When Jeremiah was young his mother was often startled and scared. She scrubbed the kitchen and the bathroom. She vacuumed the carpet. She took control of the space and destroyed anything that did not present a picture of calm perfection. She did this with bleach and she did it with ammonia. Sometimes she mixed the two hoping for an early exit from Hamlet’s mortal coil. She only admitted this once, and she played it off as an accident. At the dinner table she would start the confession with the simple words, “You’ll never believe what I did today.” She would then continue, “I was mopping the kitchen floor. I mixed the ammonia with water. That is what I always do, but then I realized that the kitchen floors are white. Then I thought bleach is the best thing for white things. “So I mixed some in,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It was such a stupid thing to do. I nearly died
Of course the waves went out among the family with forks perched above the chicken fried steak. Jeremiah sat staring at his plate pondering the words I nearly died. His step-father said, “Why did you do that? You know that you can’t mix bleach and ammonia!”
“I don’t know,” said Rose, “I just wasn’t thinking.”
Jeremiah was suspicious. It made no sense to him. He could not reconcile his mother’s knowledge of danger with a lapse of reason. He could only hear the words I NEARLY DIED. He knew at that point that she could disappear just as quickly as his dad. No one could be depended on. People disappeared. It was better not to invest in those he loved. He knew they would always be on the verge of leaving, so he burrowed further.
This burrowing was the reason for Rose’s often startled state. As she scrubbed and scoured Jeremiah’s sister Christian hung about her feet seeking attention. She dragged flowers in from the country with wild black berries. She presented pictures that she had drawn to Rose. Constantly her presence said Pay attention to me! I am here.
In the midst of the cleaning and wild berry presentations Jeremiah was silent. Suddenly Rose’s head would explode. Her attention would snap wake as if an oven timer had chirped louder than six crickets trapped in a Texas pantry. Her brain sounded where is Jeremiah? Then she would dash about the house looking for him. Finally she would find him in his room calmly pushing dump trucks across the wooden floors.
Jeremiah was two then and he could feel the alarm in his mother’s presence. Her panic shocked him, but he noticed that she noticed him. At two he was armed with the knowledge that she was aware of him if he was not present. She was aware of him if he worried her. So Jeremiah would perfect the art of absence. When he was present he would learn to startle.
