An Unembellished Tale

By Abigail E Lyngdoh

There she was, standing still, the room filled with the aura of tranquillity from her mother and the weak cries of her sisters. She stood there, her muscles stiff like a corpse, not getting a hold of exactly what happened and yet watching his back, looking at him walk away with all the things he once brought home.

Her father, a middle-aged drunk with the passion of abusing her mother was now departing with all their possessions, leaving them with nothing but an empty house. As she stood there not being able to utter a single word, her mind was filled with confusion. Though the daily episodes of arguments which progresses to physical fights has been something she has grown accustomed to, yet the idea of her father leave-taking like they never even existed was something she could not comprehend. For her she was still his blood, his kin, his daughter which exactly defines her name, “Adanna – a father’s daughter”.

Months go by but she still missed her father dearly, after all he was not always bad. It was a similar situation as the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde written by a Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. Her father was a stout middle-aged man who earned a free education as a reward of his intelligence. He never failed to make a hearty breakfast and loved serving a delicious warm meal for dinner which was then topped off with a very generous scoop of ice-cream. He rather loved spoiling Adanna and her sisters. Every holiday, be it Durga Pooja or Deepawali or Christmas or New year, it was a time for him and his kids to fill their closets with new and colourful clothes. Every valentine’s was an opportunity for him to buy a cheesy romantic card with an instant doodle of him and his pot-belly for his wife.

But then all the peace and happiness was disrupted as his addiction to a certain intoxicating liquid began. Alcohol became his obsession, his need, and his survival. He drank abundantly before going to bed and craved it the moment he opened his eyes and to top things off he began his journey as a possessive husband.

Adanna’s mother, a beautiful tall attractive woman was too young to be a mother of three. She was a naive young girl desperate to fall in love who came across a well settled man looking for a wife. She gave up her career and soon became a devoted wife and a mother. She was happy and greatly satisfied. But soon the love started to turn to pure hatred. She grew tired of the accusations and the arguments.

The possessiveness slowly lead to a strike, a slap or even a punch or two, which broke many bones and caused a number of bruises. It then resulted in her being locked away for a week or more with no food or water and a few stolen bits of whatever could be gathered by her children. She had lost the power or the ability to fight back and had accepted her life as it is for the good of her children.

The day Adanna’s father left was the day her mother felt peace in a very long time. Now being a single mother is no easy task but it is far better than being called filthy names or being bashed every new day, so that’s what she became, a working single mother. There were many sacrifices made, luxuries made limited but life became better.

Adanna was only eight when her father left and it changed everything, in fact everyone in the family changed. Her mother was always too busy trying to make ends meet as a hotel manager that anyone barely saw her. Her eldest sister, Ezinne, took up the role of a mother at the age of fifteen. She cooked and cleaned making sure homework was being completed and lessons learned. Now Sade, Adanna’s second sister was a little lost. She was her father’s favourite and was desperate to see him again. She resented her mother, seeing her as the reason for her father’s absence and the sudden switch of status. Adanna grew distant and isolated herself from everyone. She spent most of her time buried in books.

Years go by and the family was slowly crumbling. What had happened had not only brought peace but also the ideology that love is never enough and dependence can be a dangerous thing. Adanna’s mother grew very protective of her children who now were beautiful and attractive young adults. She never allowed any of her children to go out with any friends and this gave birth to rebellion. Ezinne was tired of taking up responsibilities and wanted to explore life and fall in love. She craved for freedom and wanted nothing more but her teenage years. Sade forgave her mother and was working hard to make life better. She had given up on love and stayed as far away from any form of romance. This created a difference between the two sisters. They hardly spoke to each other and whenever they did it was only to put each other down.

Years of isolation had turned Adanna into a shy and quiet individual who mostly kept to herself. She hardly slept and always felt down, always wanting to cry or give up. She felt different and alone. She needed help. She could not talk to her mother as there were enough burdens already. Ezinne was consumed in her own world of men who would only take advantage of her obsessive need to be in love and to be loved she was almost blind to everything else. Sade slowly became a know-it all individual and refused to accept the fact that she sometimes may be wrong. There was no longer any love or respect for one another in the family.

Depression had now grasped Adanna and was not willing to let go but no one noticed. It was consuming her and sucking the life out of her and she was screaming for help but no one listened. When she decided to tell her family she ended up with a two-hours lecture of how she should have only focused on her career and not allow these futile insignificant occurrence affect her life or maybe she should have gone out more, loosen up more to allow joy enter her life or simply to stop following a trend.

The fear of being judged or misunderstood now encouraged Adanna to stay silent, to not talk about the pain and suffering she was going through. She never opened up again to her or to anyone and started believing that maybe she is different and maybe sadness is a part of her and maybe that is okay or that maybe that is her normal. Crying herself to sleep became a habit. There would be sudden burst of utter and baffling sadness and she would just easily give in to it and not talk about it to anyone. This made Adanna come out as a person with an attitude problem and her family hated her for it. She was always made a target and had to listen to the ridiculously impractical nonsensical arguments all because she was the youngest one. She had to make sure to express her love and respect towards her sisters all because they were elder to her even though they had pretty much done nothing to pull her out of the spiral of misery she was in. She was constantly reminded of the fact that she has done nothing to contribute for the family and that she was practically owned by her sisters. Her family felt more like an agreement to her and all she had to stay in it was to live according to the ways set by the elders, the elders who were pretty much hypocrites committing many mistakes and yet not ready to accept any.

This family had now become nothing but a dump of toxicity. There was nothing left and slowly everybody departed. Ezinne left to be with her supposedly one-true love and forgot she had a family back home. There was no support and no help from her side. She continued living a life of fun and freedom and easily pretended the non-existence of her mother and sisters. She was no longer family. Sade went away in search of better work opportunities and a better pay but in reality it was only to get away from all the drama and sad situation at home. She gave what she could for her mother and Adanna but it was never enough. Her mother became a spendthrift and enjoyed lavishing it all on her lover who had formed a dislike towards Adanna. He would hit her at any given opportunity with the excuse of fixing her attitude. Her mother, who was blindly in love did nothing and let things continue as it was. This angered Adanna. She felt betrayed by her own mother. Anger and betrayal combined with peer pressure made Adanna take up the one habit that destroyed everything in the first place, drinking. She drank or smoked up almost every day and often came home with the incapability to stand on her own two feet without any support. Her mother would then just hit her more and more and Adanna would let her. This way she at least got a tiny bit of attention from her dear mother.

Adanna had no say in her future and was forced to go to any university which seemed fit according to her mother. She did not possess the power to refuse or create any tantrums for she did nothing to contribute anything towards the family and should instead be grateful to have been given the opportunity to study. She was grateful but also unhappy but everyone ignored this and just kept stepping over her.

University was no easy fun journey. Engineering was something she disliked with all her heart but her good grades got her into a pretty good college. Her mother was proud and this somehow made her happy. She studied hard and made a tiny number of friends but also a mentionable number of boyfriends. She looked for someone or actually anyone who would fill the missing space of a male figure in her life and this made it so much easier for guys to make a fool of her. She trusted too easily, loved too easily and was always so weak and vulnerable. She would fall for promises made to be with her till the end of time or to always wipe her tears and to never again let her anywhere near unhappiness. The relationship would go incredibly smooth for a month or so and then the insecurities of being left all alone would build a bridge between her and the opposite sex often leading to cheating, lying or the easiest of them all, plain old ditching.

Adanna was falling apart. A family filled with people who turned a deaf ear towards her, a number of failed relations, lack of sleep and joy, constant consumption of pills to increase the quantity of happy hormones or alcohol to bring about numbness or to shut out the pain and the pressure to do well was too much for her to handle. She started cutting herself to feel something that is different than sadness or misery. She did this too often and was starting to like it. It made her alive. It gave her some form of thrill or amusement. She hid it all so well that nobody knew. Nobody had a clue about what was really going on, about the scars on her wrist or the tears on her pillow. She would wait for the sun to rise and would watch it with so much attention and awe.

Four years went by and Adanna came home a graduated and newly formed engineer. Her mother was delighted and praised her and hugged her. The past few days were amazing for Adanna. She spent all her time with her mother and they cooked and ate together and did almost everything together. There was no lover to come in between and there was nobody to hit her anymore. Adanna was finally happy in a very long time. She ate and she slept and her pillow remained dry. There were no more scars but genuine laughter and it all felt incredibly good.

A few weeks in and there was a knock at the door. Ezinne finally came back home. Adanna could not decide whether to be happy or rather sad. Happy for the fact she had finally come home to her family or sad as she came back with a broken nose and a stream of blood flowing down from her split lip. The guy she happily left her family for turned out to be a clone of her father, an alcoholic with the likes of hitting her at any given chance but with the difference of his family’s participation in this physical abuse. On seeing Ezinne her mother pulled her into the protective arms of a mother and clasped her ever so tightly. The two of them cried out so loud it echoed back and sounded more like the imploration of two broken souls waiting to be saved. Adanna stood there in a corner weeping in unexplainable consternation. It seemed as though the past had come knocking right at her door and took her back many ancient years ago.

The next long weeks were all about taking care of Ezinne and helping her regain her strength and her confidence back but most importantly it was to mend her broken heart. Ezinne did not make the task at hand any easier with her constant attempts to end her sorrowful life. Despite how hard Adanna and her mother tried to ease the pain and make things better it was all in vain. Ezinne refused to eat, sleep or even talk. Soon she grew very ill and had to be taken to the hospital where it was revealed that Ezinne was now carrying a baby in her womb. It was supposed to be a glimmer of hope for us but then it only added more to Ezinne’s desperation. She was advised to abort the baby due to the major trauma it had been put through by the harsh physical abuse and the possibility of the baby not surviving after birth. That night no one at home slept at all as the house was filled with emptiness that brought about this cloud of darkness. The next morning what had to be done was done and it was no longer talked about. Ezinne changed and became a dead corpse. Adanna was advised to give her space and let her talk whenever she was ready. Her mother started blaming herself for all that had happened saying she had somehow cursed us to a life she herself had suffered. She was desperate to bring back the joy Ezinne no longer possessed and did everything she could in her power but she forgot one thing, Adanna.

Years went by in pure silence, desperate endeavours to bring back happiness and pure ignorance of one’s existence. Adanna did not mind this as much as before as she understood why her mother not knowingly paid all her attention towards Ezinne, she needed it more. Adanna learned more about taking care of herself and making her own life’s decision. She grew farther apart from her family and once again found herself staring blankly at the ceiling. Though she understood the situation at hand but she just wanted to be acknowledged.

Things went back to normal, Ezinne started talking and laughing again, she did not cry as often and even started moving on. Adanna was looking for a job as close as possible to home as that is what she was asked to do so by her elder sisters reminding her of her duties as the youngest daughter. She found this to be nothing less than the funniest scene in a movie where you end up crying due to excessive laughter. She could not really digest the fact that despite failing to meet their duties as elder sisters and a mother they could gather the courage to remind her of her duties. Yes, Adanna accepted the reality that the education, the roof above her head and the food and clothing was provided to her by her mother and her sisters and maybe the position she was in at the moment was because of the hard work of her mother and Sade. But she also realized the truth behind her depression. Her family was always broken and no elder tried to pick up the broken pieces and fix it up again. No, she did not entirely blame her family for everything yet she did accept that maybe things could have been handled differently or maybe even prevented from happening.

When Ezinne was all well and good she left home again to be with the same man who took away a life from her, and she did all this in the name of love. Her mother did nothing but remind her that she will always love her. Sade hardly showed up for any holidays with the excuse of being caught up with work yet there were no financial changes at home. Adanna was always the bad person for not respecting or even talking to her sisters. She took care of her mother and gave her whatever she asked for but was still constantly put down. There was always a reason to blame Adanna or to shout at her even though she did nothing. Looking for a job was no luck for Adanna and all she could do was be a tutor and somehow earn which satisfied no one but Adanna herself.

Being in an environment, as toxic as Adanna’s family, was pushing her more and more towards her end. She questioned everything about her existence. She wanted to learn the cause behind her constant unexplainable sadness and her need to hurt herself. She was disgusted by her own reflection and hated taking care of herself. Her regular anxiety attacks turned her skin to almost blue-grey with tremors and the annoying ringing sound in both her ears. She constantly felt dizzy and would sweat profusely which had a very distinguished odour it made her extremely self-conscious. She felt ugly and not deserving of any affection or love. She came to a point where she wanted to give up. She loved her family with such devotion and was so grateful for everything they have done but could no longer hold on to this love. She was falling apart every day and no one even noticed any missing piece. She took a blade and placed it on her wrist. She could not believe the degree of despair she was in to do this. She was shaking with fear but yet she could see no reason to carry one this miserable journey.

It has been ten years now. There is a beautiful calm woman sitting all by herself in a tiny welcoming café in a far away land sipping her regular black coffee. She is scanning through the bank statement showing the amount of money credited to an account with her mother as the owner. She closed her tablet, finished off her coffee and waved goodbye to the owner. She then walked away graciously while witnessing the beautiful sunset and feeling the cold breeze against her warm cheeks. She exude peace and a kind of sadness, the kind which comes from almost deliberately killing oneself and from letting go of the one thing you loved more than your own life, all to live and to continue, and the kind of peace which comes about with the realization that sometimes family is not strength or power nor is it everything and it is absolutely okay and acceptable to leave it behind choosing to be your own family.

By Abigail E Lyngdoh