Page 7 of Daughter of Rot

The second lure was a wisteria vine emerging through cracks in the wall. More wisteria creeped from jagged fractures in the floor and cascaded out around Olivia's feet, stretching into the hallway and then up the walls.

The wall itself was fuzzy to the touch. Olivia leaned in closer with widened eyes as they crossed behind her glasses. There was a soft sheen of velvet grass growing from the wall and it smelled like wet earth. The mossy door, outlined with honeysuckle, wisteria, and blackberries blossomed out. Olivia softened her shoulders and stuck her hands on the plush moss.

Olivia felt for the long wooden door handle and pulled. She let go of the handle at the sound of clomping footsteps in the room, then she went against her gut, placed her hand back on the handle and opened the door wide. The first thing she saw was her "mother" standing in the center of the room. Startled, Olivia flinched back and covered her mouth with her hands, not wanting to scare her mother away. Her mother was silent. No motion of breathing. She gave a long slow wave to Olivia, and smiled big, revealing large pink rose thorns as teeth. Olivia approached her mother to get a closer look.

Her mom’s hair was made out of blue oat grass and her neck was riddled with tiny cap mushrooms and itty bitty ghost mushrooms. Her breasts were reminiscent of an orb weavers egg sac, they hung loose and wrapped themselves to The Mother’s body with roots and shining silky filaments around her belly and down to her left thigh. Her legs were fragments of a tree trunk. Orange fire ants crawled all over the deep brown toenails of her feet. Her arms were wrapped in ferns and her fingernails curled over as purple Uluhe fern shoots.

The Mother walked toward Olivia and gave her a gentle pat on the head. Olivia held her breath. Her body shook. Chills shot up her neck to the roots of her hair. The Mother continued patting Olivia’s head, almost with a nonchalance. A kindness.

The room was overflowing with neon pink ferns. Thousands of tiny yellow flowers sprouted out of the floor. Thick dark brown vines lined the walls. Birds called each other, but Olivia saw no other creature except for herself and this version of her mom.

The Mother stood next to Olivia, looking down at her, smiling big. Olivia looked up and smiled back. The Mother blinked slowly. Her eyes were sunken in. She followed behind Olivia and her movements were awkward and boisterous, her body cracking, crooked, and sloshing. Olivia wandered through the room and touched the vines and the yellows, and the greens, and the gorgeous reds of the hibiscus flowers blooming and then disappearing from the back wall of the room. The Mother stopped following Olivia occasionally, to stroke her grassy hair down and fix it with her curled fingertips, and then she smiled again. She picked at the seedlings sprouting from her belly. She groomed herself and then followed behind her daughter.

Once Olivia felt fully relaxed, she was mouthfuls of wow, wow, woah. The room morphed from a cloud forest to a field of wildflowers right before her eyes. The room shook and then steadied as it completed its transformation. Olivia noticed The Mother’s eyes were filled with a bioluminescent glow of green. Olivia smiled at her again, then she rambled out stories. Fairytales. Ghost stories. Tragedies. Stories she was holding in. Truths. Lies. Episodes of her favorite telenovelas. She told The Mother about her spells and her trinkets and her fears.

In response, The Mother opened her arms to Olivia. Giddy at the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Olivia took the chance to feel embraced and hugged The Mother as hard as she could. Her body was sticky and the webbing of her breasts flattened down as if to make room for Olivia. With her head against The Mother's chest, Olivia listened for her "heartbeat." It sounded like the buzzing of frantic insects. The Mother smelled like a long sunny day and petrichor. A sun shower.

Olivia said I love you to The Mother and The Mother said nothing back. Olivia didn’t mind, as this was to be expected.

WATCHING TV

Isela watched the seven o'clock evening news as though she were going to solve the crimes in front of her. Olivia pictured a glaring spotlight whirring on and illuminating Isela’s face up close and personal as she’d point and shout at the TV, It’s the husband! It’s always the husband! or When I was kidnapped, I fought for my life, why don’t these girls fight? Then, the lights clicking off and Isela going into a stasis, only to speak again when the TV came back on.

The news gave Isela justification to act paranoid. She claimed she came across multiple serial killers in her lifetime. Your grandma could care less about where I was. I could be out on the streets all day. Men like that could have had their way with me. It didn’t matter. There was not a caring bone in that woman’s body.

Olivia was not allowed to sleepovers or parties. She was not allowed to smile unless she was told to. She was not allowed to speak when there were adults around. Especially, if the adults were men. Olivia obeyed as her punishments often revolved around hygiene or hunger. The punishment could be that Olivia was not allowed to shower for a few weeks or it could be that she had to figure out what to feed herself as Isela hid food in her room on purpose. One time, Isela buried all of Olivia's clothes outside and Olivia was not allowed to wash it.

The most common punishment meant Isela trashing Olivia's room or spitting in her face, telling her not to play the victim. This is all because I care. In public, Olivia was to remain quiet. Shrink into a corner. Hide. Out of sight. Out of mind. Old men won’t find you interesting if you say nothing. You can’t be prey if you never put a target on yourself.

Isela bawled in front of the TV while smoking her cigarettes and cracking open peanuts, chewing on them loud, with her mouth wide open. She predicted plot twists in telenovelas. She predicted talk show outcomes. Her impending sense of doom gave her insight into conflict and most of all, she could always point out a villain hiding in plain sight. She explained histories of actors to Olivia, who was more of a spectator of her mother as opposed to what was on TV.

This actress came from nothing. Now, she looks like a corpse. What a waste. Wow, she looks terrible. There was a spark of delight in Isela’s voice when she talked about her TV shows.

Imagine living in a mansion like that. Imagine having the life of an actor. I tell you. I would be happy.

When Isela fell asleep in front of the TV, Olivia watched the infomercials and news segments from tabloid reporters. She learned about the Mothman, alien abductions of entire towns, and tiny robots that controlled ant colonies in Roswell. She watched her mother against the light of the TV, lightly snoring, and wondered if it was always loud inside Isela’s head or if sleep meant that all her destructive impulses went quiet.

When the TV timed out and turned off, Olivia observed the silhouettes of herself and her mother on the black screen. She couldn’t tell who was who. They were two shadow creatures on the couch. To any outsider, the closeness of the shadows could be confused with tenderness. They could confuse the proximity with a mother and daughter who loved each other.

ISELA DREAMS OF OTHER LIVES

When you’re a mother, everything gets in your way. Time is non-linear. It feels like a smear. Time blurs together in the dull repetition of going to work every single day in order to exist and then coming home to expectations of a nurturer. You are made to believe that the world is your responsibility. Every sound or grunt or creak. All of the hunger. All of the pain. Every scar, every speck of dust, all of the god damn dishes.

Who were you before you were a mother? You have a figment of an idea. You can’t really say anymore. As a mother, you are rudely interrupted minute after minute, you are bombarded thousands of times because everyone else needs you, everyone expects you to know what to do. You aren’t really overwhelmed. That’s just being a mom. You aren’t really hallucinating the ghosts of your past. That’s just motherhood. You are not yourself. That’s just being a mommy.

Your first sense of freedom was letting go. You let go of your first born and then the second born. They went off to who knows where, who cares, you don’t ask. It felt so good. The silence after. Then, you stopped telling people that you were a mother altogether. Never again did you utter those words. You were married. You were working. You were you. Not a mom. Not a womb. Not a predisposed identity.

When you can’t find yourself falling in love with the third little runt you gave birth to, it’s confusing at first, but you go with it. It’s not that you can’t stand her, it’s more like, she has all the potential you didn’t. She’s different than you. It's behind her eyes. You won’t break her even though you’ll try. Maybe you were never meant to be a mother, but here you are.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLIVIA

Alfonso showed up in the morning with a bouquet of red roses for Olivia. It was a Thursday. He announced that they were having a birthday party on Saturday. He made it a point to invite his two best friends and against Isela’s wishes, he called the middle school to relay the message to Olivia’s teachers, who would pass the news of the celebration to her classmates.

Saturday came and an invasion of pre-teens was imminent. The house would fill with earnest conversations of glorious awkwardness and budding philosophies on life. The theme was wear your favorite colors. Monochrome or colorful. Either worked. Alfonso decorated the living room with glittering red and black balloons. He filled the kitchen with streamers, more balloons, confetti, and cupcakes, all in rainbow theme. Olivia walked through the colorful kitchen giggling and humming as she caressed the party decor. She happily snuck a strawberry cupcake behind her back and ate it when Alfonso was needed outside. Her attempts to help decorate were deflected at every turn, Alfonso shooed her away to get ready for her big day. Isela stood around, watching them with a blatant scowl on her face. She shuffled and shook the wrapped gifts set aside for Olivia. She paced around and dragged her feet inside of her bright pink slippers throughout the house and stopped in the kitchen. She unlocked one of her cabinets and brought out a pack of cigarettes along with some chocolate chip cookies and a tiny bottle of vodka. She locked herself in her room and turned on one of her records.

As the newly anointed party dad, Alfonso brought a speaker system for outside. He supplied a karaoke machine. He bought Olivia a sporty red dress, long shorts to wear underneath, red tights, and new red sneakers. He also bought her a bundle of multicolored shoelaces with little designs on them. Birds. Roses. Smiley faces. He bought her all kinds of earrings even though Olivia’s ears weren’t pierced. He promised to take her to the eye doctor to update her glasses. He gave her binoculars with purple gemstones ornamented along the barrels and a tiny flip phone with a red casing. He asked her about school. He asked her about the books she was reading. This is what Olivia remembers about that day. He apologized to her for being gone for so long. He apologized over and over and told her that he was sorry for any secrets he kept from her. Olivia asked him what he meant, but he said nothing more.

Olivia was nervous at the thought of having people over. First, this was never allowed until Alfonso decided it could happen. Second, Isela would be there like a tumor. The house would meet all her classmates. The trees would hold in the secrets of what kids say when they think no one is listening. She jumped up and down with glee while she was getting ready in the bathroom. She snuck on clear mascara and a bit of clear gloss. She felt radiant. Yvette straightened Olivia’s hair and she applied some clear nail polish on Olivia’s fingers and toes. Olivia was buzzing.