She was the nail.
The tearing force.
The blunt self-destruction which, in its wake, tore our family apart.
She screamed all day and all night.
Screamed herself hoarse in the shelter of her dark room.
The light forever off, the curtains forever drawn.
My mother would tear her nails with her teeth, screwing up her eyes and trying to go on with her work, but every stroke which spread across the canvas was pain.
Every colour helpless.
She burned it all when it was done.
Meanwhile my father ignored it, or tried to. His eyes narrowed, his shoulders hunched permanently.
Definitively.
And this sent mother into despair, wondering who she'd married, who she could turn to now, with all the screaming.
The blood dripped down from the cracks in the floorboards and stained her canvasses.
The door was locked, the screams went on.
I sat outside, feeling the rain and wishing they could feel what I felt.
I wanted to let the rain wash away the blood and the screams.
To drown her for being so selfish.
To bring her back sane, so we could start again.
When mother smiled, when father looked us all in the eye.
When nothing was perfect, but we felt like we could go on.
I'd abandoned hope of moving on.
I was chained here like the rest of them, hypnotized by the screams.
The blood.
So much, too much blood.
How was she still alive?
No one spoke any more. No one did anything. No one wanted anything.
We walked around cocooned.
The pain which should have brought us closer shattered what bonds we had, sent all dreams of normality and power reeling into whirlpools we could not reach.
Or maybe she could.
Maybe that was why she died every night, why she suffered and could not escape.
Maybe she still saw what could have happened.
Maybe she blamed herself.