Standardized Disclaimer:
I, Chinyere, under my pen name, Chinyemagne, hereby acknowledge that I do not own Hey Arnold! nor the characters that are referenced within, nor am I a hired writer with permission to use their names on this site. However, there is a likelihood that original characters will be created and portrayed within this text. Thank you.Miriam
Prologue
I rested my cheek on the table, swirling the small particles of Sweet-n-Low into the grain, making all sorts of shapes. I must have been doing this for several minutes when, strangely enough, the sugar took the shape of a person. I continued with the pattern of the motion of my finger, and at first it looked like Phoebe, but as I continued, it began to take on another shape. The face of my mother glared back at me from the pile of sugar. In frustration and held over virulence, I wiped the sugar off of the table and listened to the particles fall to the floor, making a pattering sound as they each landed.
I sat up from the table and looked at the reflection of myself in my empty dinner plate. My cheek was red from sitting there for so long, and some of the Sweet-n-Low had melted into syrup on my cheek. As I took one of the dinner napkins and scrubbed the sugary mess off of my face, I glared over at my mother.
Miriam was slumped over in her chair, as usual, drooling over her empty dinner plate, snoring loudly. I folded my arms and sighed loudly in exasperation, as if I really had anything to be exasperated about. Bob was late home for the third time that week, and I didn't realize it then, but it was really taking a toll on her. I'd come home, and she was always in the kitchen, leaning against the furniture, asleep. She'd probably have fallen asleep on the stove if she didn't forget to turn the eyes off all the time.
So anyway, this day I must have been in one of my moods, and I had been brooding all the while I sat across from her at the dinner table, set perfectly but with no food prepared. I could excuse my behavior for hunger, but that just wouldn't be right. I guess I just had to say something that had to be said, or else perhaps things would have continued from that day on as they always had before, since Olga went off to college. And Lord knows I never wanted that.
"Mom?" I said finally, breaking the silence of the clean kitchen. Miriam didn't even stir. "Mom." This time, she turned a little, but then almost slipped back into sleep. I was impatient. "Miriam!" I hissed. This got her attention, and she was jolted awake with such a force, you would have thought I had slapped her.
Miriam sat up slowly, yawned, and then stared through me with that comfortable stupor in her eyes that I was used to. She stretched before she addressed me. "Helga, dear, did you say something, because…well, I…um…oh yeah, good morning, honey," she finally spit out. "Isn't it time for you to go to school?"
I rolled my eyes and grunted, getting up from the table and slamming my chair under the table. "No, Miriam. It's nine o'clock at night, and dinner should have been cooked hours ago," I sneered, walking over to an empty pot on the stove for a dramatic flair. "Does this look like a cooked casserole to you, Miriam, because it sure doesn't to me."
Miriam, now becoming increasingly alert, wiped off her glasses and then put them back on and looked at the pot. "Well now, Helga, I have a…a good reason for that. You see…"
"And I'm tired of the same old lame excuses, Mom. I mean, crimeny, you're home all day. What else have you got to do?" I questioned, quite audaciously. Just as Miriam was about to open her mouth again, Bob stormed in the front door.
He didn't even extend a greeting when he came into the kitchen, tracking mud into the hallway before removing his boots on the once clean floor. Miriam cringed as she watched Bob smear mud into the cracks of the tile. "Hey, hey, hey, what's all the yelling about?" he asked immediately, leaving his wet raincoat on the floor of the kitchen. Miriam finally emerged from her chair, scrambling to the ground and picking up the raincoat from the ground.
It was raining heavily outside.
"Miriam didn't cook dinner tonight…again," I said, shooting an accusatory glance at my mother and holding my hand out to her body, while she removed a mop and bucket from the broom closet to clean the newly created mess.
"Again, huh," Bob said, turning his eyes towards Miriam. "There's no reason for this, Miriam. I mean, for Christ's sake, you're home all day. What in hell else do you have to do?" Bob said, throwing up his hands and looking into the empty pot I had showed Miriam earlier. Now that Dad was there to do the talking for me, I sat back and listened him say all that I had already said.
As Miriam wiped up what rest of the mud that was left on the floor, she diverted her eyes from Bob. "Well, I'm sorry about that, B, its just that…well, lately I've been so…"
Bob hammered his fist against the table, knocking over and breaking the glass that Miriam drank her smoothie out of. "And I'll have no more of those excuses. I've been at work the whole frickin' day, and I come back to a cold and empty pot where my dinner should be. It should have been done hours ago, Miriam," Bob yelled, flinging the top of the pot across the room. I watched in amusement as my parents little tiff progressed. I smirked smugly, knowing that they would end much as they always had, in Miriam apologizing for her stupidity and Bob affirming that his position was correct. That was the way they had always been.
"Well, Bob, Helga, no, I don't really have an excuse for no dinner tonight, but if you would just let me tell you, I've gotten to thinking about things, and well…" Miriam started out excitedly, but didn't get to finish. Now that I look back, there was something about that excitement. It wasn't elation, because she wasn't really smiling. It was more like desperation, one so strong that it caused her to open her eyes fully for the first time since Olga left home. It was startling, now that I look back on it. She had picked up Bob's rain jacket, and took it to the hallway closet to hang.
Bob interrupted her, though, before she could finish. "I told you I'm sick and tired of your whining, Miriam. I mean, the girl is enough to put up with everyday, without having two girls in the house." This really struck Miriam. She stopped in her tracks and glared at the Bob, still holding his raincoat in her hands.
I decided to join in the debate, even though I really had no idea that I was jumping into something too deep that had been going on too long for me to know anything about. "Yeah, Miriam, maybe for once in your life you could get your head out of the clouds and come back down to reality. I mean, who's supposed to be the responsible adult?" Neither Miriam nor Bob stopped me at this point. We both kept going.
"Everyday is the same thing. Some lousy excuse covers up your reason for sitting on your ass all day," Bob continued.
I snickered. "Yeah, and why are you asleep all the time, anyway? I doubt that Bob here keeps you up all night anymore."
Bob interjected this time. "Hey, hey, hey! That's dangerous territory you're walking in, little lady," he said, pointing to me. I shrugged innocently, as if I didn't know what I was implying. Bob returned to Miriam, who by this time was staring blankly at the both of us, holding the wet, dripping raincoat more tightly in her hands. "I come home from overtime, expecting just one measly dinner, and instead, this is what I come home to!" Bob complained, finally.
Miriam then let the raincoat slip out of her hand, and Dad and I jumped slightly at the unexpected sound that it made as it hit the tile in the hallway. She then narrowed her eyes slightly, but not so much in rage as in sudden indifference. "Oh, so that's what they call it now. Overtime. Yeah, real glad about that, B. Real glad your doing the family some good for once," she edged slightly, going to the coat closet and removing her umbrella.
I took a step back. This really scared me. Miriam had actually been…sarcastic. In all the time I had known her, up to that point, I had never known her to say something even remotely defiant of Dad's will. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was literally taken aback. I found myself leaning against the stairwell, and Bob's face dropped before he changed it into his persistent scowl.
"Hey, hey, hey! And just what is that supposed to mean, Miriam?" Bob said, approaching her swiftly, as if he were going to raise a hand to her, but he didn't. He stopped short of the doorway, where she was standing with the closed umbrella.
Miriam cut him a cold glance before turning back to him and poking him in the chest with the umbrella. "Hey, hey, hey, huh? It always comes down to that, doesn't it? Have you got anything else to say for yourself? Helga, since you know so much, how about you?" I remained silent, just waiting to see what Miriam was going to do. "Well, B, Helga, I'll tell you what that means. It means…it means…" I looked at her. Her eyes didn't look so desperate anymore. She momentarily slipped back into the eyes that usually held her sleep after being jolted awake from Bob's chair. The resumed only some of their brightness when Miriam continued.
"It means…I'm going for a walk, and I'll see you two later. Helga, be good," Miriam said, opening up the door meekly and opening the umbrella with a flourish.
It was still raining outside, and lightning struck not to far away.
Although Mom's blank out ruined her flourish, it was still pretty bold for Miriam. Before Dad or I could utter another word, she closed the door behind her, mounted the umbrella, and walked into the storm. The umbrella was no match for the wind, and it was immediately destroyed, blowing upward, making a sort of V-shape. Still, Miriam walked on down the street, acting as if nothing had happened. Bob and I watched her out of the open door.
Finally, as if he had snapped back into reality, Bob ran out of the door and called after her. He ran down the steps to our porch, stood in the center of the sidewalk, planted his feet, and yelled. "Miriam, where do you think you're going?" No response. "Miriam, you're ignoring me…I thought I told you never to walk away when I was talking to you…I'm not coming after you, Miriam, I'm not, I tell you…you'll have to come back on your own, then I'll be right again, like always." This continued like this for the next several minutes, until Miriam descended the hill on our street and Bob could no longer see her from our porch.
By now, a few of our neighbors were peaking out of the windows, because they usually never heard anything from our house…it's surprising how thick the walls were in the house, although it was old. Frustrated, Big Bob clenched his fists and kicked the base of the porch with a lot of force. Of course the porch didn't move, and he stubbed his toe severely, which made him even more frustrated. I watched as he turned red, and uttered "goddamit" under his breath. He then painfully walked up the stairs, as if nothing happened, ignoring me and ascending to his room, where he shut the door. He didn't come back down, not for dinner, not for his new beeper commercial, not for anything, which really doesn't mean that much, since he had his own stash of food and a television in his room.
That night, I learned how to boil soup on the stove the hard way. It was almost eleven that night by the time that I had finally sat down to a bowl of cold soup on the counter. I ate it solemnly and I looked around the kitchen. I had left a mess, and somehow I didn't feel at peace without cleaning it up, much the same as it had always been as long as I remembered it. As the soup disgusted me, I poured the rest of it down the sink and began to clean the mess that I had made. I was up until after twelve on a school night, still cleaning the kitchen.
I normally wouldn't have stayed up so late, but somehow the impetus that had caused me to clean in the first place kept me up. I eventually lay on the couch in which Miriam had occupied many a night, asleep on Bob's shoulder as he watched All in the Family or something. I rested there, hoping I'd be there to see what Bob would do when Miriam came back. I convinced myself that it would be entertaining to watch, as always.
Above me, I imagined Bob before I went to sleep. He was probably in the king sized, throwing down on some stale pork grinds and howling every time Archie Bunker flushed the toilet, even though he'd heard that sound effect a million times. Instead, I knew he was probably sleeping desolately, clutching to the pillow in much the same way he would clutch to Miriam anytime I would catch them asleep. And as I drifted off to sleep, I keep seeing in my minds eye Miriam walking back in, in the same off-white nightgown she has worn for years, quietly going into their bedroom, gently lifting the covers and filling that void space in Bob's arms. At the time, it disgusted me, and I would wake up to snap out of it, but the image would come back to me, and she would come like a ghost and slip into bed as if she had never been gone.
But, Mom didn't come back while I was cleaning the kitchen, nor was she back when I had gone to sleep on the couch. Mom wasn't back all night, or the day after.
And at the time, I didn't know why, and I was scared out of my mind. I was used to the norm, and this was not something that Miriam would do. I wouldn't know until years later, many years later, why she walked out that day, and why she didn't come back after a few minutes like me and Dad thought she should have. As a ten-year-old kid, I knew nothing about Miriam, but I'm glad I do now. And I think that I would be doing you girls a disservice not to tell you this story, that has helped me so much in my life, as you enter your own. If my mother's got no heirloom to pass, this will serve adequately. I hope you girls can use what I am about to tell you in your everyday life, just as I did with mine.
Do you like? Do you not like? Please let me know, so I can know whether or not to continue (R&R). I definitely have more chapters to go.
