Daisy Chains
by Vicky Tan
It’s natural for kids to have irrational fears. Sometimes it’s the boogeyman. Sometimes it’s monsters living under their beds. Even as they grow older, those monsters never truly leave. They just transform into the worries that keep us up at night.
I used to be scared of the future. Not just the distant future, but the near future as well. I used to lay awake in bed, unable to sleep because I wanted to delay the inevitable rising of the sun and the arrival of a new day.
As I was forced to grow up, I learned that living and thinking solely of the present wasn’t a practical way of living. I discovered that you had two choices in life: think of the future or live recklessly in the moment.
A short series of knocks on my bedroom door paused my train of thought. The door opened and my younger sister’s head appeared in the gap of the doorway, her braid swung back and forth like a pendulum.
“Abby, did I interrupt you?” Cecilia asked. Her eyes were bright and her whole body seemed to vibrate with an impatient energy.
I shook my head and looked back up at the ceiling. “Just thinking, come in.”
She dumped her school bag on the floor and closed the door with a backwards kick of her foot. The bed frame creaked and the mattress dipped as she sat down. I didn't need to say a single word before Cecilia launched into a full and detailed account about her day.
Cecilia was the human embodiment of enthusiasm. She spoke, acted, and lived with a fervidness that few people her age possessed. No matter what the world threw at her, she bounced back. Her voice got higher and her hand gestures became more erratic as she talked about an encounter she had with a classmate. Cecilia’s constant energy took some time to get used to. I’ve had 18 years to adjust and sometimes she’s still a bit too much for me to handle.
With a little huff of breathlessness from Cecilia, the room fell silent. The only sound we could hear was the muffled clinking of pots and pans in the kitchen made by our parents.
Only in those quiet moments did I see the similarities between us. We had the same eyes and chin, but my nose was smaller and sloped a little more than Cecilia’s. Our lips naturally curved downwards, but a smile always found an easier way to her face than it did to mine.
Cecilia glanced at where I lay, the beginnings of a grin already evident. “It’s weird isn't it?”
I didn't answer. Instead, I stared at the stucco ceiling. My eyes wandered as shapes and patterns formed in the indentations.
“Mom and Dad taking a break from work. Not that I’m complaining,” she said. “It’s nice to spend some more time with them.”
When I was four years old and Cecilia was barely a year old, our parents went back to their full-time jobs. They were immigrants without the time or resources to pursue higher education for a better-paying job. They had two daughters to support and the only option they had was to get back to work as soon as possible.
Mrs. Hwa, our neighbour, watched over us. She was a tiny Korean woman who grew every colour of carnation you could possibly imagine. Our parents had quickly befriended her when they first moved in. They had bonded over being the only East Asians on the entire block.
I remembered years of dress-up with Mrs. Hwa’s old clothes and jewelry. One of the first pieces of jewelry she let us play with was a brooch of hers. It was a bent piece of old metal with a fake blue rhinestone glued in the center. If you held it too long, the paint would rub off on your hands, but if you held it up to the light, it seemed to shine and shimmer like a real jewel. It was cheap and tacky, but Cecilia and I always fought over who got to wear it.
I also remembered the day it broke. Cecilia grabbed it from my hands and it snapped in half like a twig. Her little face scrunched up in horror and she burst into tears, realising the consequences of her actions. She couldn’t be consoled. Her bawling finally turned into the occasional sniffle and hiccup, once Mrs. Hwa had told us she had a surprise for us.
That was the day she showed us the park across the street. The perimeter was surrounded by so many tall imposing pines trees that most people didn’t even know it existed. From then on, when the weather was nice enough. Mrs. Hwa would take us to the park. She would work on her crochet project while Cecilia and I rolled around in the grass and made daisy chains. We would try to bring them home and show our parents, but they always wilted within hours.
Someone knocked on the door again. This time, our dad pushed it open.
“Dinner will be ready soon,” he said.
“Got it, Dad,” Cecilia replied. “We’ll be down in a bit.”
He spared a quick glance in my direction, but didn’t look me in the eyes before he closed the door. Cecilia missed the crestfallen expression that flitted across his face. It was infinitesimal, but I saw the frown on his face and the wrinkles around his eyes deepen. It was as if Atlas had shifted the weight of the heavens upon his shoulders.
I felt the wave of guilt crashing down, threatening to spill over and drown me.
I admit that I was never the golden child. I acted out because I was angry and didn’t know what else to do. Your self-esteem takes some massive blows when you feel like a burden and are treated like one. Sometimes, after an exhausting day at work, there was a look in my parents’ eyes that seemed to say, “We didn’t want this. We didn’t want you.” I was a screw-up in their eyes. They never said anything when I had disappointed them yet again. They didn’t have to.
God, my own father couldn’t even look at me anymore.
Cecilia sighed. Rolling off the bed, she stretched and said, “Well, I better wash up. I’ve got some homework, but I might be able to squeeze in some time for a movie. You wanna watch?”
My smile felt like a grimace. “Yeah, of course,” I said.
“Great!” She kneeled down and closed an open pocket of her backpack, a worn-out crochet turtle dangled from the end of the zipper. Cecilia skipped out of the room with her ridiculously large backpack in tow.
Mrs. Hwa liked to give us little presents for special occasions. The turtle was a birthday gift for Cecilia. I had received a crochet owl when I started high school. Those were the last gifts she ever gave us.
When I was 14 and Cecilia was 11, Mrs. Hwa passed away in her sleep. We buried the pieces of the brooch underneath a patch of wild daisies. A few months later, I watched as the new neighbours ripped the dead remains of Mrs. Hwa's carnations from the ground.
We never told our parents about the park. It was our secret.
The scene of our happy childhood memories transformed into something else. It became a place of peace, solitude, and solace. It was a place to get away from the ever-changing world.
There were days I wished I could stay there forever.
There were days I almost did.
But then I would remember Cecilia’s adoring grin and I knew that I couldn’t stay with the mangled remains of metal and the wilted daisy chains forever.
Hours after dinner had passed, I emerged from my room and went down the stairs. Out of instinct, I skipped the last step that let out a low groan throughout the house.
The TV in the living room was on, but it was muted. The flash of colours lit up the dark room. Mom and Dad sat on the sofa. They stared listlessly at the pamphlets and brochures spread out on the coffee table.
Dealing with Grief. Mental Illness in Teens. Teenage Depression and Suicide.
That was nothing new. Those had been there for several weeks now. My parents got them the moment they arrived at the hospital. The police had to inform them that they found my body hanging in the park.
I was declared dead on arrival.
My attention was drawn to the new stack of folded paper and plastic. Mom’s hands shook as she picked one up. She looked at the title and threw it back on the table like it burned her to touch something so vile.
“Maybe we can try explaining to her again?” she said.
Dad shook his head. “It hasn’t worked before. It won’t work now. The doctors said if we keep breaking her delusions, it could severely affect her mental health. She might do something rash if we’re not careful.”
Her other hand came up in an attempt to muffle the sob that escaped her mouth. “What did we do wrong?” she sobbed into Dad’s shoulder. He remained silent and held her hand in his.
The guilt was back and threatened to suffocate me. I knew this was coming, but a glossy piece of paper filled with stock images didn’t make the news any easier to bear.
Dealing with Dissociative Disorders. Dissociative Amnesia. The Rewiring of Your Brain to Forget Traumatic Experiences.
I thought of Cecilia, asleep in her bed, believing that her sister was alive and well in the next room over. I thought of her sitting in my empty room, talking to nobody about how her day went.
I thought of her heartbreaking cries and screams of denial when our parents had to break the news to her. I thought of her waking up the next day, honestly believing nothing had happened, only to break down when our parents had to tell her again.
And again.
And again.
I remembered her smile earlier that evening and every other smile she had given me throughout my life. I felt the tears welling up and the hollow thump of my lifeless heart.
“Your fault. Your fault,” it said.
My parents quietly mourned the loss of one daughter and the sanity of the other.
“Your fault. Your fault,” it said again.
My sister was blissfully unaware of the truth.
“Your fault. Your fault.”
I’m sorry, Cecilia. I’m so sorry.
One day, I hope you can forgive me.