My Mother

My mother broke every plate in the house that day. She had come back from the doctor, and wouldn't look us in the eye. Her hands trembled slightly. My brother Herman and I knew immediately. We could smell the sick on her, it pressed on us like the mass that it was. Mom went into her room and for an hour things almost went back to normal. Herman built a puzzle, I paced in front of her door hoping she would come out soon and be with us. I didn't dare go inside. I was afraid of the darkness that we had felt earlier. I didn't want her to swallow me up and take me with her into agony. When she came out, she looked beautiful. She had spent the hour putting on makeup, fixing her hair, making herself pretty. She smiled the most radiant smile I had ever seen and proudly marched into the kitchen, Herman and I following, curious. Her movements didn't have a chance to register before the plate crashed to the floor. Herman and I jumped, terrified. She was still grinning that radiant smile, and while Herman and I watched her with trepidation, our mother began to laugh. A clear, emphatic laugh. An honest laugh that draws listeners in. A true laugh that can't be impersonated or faked, the laughter of innocence, of bliss. She grabbed us by the hands and started to spin us around her and jumped and continued to laugh, whooping and yelling until tears flowed freely from her eyes, and Herman and I forgot to be afraid and started laughing with her. We danced for each other, trying to elicit more laughter with our bizarre movements. We made faces, or tried to in the spaces before our laughter took over and forced us to gasp just to retain consciousness. And we broke more plates. We threw them down with hilarious force, shattering each and every one. And when the cabinets were empty, and the floor unnavigable, we sat together and gasped every once in a while. In the void left behind by the plates and the laughter, we held each other and accepted the blackness inside our mother.