Aquarium

~ ~ ~

My mother lay down on the floor. I’m getting cold, she said. Better hurry with that bath. And don’t let my skin rub when you drag me. She always said it felt like her skin could rip off. I always had to be so careful with her skin.

I hurried to the bathroom, put in the drain plug and ran the water, not too hot. I didn’t believe this game would go on long. I would put her in the bath and fix dinner, and then we’d watch TV and I could go to bed.

I grabbed her wrists to drag, but she had gone limp, head lolling, and was so heavy and stuck to the floor.

I pulled again and she screamed and I dropped her wrists, which slapped hard against the tiles.

She screamed if I pulled like that, my mother said. You can’t yank anything, or rub anything. Cancer spreads everywhere. It might begin in one place, but it travels inside and new places become sore. You never know what part of her might hurt next. I used to think if I pulled an arm too hard it might come off, rotten at the joint. All her joints were sore, and bruises everywhere.

I can’t do this.

My mother smiled. That’s right. That’s what I said, though not so early. You’re being a baby. You don’t get to say I can’t do this until a few months have gone by. That’s when you say it and mean it.

I took one of the towels from the bathroom and laid it on the floor beside her. How do I get you on the towel?

There were no instructions, my mother said. No one ever told me how to do anything.

I knelt on the floor and tried to push the towel in along her back, lifted her shoulder blade with one hand. But I wasn’t strong enough from this angle. I had to kneel on the other side and lean over and pull her toward me, my face in close to her armpit, strong smell of sweat from a day of work. Skin clammy and not soft like Shalini’s. My naked mother. I held her close and pulled the towel under, then moved down lower to her hips, all the dark hair down there, and rolled her toward me. She was so much bigger than I was, stronger and taller.

I crossed her arms over her chest, knelt in close behind her head, and pulled on the towel beneath to slide her along the floor. She could have been a dead body. We hit carpet and stopped. I pulled and could not drag her. I can’t do this, I said.

You will. You will or you no longer have a mother. I will leave, just leave, like my father did, and you will never hear from me again.

My eyes wet as soon as she said that, and I hated being such a baby. I pulled harder and dragged her across the carpet down the small hallway to the bathroom tile, where she slid easily again.

The water in the tub was already too high, so I turned it off. I struggled to lift her onto the toilet seat. Sideways a bit, and she was not helping, just limp, but finally she was settled there and peed while I waited. Smell of her pee thick in the air, sound of the tub overflow drain sucking.

Wipe me, she said, so I wrapped toilet paper on my hand and reached between her legs to wipe. Something I could never have imagined doing.

Now the tub.

I put my arms around and locked my hands and dragged. I eased her carefully into the water, her feet at the faucet end. She was so tall her knees were bent.

Now bathe me, and don’t forget dinner.

Which do I do first?

Both at the same time. Everything always at the same time.

I’ll be right back, I said. I went to the kitchen and put a pot of water on the stove to boil, found a box of pasta. No spaghetti sauce in the fridge or cupboard, but I knew she’d tell me I had to figure it out myself, so I found a can of tomato soup, and there were some mushrooms I could add.

I hurried back to the tub and grabbed a bar of soap.

You have to wash my hair, too.

I looked at her long hair, and how tall she was in the tub. I went back to the kitchen for a small pot.

Lean forward, I said, and I scooped bathwater in the pot and poured it carefully over her head.

That’s right, she said. I’m too hot, though. I can’t breathe, Sheri. That’s what she’d say. I can’t breathe.

I ran the cold tap and swirled the water around.

There’s no air in here.

I looked around. We didn’t have a bathroom window or fan. There was never any way to air out the bathroom.

Air! she yelled. I need air! I’m dying!

I ran out and opened our front door and living room window, let the icy air billow in low. Like steam pouring over the windowsill, as if temperature had been reversed. The air we breathed really a liquid, but we saw it only in rare moments like this. Fog born suddenly from nothing, flooding from nowhere, no fog bank outside, no ocean or mountains at the edge. And it wasn’t summer. Fog was usually in summer.

Sheri! she yelled.

When I ran back to the tub, she slapped me. I could have died. I could have drowned. Leaving me like that, with my head bent forward into the water. Do you want to kill me? And I’m cold now. It’s freezing in here.

I opened the hot water tap and hurried out to the door and window, clouds forming at the margins and then gone. They rushed in and vanished somehow. I closed the gates to them, cut them off, and my mother yelled again.

I’m burning! You stupid little shit. Goddamn it, Sheri. You left the hot water on.

I panicked and went for the hot water tap, turned it off, and then swirled the water around with my hand.

My feet are burned.

Even her voice was different, my mother gone. I could not believe my grandmother had been this way, cruel and bitter.

Please, I said. I understand. We can stop.

You don’t understand anything yet. You don’t believe. You’re not going to school tomorrow, and I’m not going to work. Where’s my dinner, Sheri?

Don’t call me Sheri.

My mother grabbed my hair and shoved my face down into the tub water. It was so fast I hadn’t taken a breath. I had no air, panicking. I couldn’t pull my head up. She was so strong. I fought. I punched at her and yanked my whole body, but she had the weight of oceans, pressing down, and then she released me.

You will hate me, she said. I know you will hate me. But my mother did all of these things and I loved her. And I am going to make you see. You will know what it was like, and that’s all I care about.

I don’t care about your stupid life! I screamed.

That’s the problem. We’re going to end that. Now fix dinner.

I was gasping and dripping, and I wanted to run, just run away. She did not even look like my mother, not caring at all that I was hurt. She looked at me coldly, as if I were a stranger.

Fix my dinner, Sheri.

So I did it. I put the pasta in the water that was at a full boil. It looked like rage, bubbles forming sourceless and ripped away and burst. Perfect form of rage. The yellow dried pasta sinking in and calming. I punctured the tomato soup with the can opener when my mother called out again.

Get me out of this bath, Sheri!