Listen to Salt by Ava Max

Meera Bagwat

"Mom, stop!" my eighteen-year-old son screamed, his face painfully twisted in disgust. He thrust his hands on both ears to block out my voice. "Can you stop ruining my life?" A slow sob erupted in him, and I patiently waited for him to say more. He didn't open his mouth for a long time. He sunk into the couch, pulling his legs up and hugging them.

It hurt to see him cry. At this point, Nikhil was the only person I loved. I'd lost my affection to my family, to my husband.

"I hate you," he said. There was so much malice in his words that my heart slammed in my chest. It felt like he was wringing my heart with his bare hands and mercilessly letting the blood drip to the floor.

I took a long swig from my whisky, flipping the bottle upside down to down every last drop. The spicy flavour stung my throat as I laughed. "You hate me. I know." I hadn't talked in almost two days. I had been swimming in alcohol, dumping myself on the floor with some sheets tangled around me. My hair wasn't clean; it hadn't been washed in weeks. Heck, I didn't even remember what clothes I was wearing under these sheets. I was a sloppy mess.

He looked at me, repulsed. I knew that he wished he had a different mother. A good, actively caring mother who wasn't a pathetic alcoholic. A mother who would pose impressive questions in PTA meetings and appreciated him when his football team won. 

"I met Jack's mother yesterday, and I could see the fucking difference between you and her. Do you know how hard she's trying to help him?"

"Who's Jack?"

"Mom!" Nikhil shrieked. "He's my best friend since kindergarten. Don't you remember him?"

"Oh, him? Is he the one who fell into the sewage hole once?"

He huffed. "Do you know anything about me?  Do you know my grades?  My friends?  My girlfriend's name?  No. Because you just don't care." For a millisecond, his face softened. "I'm sick and tired of seeing you like this. Can't you just stop drinking?"

To be honest, I knew.  Sometimes I browse through his school mails and occasionally, the Biology teacher asks for Nikhil to help other students with their projects.  He had three best friends (although I forget their names) and the girlfriend's name was Tia.  I did my best to check up on him, but sometimes I inevitably fail.

"All you want to do is drown your face in that stupid booze and fly away from your problems. That's all you care about. You don't care about me," he repeated again. "And dad hates me too."

"Oh, baby," I whispered, tears pooling in my eyes at his words. "I love you."

"I don't see it in your actions." With that, he marched out of the house. The door slammed loudly behind him.

Ha! I opened my mouth to let out a gravelly laugh. My forty-year-old life has become a joke.  There was nothing that I could call an achievement.

My son hates me now. He too. 

I took one decision. One decision for myself. I forced the people I love to agree to it, I convinced their half-hearted selves.  Making people dislike me was the only thing I'd accomplished with my presence.

"She ruined her own life." That's what my sister Kanaka says to everyone who asks her about me.

I started drinking twelve years ago, the day I came back from Kanaka's Diwali gathering. I never stopped. Ranjit made me try therapy twice. But the damage was already done.  The more I spent time alone with a drink, the less sad I felt.

I just got a little worse when I started realizing that my son was beginning to hate me too.

I wished to fuse with the alcohol so I could chug myself, dissolve in my own system and eventually disappear. I wanted to disappear, yes. Disappear from the heartbreak I'd created, the mess I'd made. I suddenly had the desire to be in the pool. I hadn't been swimming for around a years now. Twelve years, to be precise.  At times when watering my loneliness with liquid alcohol wasn't enough, the thought of swimming gave me relief.  It took me towards peace, towards nothingness, to the point where I was empty of feelings. It felt good.  

But Ranjit would be mad if he knew I went anywhere near water.

It felt good to be surrounded by water, even if it was all in my head. It felt good to feel like I could drown myself any minute. But the water pushed me up every time. I guess that was why I loved it. It gave me hope. It made me hope that I'd soar out one day, no matter how strangled I felt underwater.

_

The towel dropped to the floor and I got into the lone pool.  The sun had almost turned off its light. The sky was blending from dark pink to dark grey. My tense muscles immediately loosened as the cold water enveloped me.  My skin tingled. I felt like I could finally breathe again with ease, shedding the dark thick web of guilt that had built around my lungs. I possesively hugged onto this feeling. It was a balm to my aching heart.

Before I got too comfortable though, I heard someone moving. I looked up to see a figure cajoling towards the pool. I shook the water off my eye to see clearer.

It was someone I knew. My neighbour, Stella Davis.

I glared in irritation. Just when I was having a little pampering time, this woman in her slick black swimming suit that appreciated her beautiful curves would show up to ruin my mood. Did she really have to be here now? Wasn't she rich enough to have a pool of her own?  Did she really have to mock me with her perfect life?  Bubbling with youth, she slid into the pool.

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I know that all these chapters are intense with zero comedy. They are coming up soon!