The Day I Walked Into the Wrong Room
Chapter 7: Fear of Change
Charlie, a bodybuilder and rugby player, with dark skin and red-hued medium-sized breasts, smiled at me as she lifted my head. Anise-flavored milk rolled down my throat, and some of it went into my windpipe. I choked, but she didn’t let me move. A bully, strong, she can fight, and she can crash through things to get what she wants. Someone who will step on your face as she scores, but then helps you up after. A warrior in a world that now allows women warriors, even celebrates them, but didn’t then. She had a husband, Morris, a normal man, with a normal life, who loved her, helped her, and reminded her that she cannot solve everything by force.
Sasha, her two-month-old, took after her. Stubborn, the two need Morris between them, or the struggle of wills will destroy them. She fears change. She loves herself, her driven behaviour, her desire to succeed, and does not want to give it up, but knows that she will crush her kid, break his spirit. She has a large, wonderful family, but refuses to lose her child to her tendencies.
Memories of my aunt, her children much older than me, mix with Charlie’s memories of her childhood. I stand with my chest out, defiant to my aunt, the opposite way Charlie stands, hunched over, eyes on the ground. My aunt screams at me, while Charlie’s father offers encouragement. I had broken a vase, on purpose, in anger, while Charlie accidentally hurt someone in soccer, stepped on their hand, and made them cry. Both eight years old, we heard opposite things. Auntie Katie screamed that I needed to change my attitude, that the world didn’t owe me anything, that my anger would destroy me one day. Charlie’s dad asked her a simple question, in a soft voice, a voice of someone who cares and doesn’t want to ask, but must, because they care, “Charlie, you must make a decision. You either change to get what you want and need, or you stay the same, in comfort, and lose what you care about most.”
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