Leaving Home

Mum calls it leaving home.

My sisters and brothers have already left home. Mum says they are scattered far and wide. She flings her arms out when she says this and the loose flesh on her upper arms ripple and the faded tattoos dance twerk. Scattered so far it is too difficult for them to come home she adds, a sorrowful hitch in her voice. Instead of visits, letters arrive. They come in batches as if all four siblings decided to write home on the same night. I can’t help but notice similarity in the handwriting and what is happening in my sisters and brothers lives. Sometimes I think I have read a letter before but it was from a different sister or brother.

When I write the letters came back marked as undeliverable. I ask Mum why they don’t have phones. Everyone has a phone. But Mum never answers this question and instead she tells me one day soon I will leave home too.

I tell Mum I don’t want to leave home. Mum says this feeling is called Separation anxiety. Newborns like puppies have it till they grow older and stop missing their mum. Mum says it is time for me to stop feeling separation anxiety.

Yesterday the police came while Mum was at the mall. They wanted to speak to her. They asked about my sisters and my brothers. I told them that they have left home and are scattered far and wide. Then I said I would be leaving home as soon as I get over my separation anxiety. They asked if they could come in. They were trying to be friendly so I said yes. When they came in their faces went all funny and one asked, “Why does the house smell?”

I said, “What smell?”

The policeman who asked looked at the other one and then went downstairs to the basement. The other one looked upset, perhaps he had just left home and was still suffering separation anxiety. The other policeman rushed back up from the basement, he was speaking into that plastic square that sat where his chest and shoulder met. After that they were less friendly.

More police came and said that they had found Mum. I was taken away so I guess I have now left home. But that’s ok because it looks like Mum has left home too.

Photo by Erica Marsland Huynh on Unsplash