Segmented Memoir

I’m loving my memoir class right now; I’ve found a new way to explore creativity in a genre I previously thought to be restrictive. One of my favorite writing exercises this semester is below, a segmented memoir, focusing on one event, the arrival of my younger brother and my consiquent jealousy. The memory is broken into pieces, flashes of memory that try to express the frustration of the child through the voice of experience. I think the best way to write from childhood memory is to remember the simple things, the ones that pop into your mind more readily than others. Take one instance from your childhood, it doesn’t have to be something amazing, try something that was mundane, an announcement, a comfort, a bad habit or a routine, then explore the memory in three pages or less, restricting yourself to that topic without straying to other memories. See what you can get out of it. Enjoy my childhood memory! LOL

Not the Baby

 

The moment my mother told me she was pregnant, I wailed incessantly, inconsolable in my selfishness. I turned from her and flung myself at my father, clinging to his neck, hands flailing, my arms a death grip. Usually, Dad would untangle me from him and order me to stop being a baby, but when he didn’t do his duty and set me on my own feet, I knew I really had something to fear. Mom’s hands were perched on her belly, showing me where the problem lay. With a wisp of premonition of a queen about to be deposed, I knew that the identity I had possessed for six years was to be ripped away from me. My security blanket was shredded.

“Are you not pleased? You’re going to be a big sister.”

I glared at my invisible advisory, hidden beneath the camouflage of a blue flowery skirt. Mom rubbed her belly, Dad rubbed my back.

A big sister? Was there anything worse in the world? I had two big sisters. They were sitting on the couch, two book ends of smugness. Until now Laura and Claire’s only reason for existence had been to teach me to appreciate the delights of being the youngest child; the excuses made for my bad behavior, the extra hug or kiss at the end of the day and the last candy bar given to me because I had the most growing to do. But now, now it would be gone. The room was filled with a thick silence, full of expectancy. The queasiness I felt in the pit of my stomach was not in sympathy for my mother’s condition, but for my own.

Standing over me, Mom promised that things wouldn’t change, I’d still be the number one child. I looked over to my sisters’, the empty space between them was just big enough for me. Laura and Claire fidgeted, bobbing up and down on cushions, smiles twitching on their lips. They were like two fishing boats on a sea of juvenile contempt, each casting out their nets and trying to haul me in. This little fishy did not want to be caught.

 

The day my mother told me she was pregnant I began to wage war on my unborn sibling.

I watched Mom grow, her stomach bulging like a large egg was shoved under her dress – I would have gladly cracked and scrambled it. I danced on the outskirts of her attention, trotting into tantrums with a red faced flourish and waltzing away pacified when a treat was thrown my way.

I stalked Mom’s every move, not really knowing why I suddenly craved the need to be cradled every time I saw her. I took to hiding behind the living room door, crouching, waiting for her to settle on the couch before launching myself at her, my arms steel traps, my knees clambering for position. The ambushes always failed. Mom pushed me aside, her hands thick armor linking over her stomach, keeping me at bay. I sat at her feet instead, content with an idle pat to my head. Scraps were delicious when you were starved.

 

At school all the teachers and dinner ladies congratulated me. Word got around that I was going to be a big sister and wasn’t that wonderful? In a blaze of confusion I nodded and agreed, letting myself become falsely indoctrinated into the joy of awaiting the new arrival. But talk got old and I drifted away from my friends, consumed with the need to be alone. I noticed the more distance I put between myself and other children, the more attention I gained from concerned teachers. One day Mrs. Bales was walking around the school yard and spied me all by myself. I was digging in the ground, making mud pies with the bubbles of dirt that earthworms had spat up after the last down pour.

“Not long now, is it Rebecca? Two-three weeks?”

I ignored the question, molding the mud into perfect spheres, my fingers caked brown.

“Did your Mom pick any names out yet?”

I squashed the mud, lodging it under my nails. Mom hated having to clean my nails.

“Do you want a little brother or a little sister?”

I finally responded, my eyes spitting salty, bitter tears. Mrs. Bales gathered me to her and tried soothing me, stroking my hair. I reveled in the softness of her shoulder. She asked me what was wrong, my tears soaking her blouse. I told her my cat had died. It had been run over by a car right in front of my eyes. I had held it in my arms as it wriggled and died. It was my Mom’s fault because she had let the cat out when I told her not to.

I didn’t own a cat.

 

I lived on Dad’s promises that I was still number one and I deflected my sisters’ teasing, firing rapid rounds of fists and words back at them. One evening Dad asked me to stay and watch over Mom as she took a bath; I was to be her guardian and alert him at any sign of trouble. I sat on the toilet seat and watched as Mom splashed around, half submerged, her face rosy as she washed herself. The bathroom was like a jungle, the wallpaper slick with condensation, the air thick and wet. I breathed it all in, liking the taste of the water vapor in my mouth and the feel of it prickling my skin.

Mom hummed a tune that sounded familiar; it skittered along the edges of my memories leaving me quiet and mournful. I stretched my mind trying to recall the time and place she had once hummed it to me, but no sharp memory stepped forward. Occasionally, Mom threw questions my way and I caught them but didn’t answer. My eyes strayed back repeatedly to the mound of her stomach, pale and wobbly. Every now and then that lump of flesh would lurch against Mom’s skin, a franticly energized earthquake causing ripples in the water. Mom winced, patting her belly and I marveled at the fact that my usurper could kick her and get away with it.

“Come and say hello to your little brother or sister.”

Mom held her hand out to me and I didn’t know whether to take it or bite it. I crept closer, cautiously kneeling by the bathtub, the steam from the water turning my cheeks red. My hand bypassed Mom’s and landed directly on the moon of her stomach. I held my breath, letting the heat of her skin seep into my palm. For a moment I felt a flutter, I felt connected.

“Hello?”

Nothing. No movement, no acknowledgement. Nothing. Disappointed, I took my hand back and returned to the toilet lid, a sentry for my father.