Syllabic Psychosis

On the day my dad left, she exploded. Screamed wildly. Broke stuff. Went, in my opinion, totally psycho.

Then, she got quiet. Scary quiet. Didn’t say anything for a solid week.

Now, for reasons unknown, my mom talks only in four syllable words. Always. Like, she won’t say anything at all if she can’t express it quatro-syllabically.

“Mom, I’m taking the last cookie, ok?” I say.

“Absolutely, Alexander,” she replies, if she responds at all. But sometimes, if I’ve had a few already she says, “Negatory,” with a shake of her head. I think she knows that “negatory” isn’t a proper word but she‘ll do anything to stay within her four-syllable rule.

When she needs to speak to me about something important, my mom sits a while, gathering her thoughts. Then, she starts declaiming like she’s a one-woman Greek Chorus.

Like, last week, when a teacher didn’t care for my essay, my mother said, without any passion in her voice, “Whatsoever bedeviling contingency emanated?”

Well, that barely even makes sense, right? I couldn’t pretend to misunderstand her, though, when she waved my D+ paper in my face. So, I shrugged and said I’d try harder next time.

“Definitely,” she said, as I climbed the stairs to my room, and closed the door tight against her craziness.

She wasn’t always like this. Until my dad left, my mom used to speak normally. She was cheery, and whirled her way through our suburban, seen-better-days home, humming off-key pop songs while she tidied.  

When my close friends ask me if I’m glad my dad’s gone, I say yes; I’m better off without a dad who called me a screw-up and repeated this so often that I started to believe it, too. But, secretly, I’m sorry he left, because my mom is a sloppy bucket of misery. If I had to choose between a happy mom plus a bullying dad or just a solo, four-syllable-spouting, depressed mom, I would go for the former with no hesitation at all. 

She spends a lot of time crying. I can hear her in her room, across the hall from mine. She weeps in four-syllable clusters, like, “Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo.” It scares me with its sheer wackiness.

So, I decide to see if I can motivate her, snap her out of this strange obsession with multi-syllabic delivery. I take her by the hand and sit her at the kitchen table, then grab a chair myself. She looks at me with welling eyes.

“Mom,” I say. “I know Dad’s leaving was rough on you and I haven’t made things easier with my rotten grades. But, I promise that from now on, I’ll work harder.”

She flicks a look at me and says, “Magnificent,” in a flat voice. She’s not being sarcastic. She doesn’t seem optimistic, though, either.

I wait, hoping for more. My mom struggles to say something else, her lips twisting and attempting to form meaningful speech. Eventually, she quits. Instead, she points to a small rectangle that is stuck to the fridge by a smiley face magnet.

I fetch it and see that it’s a business card for a family counseling service. At some point after Dad left, she must have reached out for help. I look at my mom and she glances back at me in a questioning way.

Now, I’ve never been one who believes in psychotherapy. I knew a kid in sixth grade who went to a shrink and we all talked behind his back, wondering what was up with him and why he’d need to talk to anyone outside his own family. But, circumstances have changed.

“Counseling is a great idea for us, Mom. I’ll make the appointment, okay? Promise to go with me?”

“Resolutely.” She attempts a smile. Her lips tremble ominously, though, and she gives up.

I get the phone and book us in for Friday. I know my mom needs help. I know I do, too. We’re falling apart, in different ways, and we’re not managing to cope on our own.

When I hang up, she doesn’t say anything. I see her fighting with herself, struggling to collect her words, wanting desperately to force something out, anything with less than four syllables.

 “Don’t worry, Mom, we’ll work on this together,” I tell her. “I love you.”

As I leave the room, I hope it’s not just wishful thinking when I detect the faintest of whispers, “Love you, too.”

Next
Next

Sandra Breaks Out