My Sister Was My Enemy
By: Nefissa And Mambo
Tags: Family, Trauma, Personal Development, Domestic Violence, Relationships

My Sister Was My Enemy

There are two kinds of people in this world. People who can keep their hands and their verbal commands to themselves and people who can not.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels

It’s Saturday morning, we have no school today and she has just woken up. Her feet gliding above the floor as she runs. My most worthy opponent, a younger sibling. Her $110 texas instrument calculator is nowhere to be found so I certainly have misplaced it. I take one more bite of the pancake my wonderful mama has made me.

She hovers behind my seat. A forceful reach and pulling of my plate. Glorious homemade pancake sliding down the garbage disposal. I am approached again with a closed fist and swift punch to my arm and a tug at my hair as strong as a baby’s pull.

The porcelain plate she is swinging was my breakfast plate and I swear I hear a wind picking up force like a Hercules warrior flailing around a sword in his mighty hands. Her aim is about to be impeccable because she is a track runner and a shot put competitor at one of the most elite specialized public schools in New York City.

The plate is released from her hands and is headed right towards my feet. I quickly jump off the ground but I am too heavy. My feet land back on the ground and gladly the plate ricochets off of my foot and breaks into a few maple syrup pieces, now a new decorative piece at the corner of the kitchen floor.

Yelling ensues as a verbal command or threat, which I always begrudgingly obey in hopes of protecting my material belongings. “ You stupid fat beyotch. Where is my calculator? You better find it or I will have to destroy something of yours.”

Mama is next. She is stirring a chicken soup she is making with love and care. The daughter proceeds to dig her nails right into my mother’s scalp as she has done so many times before… An opponent with the longest and most beautiful legs we’ve ever seen standing at 5’9’’. She’s quite amazonian with long wavy hair, flowing past her buttocks.

Mama turns toward her and gets a ninja kick in the stomach. It’s time to yell at her now. “Look how fat you are. Your stomach is jiggling..” She grabs hold of the soup. Straight in the sink, it goes but it’s missing a special ingredient. My mother’s favorite, bible. She finds it and swings it at the sink where the soup is slowly bubbling away as it drains into the sick hole.

I’m headed towards her room in the hopes of finding the calculator. Maybe I can find it. A chance to salvage my things and shut her up at least for an hour or two before another fight begins. I crawl under her bed and it is not there. I am looking in every nook and cranny of her closet. Lastly, I approach the bed and it’s under her pillow. As she fell asleep the night before it slid underneath her pillow.

I didn’t find it quick enough and it is time to detail the damage around the house. All my clothes and my mother’s clothes are on the floor, a daily occurrence. My favorite Back Street Boys and Hanson magazine covers are fragrant but blurry with a side of laundry detergent. My VHS tapes were cracked open with a hammer.

With the hammer in her hand comes a new crack towards the bottom half of my door. But I am nervous now because she is a daddy’s girl. She calls my dad at work and tells him that I have misplaced the calculator. He demands to speak to me. He strongly warns me and my mother not to go into her room and never to touch her things.

The damage is daily. The clean up is routine. Praying and hoping the neighbors didn’t hear any of it. The apartment is fireproof but not soundproof.

I have got a new friend. I go over to her house for the first time to watch a movie. Her parents have a laundry room perpendicular to the living room. What I am seeing; I have never seen before. Her parents are holding hands in their home. I give my friend a heads up and a gentle tap on the shoulder. “Hey don’t let your father hold her hand too long he might break it.” She had no reply.

A new understanding overwhelmed my soul. Not all households are violent. The house is not necessarily broken into two teams. It is then I understood that we needed to live apart.

She is married now and has got bragging rights to a mean pancake. We talk daily and she is practicing all of my mother’s betty crocker ways. Mama has passed and she wants to know the exact details of her black bean recipe, a prized possession of mama indeed.