Chapter VI, Escape from Reality
Our mother was a woman that was absolutely devoted to her husband. She had met father in their second year of college at UCLA, she majoring in childhood psychology, and our father in accounting. They were instantly attracted to one another and needless to say, became quite the romantic item for the remaining tenure of their college careers. Deeply in love, they married the summer of their graduation. I came along a year later. To them, waiting to build a family made no sense. The prospect of creating permanence between them was their need, the act that they both acknowledged as their prime reason for existence. In short, they were destined to be family-oriented lovers and in the years of shared bliss, were in their own nirvana.
My mother had light brown hair, brown eyes, and fair complexion. She stood as tall as Ashley is now and was beautiful in her own right. My mother had chiseled features, a slender nose, and prominent cheekbones that my father would gently caress whenever he thought we were not looking. While not as athletic as my little sister, nonetheless, she enjoyed outdoor activity and the Pacific Ocean nearby. For my mother, all meaning to her was derived from the love that she shared with my father and her two obviously close children. She could not fathom any other type of existence. With the death of our father, my belief was that there would be a gravitation of sorts towards her children, even risking emotional suffocation of the two of us, at least for a time, while grief worked through the layers and levels of her emotional substance.
Becoming an overly protective woman that was tragically wronged in her early years of her middle age, my mother was only 43 at the time of our father's death, would be somewhat expected. Being unfairly deprived of one precious relationship, it would be predictable that grasping and holding closely the remaining two only understandable. For some as yet unexplained reason, my mother retreated from the two children that she carried, nurtured, and gave birth to into a funk and depression that resulted in neglect and abuse of her offspring. The inconceivable emotional agony that my mother experienced was perhaps too much for any coping mechanism that was inherent within her. She abused alcohol at first, then prescription pills, supplied from an endless parade of doctors whose philosophy was "better living through chemistry" and ultimately, both at the same time.
Ashley and I loved our mother and it was shredding my baby's gentle heart to watch her mother self-destruct, especially, when my angel needed her the most. The decline was gradual but steady. My mother removed herself from the requirements of her children's needs becoming less active with each passing month to the point that she was barely functional just to raise herself up and meet the needs of her own body. Many times, Ashley broached the subject with various university counselors and with each succeeding attempt, the result was absolutely the same. No one would risk their reputations or avail themselves of their precious time to intervene. Ashley and I were left to fend for ourselves.
For some reason, my mother accepted that her grown children were sleeping together every night in my former room, now acknowledged as our room. I do not know what she thought about the vacated room that Ashley had once occupied, at least in name, only from the point of view of our mother, either she did not care or was too far gone to realize that Ashley and I acted more and more as lovers and mates and less like the traditional brother and sister dyads of most families. I supposed that after the night that Ashley gave herself to me, it would not have made much difference anyway. We would have found a way to share the night in secret had any hindrances presented themselves. Our mother had dropped out of our lives for all points of practicality, crushing Ashley's sweet composure on a daily basis. Our bed and the intimate sharing of our love was the only relief for the two of us, only a fraction of what we had had before that tragic night, but it was a true devotion and it allowed us to cope through these dark and lonely times. Our sweet affirmations of love were and are very real, guiding us through the maze and mire that had become our lives.
As time progressed, the home that we all shared became the home where Ashley and I resided and where my mother disappeared into. My sweet sister and I divvied up the resulting chores and maintenance of the dwelling, cutting and trimming the lawn, hedges, trees, cleaning, cooking, vacuuming, and any other daily requirements meant to stave off entropy of its structure and land. By the time that words reached this paper, Ashley and I already have eight years invested in shared work and experience in the care and feeding of a household. To be honest, we are pretty good at it. The neighbors never made known their thoughts after my father's death. I have often thought that we disappeared in their eyes. That somehow the fate that befell us was an ill omen that must be avoided. To watch two young siblings disappear on a regular basis only to find them at the local supermarket buying food and necessities for the home and literally hauling them back in my old car and saying nothing is incredulous to me. We had money for our immediate needs, mainly from the insurance payout and we would "borrow" my mother's debit card to pay for our purchases. My mother said usually nothing unless it included that we should pick up her drug prescriptions on the way back.
