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flipflop_divaA door banging open, crashing into the wall on the other side. The high-pitched giggles of little girls. Bare feet running across the tile, leaving trails of muddy evidence behind them.
And then a gasp, small eyes filling with horror. A stricken little face meeting the eyes of the woman holding a mop.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! We made the floor dirty!”
Fingers ruffling dark hair. A gentle smile. “It’s okay, baby. A little mess is what makes this house look like a home.”
Another giggle. “You’re funny, Mommy.”
Another ruffle of hair, another smile.
“Just go clean your feet before you go upstairs.”
--
A few years later. Doors slamming. Voices rising. Tears flowing. No one is happy. No one understands.
Everyone’s fighting. Everyone’s miserable. Until they’re not.
They gather together, family movie night on the oversized couch with the collection of pillows and the way too many blankets. Popcorn spilling out of bowls and on to floors. Heads that haven’t touched their mother’s shoulder in years now lying against it.
She holds them close, watches them as they watch the movie, breathes it all in. She wants to make it last, to expand this moment in time to all eternity, but before too long, the credits roll, the girls head off to their rooms, back to phones and friends and their own teenage angst. Tomorrow they will fight and scream and make more bad decisions. But for now, she watches them go, the memory of their closeness still warming her skin.
--
A few years later and all she has now are Saturday morning phone calls and the occasional school holiday. She lets them do the talking. About classes, about friends, about the crappy food in the college cafeteria, about why they really need a car, about how they could maybe possibly use an extra hundred dollars and would that be okay?
They don’t ask many questions, and she doesn’t offer up answers she isn’t ready to share. Just smiles and agrees and listens. Sends pictures of the dog. Sends presents for birthdays and random holidays and just because she cares. Writes emails that don’t get replies. Sends texts that go unanswered.
Meets them at the front door of their childhood home after their father picks them up at the airport the week before Christmas, avoids the questioning stares as they see her for the first time in months, cuts off the questions they are about to ask.
“It’s nothing,” she says with the biggest, brightest smile she can muster and gathers them both to her chest, breathing them in even though she is internally pushing them away.
--
A few months later, she tells them her secret. She says don’t worry. She says the doctors caught it early. She says please don’t quit school, please don’t change your plans, everything will be fine. She smiles reassuringly when they worry, when they fret, when they ask over and over if she is sure. And she promises them this is just a bump in the road, a small piece of debris in the trail of their life. It’s all good. She’s all good. She will be fine.
And so they believe her. Trust her. She hears the relief in their voices.
She’s never wanted them to be scared. To worry. To have to take care of her. She wants them to live their lives, to become their own people.
She tells herself she will be just fine. She tells herself it so much she believes it.
--
A couple years go by. Good years. Happy years. Sure, she’s too tired for a lot of it. Sure, she’s in and out of the hospital for weeks at a time. But she watches her girls graduate from college. Helps them find apartments. Meets boyfriends, even one who might possibly become more. She tells them stories they don’t always listen to, and she writes things down for her husband to give them in the future.
She doesn’t want to leave them, doesn’t want to miss out on their futures — on significant others and grandbabies and career successes. She wants to see who they become. She wants to pick up the phone long in the future and hear them on the other end.
But it’s too late for that. The end is near. The inevitable is coming.
--
They put it off as long as possible, but death doesn’t wait for anyone to be ready. Her husband calls both girls on a Friday evening.
“Come now,” he says, as he holds back tears. “It’s your mother.”
One gets on a plane, with only a few items of clothes shoved into a backpack. The other gets in the car, drives for hours through the night. By late afternoon of the next day, they are both there, sitting on each side of her, holding a hand, tears streaming down their cheeks.
She wants to tell them not to cry. But she wants to tell them more than that. She wants to give them every piece of advice she has ever saved up. She wants to tell them every hope and dream she has ever had for their future. She wants to tell them every thought she’s had of them from the moment she knew they were inside her to this very moment here at her bedside.
But time is ticking down and she is tired, so very tired, and she feels her body failing, her mind leaving. So she tells them she loves them, that she’s proud of them, that she will always be with them no matter what.
Her younger one looks at her as she strokes soft fingers over her roughened ones. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she says. “We were supposed to have more time. We caused so many problems when we were younger. I thought we had time to get it right.”
She looks at this child, at this perfect child of hers, and she feels confusion whirl inside her. “We did get it right,” she says.
But both girls shake their heads, and she suddenly gets it. They see the mess of their youth. The trail of destruction made from their choices. They don’t understand yet.
“The mess is what made it perfect,” she says. “I wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
She closes her eyes after that. They are too heavy to keep open. She is too tired to talk. But she can still picture her girls, her husband, there beside her, crystal clear in her mind’s eye. And she looks at them there until she can no longer hang on. Until she can no longer stay in this world.
This beautiful ugly world that was perfect in every way.
Fiction. But inspired by real events. Also inspired by a poem I read when I first googled 'Happy Detritus' that talked about appearing happy on the outside while the detritus is festering inside.
This was written for the new season of
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therealljidol, Wheel of Chaos! If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me or any of the other amazing contestants. You can find all the entries here. Looking for the voting post on Sunday night!
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Date: 2025-10-13 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-13 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-13 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-13 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-15 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-13 04:14 pm (UTC)Doors slamming. Voices rising. Tears flowing. No one is happy. No one understands.
Everyone’s fighting. Everyone’s miserable. Until they’re not.
Perfectly expressed.
I admire your character's assertion that she wouldn't change a thing ... there's "always" stuff I want to change. LOL
Great story.
Dan
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Date: 2025-10-13 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-13 06:36 pm (UTC)I love my 3 kids so much, and I'm already at the young adult, see them only now and then stage. Like the mom in your story, I'm trying to stay healthy so they can chase their own dreams.
You're a wonderful mom. I can hear your love through this story. Hugs.
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Date: 2025-10-14 11:23 pm (UTC)This made me tear up as well!
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Date: 2025-10-15 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-16 12:50 pm (UTC)