Go Back to Sleep - hellhoundgirl (good books to read for women txt) 📗

Our Mother does not handle grief well.

No one but Johnny and I know this.

To everyone else, Mother did well as a widowed parent. She fed us three square meals a day, helped us with our homework, bought us clothes, took us to church every Sunday and once Johnny started school, got a part time job as a waitress to supplement Father's life insurance.

Even our grandparents were fooled. On the family's yearly trek to our Father's grave, Mother would be sad, of course she would be, but she didn't snap or drink or curse at Father for dying on us. No, she saved that for when we were home. Alone. For the most part, she was a good mother, but about once a week she'd have what Johnny and I later came to call a “Dad Day”.

Dad Days would start in the morning. Mother would drink all day and by noon she'd be at war with our Father's portrait, cursing at it, furious that she had been left behind.

As the oldest, I took responsibility for Johnny on Dad Days, getting him fed, to school on time and keeping him away from Mother, trying to never let him see her this way.

Don't fret precious, I'm here
Step away from the window
And go back to sleep

When school was over, or as soon as I saw Mother with a bottle in her hand, I'd take him to the basement and we'd hide there until the next day. I'd taken a radio, board games, blankets and pillows from around the house that I knew wouldn't be missed and hidden them there. I'd turn on the radio, Johnny would pick the station, but I controlled the volume, so he couldn't hear her yelling. We'd finish any homework we had and play board games and card games until Johnny fell asleep. I could never sleep on Dad Days, though, and I didn't want to. The basement had a bathroom in it, and canned food, so there was no reason to leave, but Johnny was curious about what was going on, and often tried to leave, and I couldn't let my silly little four-eyed brother see our Mother behave like that. I couldn't.

Safe from pain, and truth, and choice
And other poison devils

In spite of the radio, or maybe because of it, Johnny would wake up sometimes, and want to go back upstairs, or ask why we were down here and, most of all, complain about the situation.

Go back to sleep
Go back to sleep

I wouldn't let him go upstairs. I'd tell him to try to sleep, to count sheep. No matter what he said, how hard he begged, how much he complained, I said no. He'd try to leave, I'd make him stay. We'd wrestle, sometimes for hours, until he gave up. I was older, so I was bigger and I always won. Until the night I lost.

One night, shortly after I'd started high school, Johnny got away and ran upstairs. I followed.
When Mother saw us, she stopped yelling at the pictures on the wall and started yelling at Johnny like she thought he was Father. She raised her hand to hit Johnny, but I got in between them and she hit me instead.

Mother was frustrated, she tried again and again to hit Johnny, but I wouldn't let her, and she hit me in his place.

I'll be the one to protect you from your enemies and all your demons

Johnny went immediately and without complaint when I told him to go back to the basement, while I held off Mother.

I'll be the one to protect you from your enemies and your choices, son
They're one in the same, I must isolate you
Isolate and save you from yourself

After that night, Johnny and I actually got along on Dad Days, because now he knew the basement was a sanctuary. And now, we're adults with our own homes, and the only way our Father's death affects us is the once a year trip we take to his grave. Our Mother isn't well enough to make the trip anymore, so we go for her, and in return she doesn't mention Father for the rest of the year.

Whatever time we get back from the cemetery, no matter how late, we go to Mother's house to let her know it's done. She'll stay up as late as it takes for us to get back and reassure her that nothing there has changed.

We can't this time, though. Johnny is dead and I'm in a farmhouse surrounded by ghouls... Ghouls that are breaking through the door...

And Johnny is with them. One of them. I couldn't protect him after all...

I'm surrounded, and all that I can think about, scream about, is my little brother who's lost his glasses. I want so badly to be back in our Mother's basement, shielding him from all the evils of this world, telling him to go back to sleep. Count some sheep if he must, just-

Go back to sleep
Go back to sleep
Counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums

Publication Date: 01-27-2013

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