Stirring The Pot

I am sitting in the bath tub, eyeing the hot water. I do not understand why, but for some reason I feel I must stick my face below the water and submerge my ears, like I did as a child. I can't remember why. I just want to. I close my eyes, take a deep breath and submerge my head. The water rushes into my ears, deafening me to world around me. I am blind because I have closed my eyes. I feel nothing but comforting warmth. I drift.

I awake in my bed. This is the third night in a row. It's 3:12am. As usual. It's always the same time, but never three nights in a row. I don't understand. I peel back the covers and sit up in my bed, feet resting inches above the icy floorboards. I am six years old.

There are noises coming from the kitchen, and I can tell the lights are on even through the towel shoved under my door.

I have come to associate a towel placed under a door with covering an unpleasant scent. I'm not sure what it is, but I know that the fumes can't be good for me.

I hear noises coming from my kitchen.

Cautiously I slide out of bed, taking care not to upset the dollhouse by my closet or the tower of blocks by my desk. My mother told me to clean my room, but that was a week ago. I never got to it, and I don't plan on doing it anytime soon. Whenever I clean my room I find that, well, I simply can not find. Everything is missing. I can never tell where exactly I put everything. I can never remember. Sometimes I wonder why my short term memory is so bad. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fumes creeping under my door.

My door is creaky. I know this because it has a bad habit of getting me in trouble when I don't want to be heard. Three weeks ago I figured out that if you apply enough pressure to the hinges, the door opens silent, like a ghost.

I am a ghost. Dressed in a small white night gown, long curly hair rolling down my back, I glide breathlessly through my door and down the hallway. I take refuge from the fumes in the washroom, closing the door completely and blocking it out with a towel. The washroom is safe because it has a lock. I figure that no one can harm me in there because no one can open the lock.

The noises in the kitchen stop. A knock sounds upon the door.

"Jennifer, are you in there?"

"Yes dad!"

"What are you doing up? It's late and you have school in the morning. Get to bed." I can tell that he is angry with me. He doesn't want anyone to see what he's doing, because what he is doing is bad. I may not know much, but I know that if you're awake at three in the morning filling your house with fumes, you're doing something bad and secret that you don't want anyone knowing about. I believe it is secret, because he only does it in the dead of night. I can't be sure though. I hate my curiosity.

"I'm sorry dad, I woke up and needed to use the washroom." I lie.

"Well in that case it's fine," he grumbled, "could you go out there and stir that pot for a moment then while you're up? I need to use the washroom as well, and I can't leave it sitting."

"Yes dad."

Finally my curiosity will have an answer. I will know the image of the source of the fumes. I will know where they come from, and maybe if I'm lucky, what it is."

The stench is foul. I stand on a chair in front of my stove stirring the pot. There is a thin green liquid inside. The source of the smell. It reminds me of rubbing alcohol, but with something different to it. Rubbing alcohol isn't bright green. Once again I am so confused and curious.

My father emerges from the restroom, eyes red and puffy from being exposed to the fumes for too long. "Get to bed." He snarls.

"Dad, what's in the pot?" I ask.

"It's daddy's medicine kid, now beat it." He scolds as he cuffs me in the ear.

I have two daddy's. Night daddy and day daddy. Day daddy lasts from eight in the morning until six in the evening. Day daddy reads to me, plays with me, and makes me laugh. Night daddy likes to hit and yell. I don't like night daddy. Sometimes they trade times. But not often. Tonight I am not so fortunate.

I leave the kitchen in tears, humiliated that he scolded me and hit me even after I helped him with his medicine. All I did was ask one question. I don't understand why being curious is so wrong. I have come to believe that daddy likes his medicine more than he likes me. He spends so much time making it and preparing it. He never scolds it or strikes in. He never gets mad at it or throws it against the wall. He must love it more than he loves me.

I often wonder why I am not good enough to be loved. If mommy and daddy loved me, would they continue to ignore me so? If mommy and daddy loved me wouldn't they hate each other less. I do not sleep much. I lie awake and wonder why my parents don't love me, and why they love their medicine so much. It hurts me to know that I am always second. I am six. I am a child. They should love me. I am life, whereas the medicine reeks of death.

I close my door and leave my lights out. There are things far more frightening than the dark. I don't fear the dark, I embrace it. It makes it harder for night daddy to find me. It makes it easier to hide. I love the dark. I return to bed and cry myself to sleep.

Tomorrow I get to pretend nothing happened and that I'm just a normal grade one student with a normal life. I will call my nights horrible dreams if asked, and I will never tell because I still love them.

I often wonder why.

I raise my head out of the water to take a breath and then submerge it once again. Like I did as a child, only now I remember why I did this.

I can still hear my mother screaming and the crunch of a body against cement.

The hot water masks my tears.