Early Memory
Every summer my parents would ship my sister and I to my grandmother’s house several hours north of where we lived. From a suburban gated community to an open rural backdrop; the only place in the world where my sister and I truly felt the definition of our childhood. We were free from the daily routine of school where strict catholic nuns ruled with an iron fist. Free from our mean nanny who at times would restrict our eating habits just so she could take the food for herself. Free from the nightly muffled screams accompanied with broken dishes crashing into the floor and walls of our home. The symphony of my mother’s indistinct growl proving the main act to my father’s nightmarish orchestra. Together they planted a pit in our tiny stomachs that will inevitably grow into an unrecognizable organ. Something to be scared of? To be proud of? You grew inside of me like a byproduct of the philharmonic darkness created by the people who brought me into this world.
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We took refuge in our room. Abandoned dinner plates and forced to sleep hungry. It was our ritual when the rupture began and we had to escape. You would never dare be an audience to this show. I caught a glimpse of my mother once just before my sister yanked me out of the dining room to flee. I didn’t recognize her in that split second. But I did recognize the distinct feeling no child could ever articulate towards his father for transforming her into a monster.
My sister held onto me with both hands covering my ears — sparing me the piercing impact happening down the hall. As my protector she succumbed to the deafening sounds; leaving her without hands to cover her own. I still heard the chaos through her sweaty palms but I loved her for trying even if I didn’t fully understand what was happening. I felt her soul fill with fear as she listened. When is it over? We were one in those moments, our heartbeats synced to the beat of our parent’s ugly drums. The morning of the aftermath my sister and I emerged from our room like two small detectives observing the scene. Proved unskillful, I cut my foot from a broken piece of glass that failed to embed itself between the tiles. My sister sat me down on the cold tile floor and plucked it out of me. She was the brave doctor and I was the helpless patient. As I watched the blood bead out of my thin skin from the stubborn miniature knife, I longed for the summer with my grandmother and the open air she provided.
The fragrant wall of the Sampaguita would occasionally hit me from time to time, whether from someone’s perfume passing by me or a scent close enough to its distinction; my brain would immediately translate to nostalgia. That scent would transport me back to my grandmother’s haven in a rural town where they delivered milk in glass bottles to her doorstep. Her house wasn’t big, but its tiny cinderblock frame stood prideful for all the tropical typhoon it endured. The garden was the entry point before it sloped down to her humble fortress. My sister and I would race up and down the steep steps littered with moss, acting out what our childhood was meant to be. The sweet air reassured we’re safe here. Only nature sang into our ears. The joy was uncontainable and our bellies cramped from laughter filled with fresh honey that my grandmother fed us. When I scraped my shin from the steps for running carelessly, I wore it like a badge by summer’s end. By the time a new skin grew overtop the exposed flesh, it was better. Tougher.
