Mokita

Sylvie Adams

Bergen County Academies Short Story

It’s an apartment of oddly cut corners and figurines silenced to knick-knacks. Bodies walking through the landscape of collectibles and objects left-behind hear the faint whisper of dust. In the midst of spoken words and ones only whispered, a mother and daughter sit in a breakfast nook in companionable quiet. Mia, the daughter, reads a book about Papua New Guinea. Raina, the mother, reads the paper from two days ago.

A heat has settled in, sticky and quiet (much like the small family it clings to now). A dribble of sweat emerges from the groin of Mia’s index and middle fingers. It slides slowly down her carefully painted bubble gum nails, leaving a mild sheen on the skin it touches. It slightly dampens the pages Mia thumbs through as she tries to find the chapter she left off on. Raina stares blearily and unfocused at a story about a local soccer team, breaths slowly becoming light snores as she nods off.

Mia snorts happily when she takes note of her mother’s tipped back head and slumped figure.

She good-naturedly files away the unfortunate tenor of Raina’s snores, triumphant that while she had not inherited her mother’s ever cool and crisp skin, she had managed to skirt the rather inelegant habit. Mia returns to her reading, laughter echoing quietly in her bones.

The light continues to wane as night attempts to sweep away day. Mia will soon begin dinner, a chore that she enjoys executing for her mother, who otherwise has nothing done for her. Yet… she finds herself far from the tasks of her evening as she comes across a word–a word she swears she has heard before. It reminds her of dancing, of two partners in competition even as they wrap their limbs around the other and step in beat to the music. An unbidden memory of a third figure sitting in the nook sails through her mind, bringing tears to her eyes as she recalls that there was once another person reading next to her.

She can see it–mother, father, and daughter enjoying each other in the coming twilight. When Mia was still too small to read herself, her father would hoist her onto his lap and tell her stories about the world. He loved learning languages and often told Mia and her mother that had he gone to college, he would have been an excellent academic. Yet, grimy with dirt and liquified rust, he would always tell the other members of the nook that the wonders of the world did not compare to them.

Raina would smile and kiss his dirty cheek. Mia would ask for another story.

He knew many of them, having read his whole life about lands he never expected to walk upon.

Mia rises from her seat, young bones creaking like the improperly placed floorboards of her apartment. She sets about preparing dinner, concocting a mess of spices and vegetables. The recipe comes unprompted. It's from a distant memory, a nearly forgotten cooking lesson given under a shroud of colorful curtains and the songs of muted cardinals. Mia faintly recalls that morning now, happy to see her parents dancing around her. She tries to remember the lines of her father’s face, her imagination failing to render a completely familiar image. He appears stilted and awkward like an unfinished sculpture.

Mia swallows the memory.

The rush of paper into the mailbox brings Mia running to the door. She picks apart the bundle of letters to find a single shining correspondence from the state university. It is the only packet in the bunch–thick and colorful. She recalls the fortune in receiving a packet, probably full of freshmen orientation information and congratulations. She sets it carefully on the counter, resolving to celebrate after dinner is finished.

A lovely smell fills the space, sprinkling flavor onto the air as an invisible hand taps Raina on the shoulder and awakens her senses. The beautiful woman, aged but shining, awakens to the lovely image of her daughter in their kitchen. She watches her Mia carefully oil the vegetables and delicately distribute red pepper flakes.

Mia smiles at her mother sweetly. Raina, spotting the mail on the counter, goes to rifle through it. She finds bills and more bills and then a letter from her brother. And then something else. She lifts up the packet, examining a vaguely familiar photo of a university mascot. Raina quietly glares at it and sets the mail down. Her daughter watches from the corner of her eyes, examining the quickened breaths that rapidly work to expand Raina’s delicate neck. Mia disappointedly looks away as her mother sits down, once again in the nook, without a word.

Mia distributes plates and utensils and then initial helpings for both of them. Her mother munches quietly. She rises from the table after finishing, thanks her daughter for a lovely meal, and goes to her room. Mia hears the quiet crunch of sheets and quilts as her mother cocoons herself. She stops eating, uncomfortable with the famil-

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iarity of the situation, of nights spent listening out for movement from her mother’s room. She sighs and finally goes to open the packet, feeling slightly empty as she reads the smiling letters of her acceptance. She sets down the papers and stares down the hallway only to be met with the cold solidity of her mother’s door. Her eyes drift to something else–to the poster that hangs behind her mother’s normally open door. It dangles limply, appearing to continue to cling to the wall only by the mercy of a single piece of tape.

A ADISE

That’s what it says–this strange composite of greying palm trees and smiling faces. The laminated eyes stare down at Mia until she escapes to her bedroom, shutting the door quietly so as not to disturb the cartoon tourists. She sees her father hanging it up. He had smiled at his daughter. Paradise–you see? He gestures to the print, still unfamiliar to Mia’s young eyes.One day I’ll go there. Mia falls asleep in her jeans, listening to the gentle lilt of her father’s voice. He reads Kilivila to her, a language from Papua New Guinea. He chants and her mind fills with his world of artifacts and history. He tells her a word. He hands her the word and whispers so quietly what it means, it slides from her. She reaches, reaches, reaches for the sounds just out of touch, and finally grabs ahold.

Mia is yanked into consciousness. She lies a moment in her plastic framed bed, contemplating the stars on her ceiling. They glow in the dark–but the grey morning light drowns them. She thinks her father painted them. He used a picture and planned them out in pencil before beginning, telling Mia that he would teach her each constellation in her sky.

She goes to the kitchen and quietly makes a cup of Earl Grey, drinking it thoughtfully in the nook. Raina joins her soon, very suddenly springing conversation on to her:

“Chicken!” She cries. And then she rolls off the rest of her grocery list. And then she talks of errands and work and school and friends and family and anything but the packet that still sits between them. Mia thinks of the night before and of a night that came years before that one. She remembers that for a year her mother was sick, that the light in their strange apartment turned grey.

She remembers the stark absence of her father’s voice. But she heard his voice last night, telling her a word that she had forgotten. It dances across her eyes, filling her even as she feels her mother’s heart breaking, unfolding with every hysterical word.

Raina stops her speech, realizing the emptiness of her words. She falls into herself and becomes silent. She looks at the apartment, imagining that Mia’s presence will soon be vacatedfrom it. She returns to her tea and paper, now three days old, and lets it leave her mind.

It becomes a dance between them, one of awkward glances and unsaid words. They circle each other slowly, daring the other to speak of what must not be acknowledged. Mia goes closer to the edge, almost thinking to mention it… but not quite. She cannot bear to make her mother sad, to be another person that departs so suddenly from her life. Mia pictures her mother reading her old paper at the kitchen alone, going to work only to come

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home to an empty place. Mokita. The word falls into her lap unbidden, said in the sweet vibration of her father’s voice, a sound she feared forgotten. It was at the door that he first gave her the word, a single suitcase under his strong arm, the same one that lifted her onto his lap. Are you going to come back? He had hesitated before answering. There are things we need not talk about, Mia. Then he told her about Papua New Guinea and Mia listened weakly, for the first time disgusted by his knowledge. He said to her mokita, and like that the truth needn't be uttered. It was an untranslatable word, a favorite of his. It had sprung from one of the pamphlets that cluttered Mia’s life. She had asked her father what it meant, observing the way his heart took flight when he told her about a place that wasn’t home. Mia saw it–a weakness perverting the sanctity of their apartment. She said nothing. It’s something that we both know but… quietly agree not to discuss. Mia thinks about this word now, as she tries to find the words to acknowledge her approaching departure (even months away as it is). She thinks about her mother–who took to the sheets and waited–refusing to say goodbye to her husband. Mokita. It fills Mia and bashes her heart as she tries to make sense of herself. Traitor is among the words that come to mind. She talks to her mother about the weather, hearing her voice become her father’s, charming and empty. Eventually the conversation turns to silence and tears weakly spring to Mia’s eyes. Must an ending bring such sorrow? Have the embraces they’ve shared, the love given freely, been muted to this terrible moment? Mia feels unfamiliarity seep between them. It’s hot and putrid as it climbs down their throats. A sensation emerges; it begs for relief as two hearts begin to tighten. Mother and daughter slowly journey back to their paper and book. They avert their eyes and settle for an uncomfortable silence. The pair remain there for the day, in that nook which once shook with laughter. Now it crumbles, shrinking as a kind of estrangement sets in. A lie barely props it up. It supports the cracked beam above, preventing the ceiling from entirely collapsing. Mother and daughter, at its mercy, feel uncertain It’s an apartment of oddly cut corners and figurines silenced to knick-knacks. It has gathered the two of them together in an embrace, bringing comfort and nurturing them when so much was lost. In it a family finds once again that love is not enough to sustain them, that while Raina has become closed to adventure, Mia only now stretches her legs to run to an awaiting world. In it there is a word that sits between them, so soft and musical that one can barely hear it. The whisper of it travels through the hallways as another voice once did, catching on broken heartstrings and hidden family pictures. It goes slowly past stacks of old books, ones set aside to the farthest corners of the attic, gazing mockingly upon the remnants of a person that once mattered so much. The word moves and surrounds the family of two, preserving and wrecking their peace all at once. The mother and daughter withdraw from one another, the unsaid caving in between them until they feel completely alone. Mokita.

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