Seventeen

As I walk home in the dark, both halves of the turquoise door fastened tight behind me, Persephone is on my mind. I think of how she tumbled through that crack in the earth and how she couldn’t know how far she would fall; she couldn’t know where she would land. She must have been so afraid to find herself in that dark place, far from her mother and the comforts of home. She must have missed the play of wind across the tall, bright grasses, the warmth of the sun on her face. And it’s true she ate the pomegranate seeds, and it’s true that we don’t know if they tasted sweet to her or bitter. But it’s true too that when the time came to leave, she emerged from the darkness into the light of day.

Some versions of her myth say that Hermes rescued her. That’s not how I like to imagine the story. I like to think that she climbed free, that she kicked off her sandals and bunched her skirts around her waist, that she grabbed tight to any handhold she could find, and that she freed herself by sheer force of will. I like to imagine that she dug her fingers into the walls of the earth and fought her way up, hand over hand, dark soil smearing her face, rocks bending and breaking her nails.

I like to believe that she made her way out of the dark pit where she had been trapped and that she emerged damaged but free, changed but still whole, and that she followed a path of light home to her mother.

***

There’s no moon tonight. The heat wave we’ve been having has overtaxed the electric system, and the power in our section of the city is out. The windows of the buildings around me are punched-out black eyes, and the day’s heat still hangs heavy like death in the air.

When I get to our apartment building, I look up to our door. It’s open, and a soft light glows from inside. The window is open too, and the long, silky scarves blow out, beckoning me, welcoming me home.

I’m silent on the stairs, taking each step slowly. My mother doesn’t hear me coming. I stand outside the door and look inside.

She’s lit the candles—all of them. The tall tapers that line the bookshelf, the funny beeswax ones on the beat-up old coffee table, the candles in jars anchored by sand and shells. A row of candles, evenly spaced, dots the kitchen counter.

The whole front room of our apartment glows and flickers, the flames alive.

There’s music on, coming from the tinny little speaker on her phone. It’s not reggae, for once; it’s the Rolling Stones, one of her favorites, “Anybody Seen My Baby.”

Mom sings along with Mick. Her eyes are closed and her head is back, hair waving down her back and shimmering in the candlelight. As she moves with her liquid grace, dressed in a white tank top and soft gray skirt, I see again her beauty, so sharp and bright that it hurts me.

When the song ends, her back is to the door and she stands very still, like she’s waiting for the next song, but when the music begins again, it’s the same song. Again. She’s listening to it on repeat, over and over again, a loop of sound and sorrow.

This time, when she spins around, I step forward and touch her hand. Her eyes pop open, and in the glow of the candles I see the shine of her unspilled tears.

“Baby,” she says. “You’re home.”

***

When you are loved by someone the way I am loved by my mom, you want them to save you. You want to be rescued and made whole again by their magic touch. But love like that—the kind that flows just one way—it’s for fairy tales and children. I am not a child.

I imagine Persephone. It cost her and it hurt her to find her way home, and as she forced herself from that slit in Mother Earth, it was like being born again, except this time, she would remember all of it—the pain, the breathlessness, the heartrending fear that the crevasse might be too tight, that she might be stuck there, and that her bones might turn to dust under the pressure upon her from all sides.

I could tell my mother. She would love me just the same. Instead, I sit with her in the candlelit dusk and listen to the echo of the waves. Our fingers are entwined. When she falls asleep, her head on my shoulder, I slip out from beneath her. I lay her down and cover her and make myself a bed on the floor nearby.

When I sleep, I dream of the handless maiden finding her home in the forest, far from the safety of the castle on the hill, among the creatures who love her. I dream of Philomela and her sister turning to birds and cutting across the sky.

***

When I wake at dawn, she is still asleep. My body is sore from my night on the carpet. The candles have all burned out, down to nubs.

On my quiet bare feet, I pad into the bedroom, taking with me the pack of matches from the table. I slip the photo from where I’ve hidden it, in the far back corner of my drawer.

Yes. There is a resemblance. In the curl of his hair, most of all, but also in the way he holds his chin and in the way he smiles. But there is more of her in me—more of my mother. I have her hands. Her coloring. Her straight nose. And more than that—she and I have things he will never have. Most of all, we have each other.

The picture tears easily, as if it’s wanted to for a long time, right down the crease. I tuck away the half of my mother and sit on the edge of the bed and look once more at Felix before I strike the match and feed the flame.

The photo smokes and smells terrible as it burns, which is as it should be. It curls and blackens, and then finally it is gone.

After a while, I get up and make coffee.

Outside the sky is already bright and blue.