He tells me that Mom’s been having some trouble at work over the past couple of years. That there’s been some serious conspiracy shit going down around her medical case against the toxic chemicals they use for an annual polish or something. Chemicals whose fumes have caused my mother to get very sick on more than one occasion. So sick that one time, she had to go to the emergency room. The company’s doctors say that her symptoms – nausea, trouble breathing, itchy skin – were psychosomatic as their studies “have proven” that these chemicals cannot have that affect. My mother’s hair, fallen out in the sink, has said otherwise.
My Dad sits in the room next to me – making calls to journalists, doctors, and lawyers. It’s been a two year struggle, he says, and both the union and management seem to be in on it.
It’s the longest period of time I’ve stayed at my parents’ house since I was 19. Our relationship has changed since my teenage years, though I generally limit talk about myself to school projects and the grand world-shaking ideas and theories I’m known for. They’re proud of me – a high school dropout going to college, a nice guy, innately spiritual – but conversations about love and heartbreak, people in my life, real dreams and goals of mine, my spirituality, and what I’m ACTUALLY studying at Hampshire (which is much more than just “theatre”) none of us dare to breach.
I can handle it, though it saddens me sometimes. I feel like there’s so little they actually know about me and my passions. The three year hiatus (which has gotten considerably more familial over the past two semesters) was necessary for healing our bond. But hearing about about things I wasn’t around for – my family’s struggles and hardships – is both difficult and saddening.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” I say. And as far as they know, there isn’t.
