Sunny Sundays

Ava opens the blinds to let the light in because that’s all that makes sense to do. What her mother Rose always did. Does. She looks at her mother now, pallid skin fading into the chintz fabric of the chair, that hideous chair.

Can something so ephemeral, teetering on the edge of consciousness, be described in present tense?

A cascade of dust particles rain down as Ava pulls the blind slats slack. She watches them spin in late afternoon sunlight across the floor, attempting to fill some of the empty spaces in a house that has always been too big for the two of them. Ava can almost see Rose’s large hands throwing various curtains open with one, violent jab, darting from room to room until she had attacked each one. Sunlight, Rose used to say to a tiny Ava once the snot on her face had dried and the sobs became whimpers, cures any ailment. You could go mad from the darkness. Ava used to wonder if it was as simple as that, if they had left New York because the tall buildings too often blocked the sun from hitting their Brooklyn stoop. In their oversized Connecticut house, the sun knew no bounds. On summer days it felt as though the sun never set, burning through the spotted windows, saturating the house with a sticky heat, leaving the floorboards swollen like overwatered plants. Ava would dance through the many rooms tinged yellow-white.

She waited to feel happy.

“Mom,” Ava says loudly as the last of the dust hits the floor. “It’s Sunday.” Ava wonders if she’ll be caught in this lie, or if the two women are floating so far from reality that the days are starting to tumble backwards over one another.

“Get me my purse,” the body that now inhabits Rose says to no one in particular. Yet the phrase rings with the smallest bud of familiarity, as if she were misremembering a line she once had to utter in a school play.

Sundays were for them, like they are for most people, steeped in rituals. Ava remembers the slow drip of the mornings; the sunlight first filtering in, followed by the smooth warble of a Sinatra album coming in distorted through the scratchy speakers of their old stereo. A lazy spiral of coffee steam would eventually drift through the air. Rose would dress in her version of “Sunday best”, donning crisp pantsuits in harsh colors and unforgiving stilettos that screeched against linoleum. Ava would grumble her way into a dress and quieter shoes. The pair would stand out among the throngs of sweatpants and starchy jerseys, pacing the hospital-white corridors bathed in a faint neon glow from the various store signs that surrounded them. They would squeeze through the narrow spaces between department store clothing racks, Ava trying to escape her mother’s lectures on different fabric types. They would pause at the little glass jewelry cart because Ava loved to hold the glass beads up to the fluorescent lights, watching their shiny translucent surfaces expand with beams color. They would lick cinnamon sugar off soft pretzels while creating backstories for the other families that, like them, passed large chunks of time away at the Bradford Mall. They would, in these moments, feel normal.

Ava wears sweatpants today, waiting for Rose to say something in protest. She doesn’t. Even Rose is only dressed in a plain skirt and a pale blue sweater. They drive to the mall in silence, enjoying the emptiness of what is, in a distant reality, Wednesday afternoon streets. When they enter the overly air-conditioned mall, Ava misses the pairs of eyes that would pause over their formal attire.

It had been a false Sunday once before. Ava remembers hands digging into her shoulders and white stars cartoonishly popping in front of her eyes. Being shaken. There was an awful taste in Ava’s mouth, like dried, curdled milk. She could not tell if it was the early morning, right before the sky wears its navy blue silk, or still the middle of the night. She fumbled for her lamp, the one that swelled with floating red balloons when turned on. She then saw her mother’s face being worn by someone else, her blue eyes rimmed red and looking hollow, her mouth just a violet slash in the middle of her face, nostrils flared, chest flushed.

It’s Sunday. Bradford’s having a huge sale, and we have to beat the crowds, Rose insisted, her eyes flying in their sockets like windshield wipers.

It’s Tuesday, Ava said softly, I have my presentation on Teddy Roosevelt in the morning. Go back to bed, Mom, the mall’s closed.

No, Rose yelled, stamping her foot. Car. Now.

Ava didn’t get dressed, didn’t brush her teeth. She padded down to the driveway in fleece slippers and a matching set of dessert-themed pajamas, the rancid acidity still in her mouth. Her head buzzed against the incessant chirping of crickets. Rose touched the printed chocolate chip cookie on Ava’s shoulder. I’ll get you a new matching set, she smiled, and in the light of the car, Ava could see mauve lipstick stuck on her teeth.

When the kind police officer, arriving after Rose’s yanks at the locked doors set off the mall’s alarm, found the two of them milling in the floodlights of the parking lot, he pulled Ava aside. He crouched down, making himself much shorter than Ava, who was tall for her age. He smiled gently. How old are you, Ava?

I’m ten, Ava said, straightening. Double digits.

And has this happened before? Your mom taking you places in the middle of the night?

Not a lot. Just to the town’s fall harvest festival before the lights had come on. And to a school holiday concert that had already happened months before.

Do you feel safe living with your mom, Ava?

Ava paused, wondering whether this was a trick question, like the multiple choice questions where the answers were A, B, C, or “All of the Above.” Ava’s teacher told her to stop choosing only “All of the Above” as an answer, though it was the most tempting answer choice for all the questions. Her teacher, after hearing where the cops found Ava and Rose at four in the morning, would tell Ava she could do her Teddy Roosevelt presentation next week.

Of course I feel safe. She’s my mom.

Ava looks at her mom now, vacantly staring at their pretzel stand, no recognition at all. Ava wonders if it was easier for Rose to transition into fading memories when she already had a fractured mind.

The thing Ava always hated about Bradford Mall was that it lacked a large fountain, like they have in malls in the movies. She reaches into the comically large pockets of her sweatpants, feeling for loose change. She extracts a penny and a dime and tosses them into the trough of the drinking fountain. Rose says nothing of this strange activity, and instead walks ahead, walking toward something she doesn’t know. The coins sit lamely in the shallow basin, un-wishable.

Melissa Feinman is a published writer, teen advocate, and mental health professional from New York City. She currently works as a teen programmer, bringing creative spaces and creative outlets to young people so that they can express themselves in safe and healing ways. She believes that telling stories that shed light on experiences around mental illness not only illuminates such experiences for readers, but also, helps writers feel in control of their own narratives.