Knives and Cigarettes

By Madeline

“This is for the simple fact that there will come a time when what I bring to the table tastes a lot more sour than it does sweet. But I hope the people I care about continue to give me the benefit of the doubt and still offer me a seat.”

— Michael Thompson

In the summer of 2013, my older brother, Roman, and I sat together on the back porch, anxiously smoking a cigarette before our dad got home. His phone rang. The voice on the other end of the line sounded unfamiliar, but the tension in my brother’s voice made my heart sink into my stomach. He ended the call and said, “We gotta go. There’s something wrong with mom.” Without realizing it at the time, what happened on this day proved to me that anyone could have their way of life completely undone.

As Roman drove, he explained the phone call while actively suppressing the emotion in his voice. “Mom’s boyfriend says that Mom is yelling at his roommates, who she thinks are in the RV parked in the driveway. He said if we don’t come to get her, he will call the cops.”

“This guy is a freak! What kind of psycho would call the cops on mom?” I asked. He frowned, and we spent the rest of the drive in complete silence. There was something he wasn’t telling me, but I didn’t have the courage to ask.

Roman turned the last corner onto the street of my mom’s boyfriend’s house. My heartbeat drummed in my ears while my eyes scanned the bright hues of the hot summer afternoon for my mom. She stood in the driveway holding a kitchen knife in one hand and a cigarette in the other, almost casually.

We got out of the car and she told us, “My roommates are being assholes.”

My brother responded in the calm demeanor of a crisis negotiator, “It’s hard to get along with people sometimes. Why don’t you hand me the knife, and we can talk about it?” She handed it to him, expressing relief to not be holding it anymore. Both of us hugged her and went to the patio to talk more about what happened.

“My roommates were teasing me and saying horrible things. They just kept going and going…”

“Mom,” I asked, “where are they now?” And she described the storage compartment on her boyfriend’s RV, about the size of a suitcase.

This was the first in a series of events that led to my mother being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Having a close family member blindsided by this illness is confusing and scary, and there are no ideal ways forward. After her diagnosis, my mom felt a mix of fear, anger, depression, and even embarrassment. Unfortunately, she struggled with it for years before she found the right treatment. Personally, my fears manifested into many late nights spent researching schizophrenia, antipsychotic medications, and therapies, a majority of which were unaffordable. But two facts of life have made themselves obvious to me since the day we found out. The second most important one is that any person could be in the throes of a tremendous internal struggle, without the luxury of having a clear light at the end of the tunnel. But this doesn’t reflect where they came from or where they are going. And the most important thing: make sure the ones you care about most always have a seat at your table.

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Madeline is a Washington native and lives near Seattle with her cat, Jellybean. She is now a full-time college student despite dropping out of school in the eighth grade and aspires to work in foreign affairs after finishing her degree. Madeline wants her readers to know that they are capable of anything as long as they keep fighting for it.

Featured art: Astral Plane by Ella Stevens