Two missed calls

The phone rang. Again. Katy had become so sensitive and accustomed to its vibration, that she could hear it from a remarkable distance away. She always kept it on silent, for the sake of her own sanity, which needed guarding. For the 13th time that day, her mother was calling, to share what she could confidently  predict was “something very important.”

What would it be this time? That her dear mother had a revelation about her life that is going to be so profound that it will change everything, again? Just to be followed by no change that lasted a day? Or was it that the maid turned up late and her whole day went off course because of it? Or maybe it was a “small” comment that her narcissistic father made at breakfast or the way he left to work? It could be anything, but it definitely was important. Important enough to call immediately. And dare Katy be in the middle of something, or just mentally exhausted, or contemplating the miserable existence that seemed to only serve others and never herself; dare she let the call go unanswered.

Katy didn’t know a bad childhood from a good one. Unaware of the beauty that existed in the outside world, she only knew normalcy to be loud screams, harsh hands, impatient ears and cold food. Woken up each day to constant screams that were either distressful, angry or alarming. For many years to come, she would never need an alarm clock. Sniffing quietly as her hair would be harshly pulled and combed, a habit she would inculcate herself for the rest of her life - to brush her own hair mercilessly. Pain was all she knew, yet she did not know pain’s name. She was too young. Too young for the longest time. To have friends, to go out to birthday parties, to grow her hair past a boy’s length, to menstruate, to develop, to be angry or depressed. She was too young until suddenly it was decided she was not. Old enough to know all of her doubts and unhappiness, all of the wrongs on the pretense that the eldest must be aware, just in case. Just in case what, Katy wondered. Years of misery suddenly unloaded on her heart and mind constantly, as if it belonged there. And after hours of her mother’s need to share and inform her eldest, she would leave as abruptly, to go on with her day, leaving her eldest to rot and simmer in her helplessness of this unwanted awareness. To pick up her day where she left off as if none of it was ever supposed to leave dents in her mind. But it did. 

She looked at the phone, blankly staring at it as if if she stared hard enough it would all go away. The years of calling, of counseling her mother to no result, to caring, to hating to listening and listening. She stared at the vibration ripple onto the sofa she was seated on in the middle of the day, paralyzed and unable to move, unable to breathe. The anxiety had been getting worse, but it always ended and that was her only hope. But this time was different. Her hand finally moved to answer the phone, dropping the glass of water in front of her on the way, but it was a second too late. The phone stopped ringing. And just like that, her heart stopped beating.

The calls went unanswered. Both of them.