly. There’s this idea of a “real” mum, and I don’t know who she should be. I wish you hadn’t died of course. But I do have another mum. I want to be allowed to say “another” instead of being pressured about “real”. It’s also kind of racist. I don’t think they’d say it as often if mẹ wasn’t Vietnamese.’

I sighed. ‘Anyway. Wherever you are now, I hope you’re happy there. And if you can watch down on me, I hope I’m only slightly a train wreck. I’m sorry you never got to see Lizzy graduate high school or even that I don’t remember going to the park with you and seeing the ducks. I still love them mum. But yeah. Thank you.’