Out of My Mind
By: Chelbe Johnson
“Good morning” I whisper into the room to my siblings who can not talk back.
Feeling along the wall, I find the light switch and flick it on. The soft light from the room lets me see my baby siblings who are sleeping. Two cribs make up most of the room, one crib decorated in pink for Rose, and the other in yellow for Mary. A changing table and two rocking chairs make the room even more crowded. I like the cribs because it is still hard for me to tell the two apart. Both are still asleep. This is how most of my mornings have been starting this summer. Ever since Mom had these two, I feel like a nanny.
“Waaaa!” Mary is woken up by the slight change of light in the room.
“Waaaa!” Rose is woken up by Mary’s obnoxious crying. “Shh. Shh.” I rush to Mary to try and comfort her. I am only met by the not so comforting smell of her diaper. Setting her on the changing table, I try to not focus on cleaning this baby’s bare butt. “I'm here. I'm here.”
Mom conveniently makes her way into the room, two bottles in hand, after I had to change Mary’s nasty diaper. I pass the clean baby onto Mom and go to the pink crib for baby Rose. Not as smelly. I quickly changed her into a new diaper too, although this one was manageable to look at. Glancing around the room, I see the second bottle is by mom. Holding Rose in one arm, I take the bottle and sit in the other chair to feed her. We both sit in silence, rocking back and forth right next to each other. This sweet silence doesn't last long though. Mom glances at the wall clock.
“Quarter to 8:00. I have to go.”
“I know.”
“I love you, baby.”
“I…”
She leans down and kisses Mary. “I don't know what I would do without you Avery.” She looks at me.
“I don't know either…” I say to myself, although on the outside I give her a sweet smile. As soon as I finished my freshman year of high school, I was so excited to start my first summer as a real high schooler. Suddenly, I was met with the responsibility of two new baby siblings. My friend Hannah planned for us to go to the pool in town without our parents for the first time. We both even secretly bought new bikinis we were going to wear. I got a red one, which I heard was Gage’s favorite color. He’s an upperclassman that every girl dreams about. But that little dream soon faded. Now my days are filled with bottle feeding, changing diapers, doing the laundry, washing the dishes, waiting for Mom to get back home, and every other day texting Hannah back telling her I can't go to the mall today, but maybe next time.
My mind drifts back to a time before the twins were born, back when Mom was still pregnant with them. Dad, or should I say, Robert, made his way back into our life. Mom was still in school when he first left, but she finally got a stable job as an orthodontist after graduating. We got a better house, and I and Mom were happy by ourselves. Robert must have heard about Mom’s success, because he came back, and Mom fell for his charm once again. She had hoped he had changed, and I guess I did too. He even came to my first Volleyball game back in August, but he didn't change. In September, he took off again. I didn't know why until I saw Mom's belly bump. He left after he got her pregnant, just like he did back when Mom was pregnant with me. He showed up now and then between that time, like when Mom was still taking college classes, but getting her pregnant and running away again just made me sick. Because of Robert, I've had to step up in a role I never asked for
The day drags by until I look at the clock, finally 5:26. Mom is usually home by 5:30. I wait in the living room as the two lay in their playpen area. I hear the garage door roll up, the deep sound signifying that Mom is home.
“I'm home.” She calls out as she walks through the garage door which leads to the kitchen. She walks into the living room.
“Hi.”
“How was today?”
“Good.” I gesture over to Mary and Rose. “They were pretty good.”
“Well isn't that just fantastic?” She gushes over her babies.
“Yeah. How was work?”
“Stressful.”
“Ah.”
“Are you hungry?”
I nod.
“How's spaghetti sound?”
“Not bad.”
“I'll get started on it, just watch the kids for me.”
I'm also a kid, I think, but I know what she means. It just feels like she forgets that sometimes. After dinner and putting my siblings to sleep, Mom heads to bed as well as I. Laying in bed, I look at some of the things my friends from school had posted. Some are on vacation with their families, others went to the park, and my friend Hannah posted with some friends at the pool. Today was a beautiful day, I should have been there too, but instead, I've been here. Sadness and jealousy overtake my emotions. My eyes welled up with tears, but I told myself I couldn't cry. The reason I'm being left out is because I've been too busy. It's my own fault, not theirs. I reach over to my bedside table to switch my lamp off, the chain hitting the body of the lamp, and clinking three times until it's just silence. Tink tink tink. Darkness overtakes my room. I fell asleep with a weird gut feeling, probably from the feelings I got when I saw Hannah’s post.
Beep. Beep. Beep. I wake up to the sound of my alarm clock, but I am too tired to even think about opening my eyes yet. Beep. Be-.The alarm suddenly stops. I open my eyes to investigate why this happened, but instead of my bedroom ceiling, I see my bed. I have to be dreaming. I close my eyes, but my mind is telling me I am in fact awake. I open my eyes again.
“Oh my god!” I am frightened by the strange sight in front of me…it's me. I try to use any force I can to move but I can't, all I can do is watch. “Mom! Help me!
Silence.
“Hello?” I try to speak to my body. “Hello, can you hear me?” I say again but louder.
My body doesn't seem to acknowledge me at all. Am I out of my mind? My body turned off the alarm and is once again sleeping in the bed. I can't sleep. I have to take care of Mary and Rose. But, my body looks so peaceful sleeping past my 6:50 alarm. I mean technically it's not my fault I slept in, I have no control over my body. I watch my body sleep comfortably in my full-sized bed, the white comforter wrapped warmly around it. My brown hair is a knotted mess all across the pillow, and drool comes from my thin lips. I miss that feeling, of being cuddled up in bed and not worrying about the twins
“You really can't hear me can you?”
No reaction.
All I can do is watch my body and talk to myself. What is happening? As I watch my body sleep, and the warm sunrise peeks through my curtains, my eyes get heavy too. Just as they were about to shut for rest, I heard footsteps running down the hallway, and my door creaked open.
“Avery are you awa- oh shit.” My mom whisper-shouts into the room and fully opens my bedroom door.
I try to yell at her. “Mom, can you hear me?” She doesn't react either. Her curly brown hair and makeup is done, but she is still in her pajamas.
She turns on the overhead light, runs over, and shakes my body. “It’s 7:30 why are you still asleep?”
My body opens its eyes and turns away from Mom.
“Come on Avery, I need your help. Get up.”
Like a robot, my body suddenly gets up. It sits along the edge of my bed, facing away from Mom.
“I know you’re tired and I'm sorry.” She holds onto the right shoulder. “The bottles are ready. I just need help feeding and changing them.”
My body gets up and walks out the door. Like a balloon tied behind it, I follow. It heads into the bathroom without any rush. It grabs my toothbrush and brushes.
“Hurry baby, I have to leave soon,” Mom says from behind the bathroom door.
My body doesn't seem to acknowledge her, and it just spits out the toothpaste in the sink, and then moves on with my face wash routine, something I haven't had time to do in months.
Mom calls out to me from the baby's room. “We have fifteen minutes to change, feed, and get myself dressed.”
My body walks into the room. I can only watch. It picks up Rose from out of her crib, waking her. Mom is already changing Mary’s diaper. Rose starts to cry from the sudden wake-up.
My body doesn't seem to react to crying, it just hands her off to Mom for her diaper. The process goes as normal, and the two babies are then bottle fed. Eventually, Mom had to hand both babies onto my body and rush to change. She leaves the house 10 minutes late, something she hasn't done since the first week of having the two. Although I feel bad, it was nice to just watch others take care of them. Well, one of them is me…but not me.
I watch as my body stands up with the twins and walks over to the cribs. With no care, Mary was put in Rose’s pink crib and Rose was set in Mary’s yellow crib. My body walks out of the room.
“And I guess we're not taking care of the babies today.”
It walks down the stairs and into the living room, passing by the kids' playpen and now into the kitchen, headed right for the stainless steel refrigerator. Reaching out a hand, it opens up the freezer pulls out one of mom's fancy turkey and sausage flatbread breakfast sandwiches and prepares it to be cooked.
“There's no stopping you, is there?”
My body continues on. After the sandwich is cooked, it pours a glass of orange juice and takes it over to the couch. It sits and eats. All-day my body enjoys its free time. It watches Netflix and eats snacks out of Mom’s side of the pantry.
As I watch myself, I almost forget about Mary and Rose until I hear crying from upstairs. But, my body doesn’t move.
“You gonna check on them?” I asked although I know it doesn't hear me.
My body just sits there, continuing to watch tv. I hear the cries from upstairs which make me feel guilty. I can’t do anything but try and get in my own head or wait for Mom to come home. But, right now all I can do is yell at myself to do something.
“They're too little to take care of themselves.”
The cries go on for twenty minutes before my body reacts. It gets up from the couch and heads upstairs. Walking into the baby's room, the cries are louder and sadder.
“I'm so sorry,” I say to them.
They keep crying.
With a kid in each arm, my body heads back downstairs. Going back into the living room, it stops at the playpen and sets both babies down, clumsily, carelessly.
“Sorry!”
My body goes back upstairs and into my bedroom. Now the babies are unsupervised with their toys. I start to worry. I follow myself back up the stairs. My room is dark aside from the orange tint of sunset shining through the big windows, creating the shape of a rectangle on the wooden floors. My bed is unmade as usual, but my body goes ahead and makes it. This is nice, I think. I never really have time to make the bed, and although I don't care about it that much, it's nice to see my room cleaned up for a change. The lamp is still off, and I can't help but notice how nice it really is in my room. My body lays down on the bed, lifeless, like a zombie.
This time last year my room was where you could find me the most. I remember waking up at noon, and doing as I pleased. I would get ready, wash my face, straighten my hair, and then tidy up my room. My bed was always made, and my desk was always a mess from drawing at it. I haven't had time to think about drawing in so long. I miss it.
“I’m home,” I hear my mom call distantly from downstairs.
My body stays still, laying on top of the bed. I hear the faint footsteps of Mom from downstairs.
“Avery?” She must have seen the twins all alone.
“Avery,” she calls again. I hear her footsteps marching up the stairs. They sound harsh and quick. She is either mad or scared, but I can't quite tell. “Avery are you in here?” She says through my bedroom door as she gives a faint knock.
My body stays still, scarily still. My eyes are open, but my body is not responding. It is laying face up, staring at the ceiling fan above the bed.
“Avery?” Mom sees my body just laying on the bed. “The babies are downstairs, what are you - Avery?” She notices my body is awake. “Are you ok?”
Emotionless, blank, brown eyes continue to stare at the ceiling. I can tell my mom is concerned. She stands over the bed, looking down at my body as her eyebrow furrows together in confusion. Putting a hand on my body's shoulder, she gives it a slight push. My body rocks slightly back and forth, but continues to be in a lifeless state.
“Avery!’ She yells out.
Reaching over to the bedside lamp, she quickly pulls the chain to turn it on. Clink clink clink. A rush comes to my brain. I feel pounding in my head. I close my eyes to stop the feeling, like putty being pulled apart by a child. I try to close my eyes even tighter.
“Avery!” I hear again.
Suddenly, I feel myself shaking back and forth, and I can't breathe. I desperately gasp out for a breath of air, and my eyes shoot open. I see my mothers panicked face. “Mom!”
“Oh thank God.”
I smile. “Mom.”
“Are you ok?’
“Yes.”
I feel relieved to be back in my own body. “Yes I am.”
“Jesus you scared me.”
“I'm sorry mom I-”
“You left the babies all alone!”
In a silent panic, I scramble to explain the unexplainable. It sounds so stupid that the frustration makes me shout. “I didn't mean to mom you would never believe it. I can’t—”
“What I can't believe is that you left those two alone.” She turns to walk out of my room.
Now I don’t care that I’m shouting. “Mom!”
“What?” She turns around.
“Can't you—can’t you see I'm exhausted?”
She is silent.
“I never asked for Dad to come back, I never asked for you to get pregnant, and I sure as hell never asked to take care of them every second of my day.”
We’re both silent for a while.
“I'm sorry.” I start to get out of bed.
“No.” She takes a deep sigh. “I'm sorry. I need to figure myself out.”
“Mom—”
“No, let me talk. This is my fault. I let your dad back in my life and— ”
I stand up, walking over to mom and embracing her in a hug. I can tell she's struggling with her mentions right now. I see guilt for making me deal with her mistakes. “Just for now, please help me watch them while I look for a babysitter.”
Chelbe Johnson is a 19-year-old student athlete at Independence Community College. She is on a softball scholarship while pursuing an art education career, to become a high school art teacher.