Page 2 of The Ecstasy of Sin
Slowly, I make my way to the door, feeling along the bedroom wall as I shuffle through the darkness.
As I step out into the hallway, my bare foot catches on an article of clothing and I stumble. My room is always clean and tidy, the window cracked to let in fresh air, but the rest of the house is a mess.
As I head for the staircase that leads downstairs, I’m forced to dodge dust covered boxes and piles of abandoned junk, all while trying not to breathe through my nose. The carpet hasn’t been vacuumed in months, and the scent of mildew is hanging in the stagnant air. Somewhere from the direction of my dad’s mostly abandoned bedroom, a leaky pipe drips a slow, arrhythmic beat.
It would break mom’s heart to see her home like this. She prided herself in keeping a tidy, cozy house that fit all of her beloved books and her collection of oil paintings. She used to tell me that keeping a clean home is important, because it’s the heart of a family and the keeper of our most precious memories.
If I just stand here and let my vision blur, I can almost imagine her walking down the hallway—a stack of books cradled in her arms, and her favourite knit blanket draped across her slender shoulders.
My heart clenches in my chest, but it isn't the migraine. I want my mom.
I wanted to take care of our home once Mom was gone. I wanted to clean it for my dad, and help keep the light shining through this now dreary place. He had already given up on life, though. He wouldn’t allow me to touch anything. If I moved anyof her belongings, he would scream at me and banish me to my bedroom.
A home once filled with laughter and warmth has become a quiet tomb; a forgotten museum filled with a woman’s possessions.
I stopped trying to help, desperate not to upset him anymore than he already was. The smallest things seemed to set him off, and lead to heavier drinking. All I can control now is my bedroom.
Dad’s health has been declining over the years, which has only added to my anxiety. I’m watching him slowly kill himself with alcohol, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. He refuses to see a doctor, even when his stomach began to bloat and harden.
When his skin and eyes began to turn yellow, I tried again. I offered to go to the hospital with him, but he told me it didn’t matter and that he was fine.
He isn’t fine. After doing a little research at the library, I figured out that he was suffering from something called jaundice. He was literally drinking himself to death, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I’m not enough to keep him here. I’m not enough for anyone anymore—not now that everyone who ever once loved me has become a ghost. My mother and grandparents gone, and although my dad is still breathing, he may as well be a phantom, too.
It doesn’t help that I’ve been living with chronic illness since puberty. I’ve been so isolated for so long, and things only got worse when mom died.
Everyone at school avoided me like the plague, knowing I wasn’t worth the effort when I always ended up sick in bed every few days—sometimes for days on end.
I used to have a best friend named Claire, but I missed her birthday party two years in a row, and that was enough for her to cast me aside and stop talking to me. She also told everyone in our class that I was a bad friend. That I was selfish and stuck up, and I was lying about being sick so I didn’t have to come to her party.
It hurt so much. I wish I could say that I’ve become numb to it all after so much loss in my life, but I’m not. I feel everything so deeply, and I can’t turn it off.
I curse as I stub my toe against a heavy plastic bin in the dark, my trembling hands reaching out for the railing of the staircase nearby.
As I descend the stairs, I try to be quiet just in case Dad is already asleep. I don’t want to disturb him unless I absolutely have to.
The minute I walk into the kitchen, my hypersensitive nose is assaulted by the pungent scent of ammonia, a smell I instantly recognize as urine. I try not to think too hard about where it’s coming from, and go back to breathing through my mouth instead of my nose.
Although it’s dark inside, there’s a street lamp just outside the large kitchen window. The warm yellow light is filtering in through the thin curtains, illuminating the cluttered space.
I tiptoe over to the stove and hit the switch for the dim light shining down from the dusty hood right above the range. Isquint at the sudden brightness, instantly turning my back to the source.
My stomach growls, aching miserably, as I survey the messy kitchen. Dirty dishes are stacked in multiple piles, with two broken coffee mugs, and months worth of newspaper scattered across the counter space.
With a heavy sigh, I turn away from the disaster and walk over to the fridge. My fingers brush against the sticky handle, and I cringe a little as I pull it open and gaze inside.
There’s a single pizza box.
“Thank God,” I mumble, reaching for it and setting it down on the round kitchen table behind me. When I open the box, my heart breaks to find nothing but a single half-eaten pizza crust.
Tears pool at the corners of my eyes, and my head throbs a little harder. I can’t do this another night. I’m pretty sure my stomach ulcer is actively bleeding—if the sharp, stabbing pain is anything to go by. If I take another dose of medication on an empty stomach, I’ll end up back in the hospital. I can’t recover from a rebound migraine without some food.
For a neurological disorder, migraines sure are hard on the body. Back when I first became sick, Mom brought me to a neurologist. The specialist made sure I knew how important it was to stay hydrated and eat nutritious food.
My dad either forgot about me and my condition, or he stopped caring after Mom died. He barely speaks to me, let alone does anything to help me manage it. He stopped refillingmy preventative medication well over a year ago, and only buys over-the-counter painkillers because drinking gives him headaches.
The neurologist told me and my mom that my migraines would be at their worst during puberty, and she wasn’t kidding. The hormonal fluctuations meant I was having three to four attacks most weeks.
