Wholey Cracked

Wholey Cracked

Sagging into a chair at the table, she bulldozes the piles of paper and Lego aside, then stacks a cereal-encrusted bowl onto the pile some child left behind. Was it this morning? Yesterday? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t care.

Blankly she stares through the milky glass of her dining room window. Lime and calcium obscure the view of her children playing in the yard. In the periphery of her hearing she senses their laughter, but it’s drowned out by the sounds of white goods. The washer rewashes whatever she stuffed in there days ago, then forgot about. The dryer attempts to loosen creases and purge the musty odour of damp laundry that’s begun to sour. The dishwasher valiantly tries to erase the burned-on cheese from last night’s frypan.

Behind her, a clean laundry mountain erupts from her sofa. Within its core, she is certain, nestle various toys and books and perhaps the missing TV remote. At either end stand leaning towers of boxes and plastic crates. Some hold overloved stuffed animals or outgrown baby clothes. Others cocoon old photographs and newspaper clippings, mementos of cherished times and faces and achievements. Yet another holds shoes she once wore to parties, dresses that flowed with her movement. There is even one that holds clothes far too big for her babies—but she knows they’ll grow.

There are shelves with books, receipts, files of work papers, school notes, and children’s drawings. A bowl of dead batteries, random nuts and screws. A toy car that needs glueing… if only she knew where the glue was. A seashell from a long ago beach holiday and a birthday card for her father that should have been posted a month ago. It leans on the dry mummified remains of a plant labelled Easy Grow.
Easy for some; nothing was easy for her.
With head in hands she sits there, silent. Motionless. Her mind engulfed by nothing but echoing everything. The meditative hymn of white goods drowning the whir of chaos in her mind. Her chest is tight. Her shoulders tighter.

CRACK!

She startles. Her eyes open wide in alarm as silence consumes the sound of her children playing, and the cloudy window becomes a starburst pattern of impact. The sharp sound of glass breaking rings in her head. In vague alertness, she feels a cool breeze touch her cheeks as it swirls through the cracked glass.

And in her mind she hears her own voice, “I can breathe.”
***
She sits in the quiet of night on her dining chair. Her babies tucked into their beds with kisses and tummies filled with fish fingers, chips and hastily microwaved peas and corn to appease her guilt for not cooking a healthier meal, again. But she can’t. Her energy is low, her fridge is bare and the twinge of a plan tugs at her motivation.

Tape on the cracked window holds back the outside breeze. But her pen moves rapidly on the page in front of her. She lists and writes, drafts and maps until her hand aches from writing and her eyes burn with exhaustion. But she has to do one more thing before giving in to sleep.

Quietly, she strips the crinkled, dirty sheets from her bed and tucks in clean, fresh ones. As she slips between them and rests her cheek against a fluffed, cool pillow, she breathes in and promises herself she will be alright.

“I can do this. I have to.”
***
The alarm blares and she scrambles to shut it off among the books, bottles, and used tissues on her bedside table. Blearily, she knocks over the glass of water she put there and swears as she rips off her nightgown to mop up the mess and save her books.
Sighing deeply she tosses it onto the pile of dirty sheets beside her door.
Another day.
She wakes each child in turn. Gently calling them from the doorway of their rooms, waiting for signs of life before moving on. Slowly she heads to the bathroom to face herself in the mirror.

Retrieving a wet towel from the floor, she swipes it over the mirror and the sink to clear away the toothpaste residue. It takes a moment to recognise her own face.

“I look so tired.”

Ten minutes later, she pours cereal, packs lunches (after throwing out yesterday’s crusts and wrappers, of course!) and hollers orders like a feverish Sargent in battle. She desperately tries to wrangle half-naked children into school uniforms and shoes while she corrals her hair into a messy bun and overlooks the smear of something on the hem of her t-shirt. One child is grumpy and ignoring her. One is hunting for a lost library book that was due last week. One is trying to finish homework, perched at the only clear corner of the breakfast bar. A precarious pile of plastic food containers threatens to topple near an elbow quickly completing maths sums.

Thirty minutes later she walks through the front door with her barista coffee in hand. Her solace and fortitude in a warm paper cup. Dumping her keys in the fruit bowl, she gets a waft of kitty litter and steels herself for change.

“I can do this. I will be alright,” she says out loud. Her voice sounds determined, loud and alien in the chaos of her world.

Waiting on her dining table are her fresh paper lists and plans. Last night’s inspiration here to guide her. Above it, the taped cloudy star of glass hangs in the window frame.

And so she begins. The breakfast bowl moves from the pile on the table to the pile on the sink. Then to the rack of the dishwasher and finally, glistening and clean, to a neat pile in the cupboard.

The foul kitty litter is bagged and binned. The tray is washed and refilled and laid on a freshly mopped floor.

Item by item, the laundry mountain erodes. Dresser drawers fill. Donation boxes fill. The lost artefact of the TV remote is excavated.

The dining table surface is mined. Junk mail recycled, Lego stowed in a bucket. Unopened letters are opened, bills paid, forms filled. Receipts tossed or carefully laid in a box labelled TAX. Eventually, only shiny wood remains. Even the chair backs are freed from their burden of bags and jackets and nest quietly together under the table.
She celebrates the polished wooden tabletop with a fresh bunch of supermarket lilies in a vase once treasured by her grandmother. The sight and the scent makes her breath flow easier.
The only other thing she allows to rest upon her table is the small stack of crinkling paper lists. Every day they are ticked and scribbled upon. Sometimes she adds things to the list. Other times she crosses things out entirely. There’s no need to fix that broken toy car now—it’s been binned with the soiled kitty litter. But she must not forget to buy sticky hooks for the bathroom so the towels have somewhere to hang and dry.

It takes effort. It takes all her determination. It takes so much time. Some days it takes her soul, and she sits staring blankly at the broken window, wondering, “Will this effort ever be enough?” Other days all she can manage is to wipe the crumbs off the kitchen bench and stack the dirty dishes in a neat pile before she crawls into bed for an afternoon nap that temporarily numbs her frustrations.

But every day, little by little, she is doing it! She’s making progress. Most days she can’t see it. But every now and then… Like the day she came in from school drop-off and was able to plop onto the sofa—the clean, clear, laundry-free sofa! She did not deny herself grace and self-praise in that moment. She saw changes.
***
With freshly washed face and slippered feet, one morning she enters the dining room. Sun glares brightly on the milky, taped glass, and the starburst splinters the light into rainbows that capture her attention and fill her eyes. She sways gently on her feet, watching glittering colours move and shimmer as they escape the fractured glass and radiate into her room. They landing silently on her walls, she smiles in wonder and enjoyment. The polished wood table reflects the image of her vase with rainbow hues. The sofa cushions are plump and neat. Hiding amongst them is the sweet face of a little blue bear who escaped the toy round-up last night before bed. The TV remote perches upon the sofa arm in readiness and the space once reserved for boxes and crates of never-ending stuff now houses a chest of drawers that safely stores her photographs and memories, and a big basket of toys her babies love to snuggle as they watch morning cartoons.
All her excess is now blessing the lives of others. Her old dresses and shoes dancing again on other’s feet. Small children she will never hold wear the onesies that once warmed her babies skin. The over-loved toys are flung about in joy as puppies play.
The rainbows show her that it’s finally time. She reaches for her phone with satisfaction and dials the number.
***
The doorbell rings. She puts down her steaming coffee in her porcelain mug on the kitchen bench and goes to answer it.

“Hello! Come in, please. It’s just in here. Follow me.”

A man in work clothes and plastic-covered shoes trails behind her. Through the kitchen, dishwasher humming, and into the dining room.

“My kids broke it months ago, but I’m only just now getting around to fixing it. It’s funny, only just yesterday I noticed the crack makes rainbows in the sun! But it will be nice to have it fixed.”

The man softly grunts in recognition of his task and sets to work as she heads into her room to fold laundry and give him space.

“I must get these boys new underwear,” she notes to herself as she tosses freshly washed but holey underpants into the bedroom rubbish bin. “And a few new pairs of socks.”

By the time her basket is empty and the drawers filled with clothes, she has decided tonight will be taco night. Her children love that, with all the fresh salad toppings. The dishwasher sings its merry celebration tune to tell her what a good job it has done. She empties it, piece by piece, stacking squeaky clean crockery and cutlery into their kitchen homes. She fills the machine again with breakfast dishes and closes the door. As she polishes the stainless steel of her sink, she hears the man, tools clinking, “All fixed, love!” He calls out.

She smiles and sees him out. “Thank you so much for doing that! I really appreciate it!”

She comes back inside, walking through her clean kitchen and into the dining room, feeling grateful for the glazier’s work.

In front of her, the shiny wood of the table reflects the lilies in grandma’s vase. Above that, the window frame captures the brilliant bluest of sky, sunlight dancing on green leaves floating in the breeze, and the shiny yellow paint of the children’s swing set. A glorious living image of her yard. She cannot even see the glass. No calcium or limescale. Just clarity. Just space. Her space.
She sighs.
Stepping closer to drink it all in, she stops as she catches the reflection of a woman in the glass. Hair pulled back in a ponytail, a buttoned blouse and satisfied smile. It takes a moment for recognition.
“That’s me!”
She sits at the table and calmly watches the afternoon. Sipping her coffee and finally feeling contentment.
Her effort will always be enough.
She scrunches up the completed lists and takes the cap off her pen. She begins to write.