It costs her nothing to holler. After all no one hears her. She no longer cares, sure as she says, no one does. She quietly watches her mother tell whoever would listen what the problem is. Sometimes, she wonders aloud why no one seems to acknowledge her ability for reflection, as opposed to kowtowing for the solutions they proffer. Yet, she does not shilly-shally to act how she wants.
“She is embedding again.” In a subdued tone that belies her trademark ebullience, Jonice shifts gear, barely able to conceal her impatience all along as the reticent Miya relates her side of an ongoing tussle with her estranged husband over custody of their six-year old son.
“Again?”
“Yes, Miya, and not just wire strips this time, but staples too.”
“You’ve really got to do something about this.” Gloominess palpably creeps in burgeoning steadily, furtively enveloping them.
Jonice nods, slowly, deliberately, resting her chin in her cupped right palm, sighing heavily every few seconds. Then there is momentary silence, and Miya’s usual counsel ensues. Just feet away in her room, Amanda starts to pace to and fro, a small plastic box in her hand. “Stop. Stop. Stop.” She keeps mumbling and paces faster, and then abruptly tosses the box, clamps her ears with her hands, and slumps into her bed, sobbing. Soon, she tells herself she should rather yell, and then stops.
“That school. What does the head teacher say now? This is really serious.”
“It’s not the school. Things are fine now. We all get along quite well.”
“Is it Joe?” Jonice hesitates, and then blurts an answer that is hardly audible, Miya’s exasperation at which her probing glance attests. It is quiet again for a while, which is typical at the mention of an absentee father whose emotional bond to a child that unabashedly longs for one is at best quixotic. Janice complains about his letters, the gifts, the phone calls, and emails to Amanda. He in turn insists that they at once sire and sustain the love for which Amanda admits she yearns but which she always says her parents’ rancour repeatedly slays.
Amanda stops to hear the response, perchance hoping Jonice would say something different this time. But it is as if Jonice knows Amanda is listening. Jonice may also have chosen to keep her true feelings on the subject private. And with the latest x-rays showing even staples lodged deep in Amanda’s arms, the emotional gulf between Jonice and her daughter would likely widen otherwise. This is even more so that Jonice knows, as she often says, that her daughter wants her to help despite Amanda’s usual insistence otherwise.
“I can’t say it. I can’t” Jonice is noticeably perplexed. She even openly blames herself for bringing the staples home. And not even now taking a few days off work seems equal to the atonement she craves. That Amanda is curious as to why Jonice’s co-teacher and erstwhile friend still would not call their home hardly helps confirm the truce Jonice professes. Rather it makes Amanda’s increasing refusal to go to school without this reunion despite her insistence that she does not have her own problems there even more poignant, if not mystifying, Jonice admits to Miya.
“I just want this to stop.” Jonice is almost shouting now, slapping her right thigh vigorously. Miya comforts her. She tells her to stop blaming herself. Since Joe left home two years prior, Amanda, now fourteen years old, has changed in many ways. From time to time, she expresses her desire for her parents to be back together again, but she does not blame one or the other for the split.
Jonice however, openly blames herself for her daughter subsequent falling grades, poor sleep and occasional nightmare, and worsening anxiety and irritability. She concedes frittering several chances to connect emotionally with her, and sometimes says she has lost her. She often says maybe she should have handled her suspicion of an affair between Joe and the co-teacher differently.
Yet, she still suspects Amanda has a secret. She rummages obstinately through her daughter’s room for clues to no avail. Recently, her aunt has been snooping around too when she visits. She seems to ferret better, given her unearthing, and more crucially, interpretation of some of Amanda’s passé doodles, which Jonice now deems supports her suspicion all along that Amanda, has something to hide.
When she tells Miya this, Amanda’s simmering frustrations coalesces into a brief fist-thumping and foot-stamping fit. Then she asks aloud if she should holler, facing the ceiling, and as if cleared, she shrieks sharply to a crescendo that muffles into a dull drawn-out, low-pitch hum. This time though, it must be because Jonice seems closer to the truth than ever before, or perhaps even taking so long to be just close to it.
“I’m not going to tell. You’ll never know the truth about us,” Amanda says in patent defiance, almost simultaneously as Jonice says she would tell all. Miya prods her, as if certain she could change her mind any moment. Miya’s reaction to what she hears seems to surprise even Amanda. As she listens engrossed, she nods in acquiescence. Then, Jonice stops.
“I don’t know the rest of it either.” Jonice is evidently befuddled by what she hears. By now, Amanda is clearly even more agitated. It is early evening and fast getting dark. She is at the edge of her bed outwardly contemplative. Jonice cannot seem to stop staring at her friend.
“Does Vicky embed too?” Jonice was solemn, deliberate.
“I don’t know, but she once told me about the elegy. And she behaves somewhat strange lately. I took her to the doctor last week. He referred her to a specialist, who wouldn’t see her for another six months. I am really worried about Vicky.”
“Amanda is still waiting to see one too, since four months ago.”
Amanda knows Miya’s niece. She comes by with Miya sometimes. They also attend the same school, and meet at the elegy meetings during school. But she knows she does not embed. At just twelve years old, she knows she does not qualify to attend the nights, and in any case, she knows Vicky does not have a computer.
Amanda gazes at the ceiling mumbling as if in entreaty. Calmly, she closes and latches the door, sits at her computer, and boots up, still muttering, “Vicky will never see the nights. You will never know about us.” She may have heard Jonice call her name. “It is another elegy night, mom.” But Jonice probably does not hear her, and would unlikely have recognized her voice. She is out in the car park seeing off her friend. It is soon all quiet, the rituals in progress.
