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Personal Narrative

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She's got the black plastic of a cutting knife handle gripped in her palm. Beige-painted fingernails glisten under the scrutinizing lights of our glazed kitchen; a classy and neutral color, like herself. She's grinning in concentration, a thin upward-curving line shaping her lips. I'm sitting at our dining room table, watching her in silence. The scene before me is a blur, and I'm not sure whether it's because things are going by too fast or because my glasses aren't on. The overhead chandelier becomes a dazed oval, and my mother’s hair looks brittle and brassy underneath the dim lighting. I keep a mental note to remind her to re-color it. She isn't saying anything, or at least, I don’t think she is. Her back is turned, revealing the clasp …show more content…

Heat blazed throughout the air, and we both put our hair up to avoid sweating through our cotton shirts. I quartered tomatoes, shucked corn, cooked chicken, all for the first time. I talked about yesterday, what I learned in Philosophy, my English essay, the upcoming Physics homework. She spoke about her demos, her responses, other lawyer terms I didn’t understand. We ate at the table; three bowls of vegetables, chicken, and pasta for me, my mom, and my dad. My mother called her mother about it, and I texted my brother. The second meal was prepared next Tuesday. We dragged the aluminum foil bag out of the fridge. I asked her how her work was going, and she said she didn’t want to talk about work, so I didn’t. We made potato gnocchi, proudly scooping up spoonfuls and plating them. My father, in the end, said it tasted horrible. The third meal sat in our fridge, uncooked, untouched. A second package came the following Friday, and another aluminum foil bag was shoved into the fridge, joining the first. My mother suggested we give the old one to my brother. He accepted it gladly, made rice noodles and chicken and sent us …show more content…

The fan blows behind and lifts my black hair like wisps, caressing the skin of my jaw. Shutters cover the window, weaving patterned slits of moonlight along the bedspread. I consider turning the lights on; decide against it. I stand haphazardly, listening to the crickets sing-song beneath the windowsill outside. Vertigo. I wobble, quiver back and forth, palming in front of me to avoid blindly walking into a wall. My footsteps are quiet and mousy as I tip-toe across the wooden floorboards of the hallway. My father’s voice resounds from the room down the corridor, loud and booming like a firework. His voice is no longer something I react to anymore. It’s terribly raucous and thunders through the house, but after hearing it so many times, it seems as though I’m immune. It's my mother’s voice which surprises me. My mother and father quip. They fight they’re from different worlds, like a Montague and a Capulet, like foes or enemies. This time, however, my mother is whimpering. The fragile voice is like rusting iron, I think. The unoiled squeak of an abandoned swingset, fingernails on a chalkboard, spine-tingling, nerve-wracking. My mother is

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