Generational Trauma

Sisters discover secrets and lies

Words 1932

“Leah? Thank God you answered.”

“Rachel? What’s up?”

“Are you sitting down? I’ve some bad news. It’s Mum. She’s gone.”

“What do you mean? Gone?— As in dead gone?”

“Yes! Here at the house. I’d called in to check if her carer had been.”

“Shit! And had she? The carer been?”

“She couldn’t have, otherwise she’d have been the one to find her. Can you please come?”

“Yes. Of course. I’ll get the next available flight. Are you ok, Rach?”

“I’m waiting outside for the cops and ambulance, having a fag. It was a shock.

“Hopefully I’ll be there tomorrow. Don’t touch anything, the authorities will want to check there was no foul play.”

“Okay. Please get here as soon as you can.”

Few people attended Claire Cooper’s funeral, which wasn’t surprising as she’d barely left her house for years.

“Thank God that’s over,” Leah let out the breath she felt as if she’d been holding throughout the short service.

“Yeah, but It’s not over yet. What about the house?” Rachel had stopped walking and was leaning on her car. She lit a cigarette.

“What about it? Can’t we get someone in to deal with it?”

“Typical! You’re leaving me to do everything as usual,” Rachel’s face reddened. “You did nothing for Mum, left it all to me to make sure she was cared for.”

“That’s not true and you know it. I called her every week and I paid for her care”.

“Yes, from afar. But when did you last actually visit? Yourself, in person?”

Leah paused as if thinking, before she spoke again. “I’m not like you, Rach. You know my condition. I can’t go in that house ever again.”

“I thought you’d been cured?”
“There are no cures as such, it’s a matter of learning to control it. I’ve spent years and a fortune on therapy. I’m doing better but I’m not sure I’m up to clearing Mum’s house.”

“Leah,” her sister said in a no-nonsense tone, “I can’t do it myself. We’ll tackle it together. I’ll organise some skip bins before you fly away again.” With that she ground out her cigarette with the heel of her boot and said goodbye.

Leah watched her sister’s car until it disappeared around the corner. She’d been invited to stay at Rachel’s but there was no way she could stand the chaos. Rachel had three kids and Leah loved them—of course she did—but it would have meant sharing with her teenage niece. The thought of the messy room made her shiver.

As she waited for her Uber, Leah thought about her hoarder mother, Claire. Her mental illness had affected both her daughters, but Leah especially. The Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder began when she was just a child. The constant confusion and disorder had frightened her. The only time she felt in control and safe in the house had been in her own room. Now she felt she could never enter her childhood home again but knew there was no way she could avoid staying on to help Rachel.


Rachel turned the key and opened the front door, not fully, as piles of old newspapers stacked in the entrance hall prevented that.

“Ugh, it really stinks in here!”

Leah hovered on the doorstep. “ I really can’t come in.”

“Of course, you can. Welcome to the house of crap.” Rachel laughed. But when she saw her sister’s hesitation as she hovered on the doorstep, dressed in coveralls, mask, gloves and hat, she softened. “Come on, you’ll be fine, germs will have no chance of infiltrating your armour.”

Cautiously, Leah entered, her face, under the mask, screwed up in disgust. “Smells like something’s dead in here—a rat, or maybe it’s rotten meat.” Rigid, she stood surveying the scene. “I’m going to be sick!”

“Get a grip, Sis, we’ve got work to do.” Rachel wearing an old tee shirt and shorts with a bright red bandana holding back her long, auburn hair, squeezed past the obstacles, and disappeared into the gloom.

The sisters wandered through the house together, negotiating the narrow paths through the piles of garbage, as they did so they barely uttered a sound, but Rachel glanced in Leah’s directions to assess her reaction to the state of their mother’s house. She saw the look of almost terror on her face.

“Where on earth are we supposed to begin?” Leah’s question hung unanswered for a full minute.

Suddenly Rachel was all business and began assembling the packing boxes. “Let’s do a room at a time, together, Sis.”

Leah entered the kitchen, although there were no clutter-free surfaces it was relatively clean. She gingerly opened the fridge door. “At least the carers did something to prevent Mum dying of food poisoning,”

“Yes, they did what they could. They’d change her bed linen and make sure she ate. That’s all she’d allow them to do.”

They worked in silence, each deep in their own thoughts.

Leah, sorting and counting the cutlery, spoke first. “No wonder Dad left.”

Rachel, busy hurling everything out of the cupboards without even looking at what she was designating to landfill, stopped. The random statement about a missing father unspoken of for years, almost took her breath away. “Wow,” was all she could manage.

“No need for secrecy now, Rach. That’s where all our troubles stem from.”

“Speak for yourself, I’m the only normal one in this family.”

“You think so?” Leah’s eyebrows above the mask lifted. “Have you never heard of generational trauma?”

Rachel sighed and continued emptying the kitchen cupboards. The sound of crockery smashing together made Leah wince.

“You’re angry, Rach. You hide it but…”

“Of course, I’m bloody angry. You left me to deal with her! Dad left us, and then mum left— except she was still here!”

“I couldn’t stay. Look at this house, Rach. Living here was what made me unwell. I couldn’t breathe.” Leah grabbed a flattened packing box and sat on the floor next to her sister. She grabbed her hands to stop her throwing the dishes. “Secrets, Rach, that’s the trouble with us. No one ever spoke the truth.”

“Well, here’s the truth. I’m unravelling, you all think I’m the strong one—Mother, you, the kids, my useless husband! Rachel’s tear-stained face crumpled. “Who am I kidding? We can’t clean this shit up by ourselves.”

Leah said nothing, recognising mental illness comes in all forms.

“I wanted to punish you, force you back into this house!”

“I know, I know. It’s okay.” Leah stood. “Oh, Christ, I need a bath so bad.” Still wearing her rubber gloves, she grabbed her sister’s hands and pulled her up from the floor. “I tell you what, let’s just go through the house and see if there is anything we need to keep and then we’ll get professionals in to get rid of everything. I’ll pay for it, it’s the least I can do.”

The sisters forced themselves to walk into each room of their childhood home, Leah remembering the little girl bleaching a teaspoon while loud voices, raised in anger, came from upstairs. Despite the compelling urge to run, she stayed by her sister’s side.

“Look for anything important. Like papers, letters, jewellery, that sort of thing. We can’t let anyone in before we’ve done that.” Rachel was back to her business-like self.

Leah stood in the doorway of what once had been her parent’s bedroom. She’d been very young when her father disappeared out of all their lives but had a distant memory of him as always being angry with her mother.
He’s gone and we’re not going to speak of him again. Do you understand? Those words were imprinted on Leah’s mind forever. She sighed and carefully made her way through the mountains of books, magazines, and clothes. As she stared at the bed her mother had died in all alone, mixed feelings of guilt, resentment and anger seethed.

A large, overstuffed set of drawers loomed against the far wall. Each drawer yawned open at various angles, silken scarves hung from the edges of some and yellowed knickers, bras, and socks from others. The whole piece gave the impression of an overweight creature utterly overwhelmed.

Leah rifled through the drawers, tossing the contents on to the long unseen carpet. Her scrabbling fingers touched what felt like a box tucked right at the back of the deep drawer. When she’d freed it from under a medley of underwear, she saw it was an old cigar box containing a couple of letters. The first was addressed simply to her mother. Just one word—Claire--written in faded ink. The other letter appeared to be an official one addressed to her father. As she scanned the contents of her mother’s letter Leah’s world spun on its axis, everything she’d ever been told about her father had been a lie.

Claire, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t leave the girls with you, it’s not safe, you’re not safe. I’ve applied for custody and I’m removing them from this house.
David

Leah sank onto the bed and allowed the information to be absorbed. With trembling fingers, she opened the other letter. It was from the courts allowing her father full custody of both his daughters.

Stunned she sat; the letters had slid from her hands onto the floor. A shout from her sister roused her.

“Leah! Come down here, I’ve found something!”

She went down the stairs wondering how to drop the bombshell about the father who they both thought had deserted them. “Where are you, Rachel?”

“Out here! At the shed.”

Rachel, her face covered in dirt, waved excitedly to her sister across the knee-high lawn.

“I found the key to the shed! Do you remember it?”

The key in Rachel’s palm triggered a memory. It had always hung on a red ribbon near the back door and remembered the warning. Don’t touch.

Rachel struggled with the rusted lock but eventually it sprung open. “Yes! Got it!”

The door reluctantly opened. It took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust but what they saw made them both gasp. Despite the layer of dust which lay over everything it was more than tidy; it was almost surgical. Each tool hung on an outlined pegboard. Nails and screws sorted into jars by size, all labelled in their father’s handwriting. Paint brushes hung in decreasing sizes, bristles pointing down. Shelves numbered with masking tape labels. 1. Wood glue. 2.Drill bits. 3.Solvents—Do Not Touch.

“This is…” Leah faltered. She felt as if she was in a museum of her own mind.
On the bench she finds a dog-eared note book containing dated lists of all the jobs to be done. The way they were written, Leah recognised them as compulsions, disguised as care. She set the notebook down on the bench. “He was sick, Rach. Just like Mum. Just like I was. Maybe like you are. But none of us had the language for it.”

A week later

“I can’t stop thinking about what happened to him, Leah. I guess we’ll never know but…”

“We can keep guessing and theorising forever but I’m sticking to my idea.”

“You really think he got cold feet, realised he wasn’t capable of raising two daughters on his own and staged a disappearance?”

“Well, it’s not as farfetched as yours, Rach!”
“Nah, I guess Mum wasn’t an axe murderer.” Rachel laughed.

“It’s good to hear you laughing again. Once the house has been sold, we’ll both feel a sense of freedom.”

“You’re right Sis. Let’s open these windows, they’ve been nailed shut long enough.”