Mary Chhea (she/her) is a Cambodian American nail stylist turned writer. Raised on unceded Arapahoe and Ute land known as Colorado, she’s now exploring rabbit holes and story-finding on the Cornish coast. Mary is currently working on her first short story collection based on her family’s refugee experience.

A Kid's Guide to Perimenopause

Mary Chhea

So it’s a regular Thursday and I’m sitting in my normal spot on the left side of the sofa with my science book on my left knee and my spiral notebook on my right knee. Julie is in her usual spot on the right side of the sofa with two textbooks and a notebook in her lap. I only have one homework to do: Science. Grade seven Science rocks because we only have one assignment for the week and the answers are in the back of the book. Julie has homework every day even though she’s three grades behind me.

Mum wakes up from her after-school nap when Animaniacs comes on and goes to start dinner, just like every day. She always takes a nap in the afternoon cos she goes to work before the sun comes up so she can pick us up from school. It’s fair though cos Dad goes to work in the afternoon and comes home after we go to bed so he can take us to school in the morning. Even stevens.

Anyway, Animaniacs is blasting all its cartoony amazingness from the big, boxy TV that would make a sweet hide-and-seek spot if we could just figure out how to get the back off without breaking it. Yakko, Wakko, and Dot are trying to sweep a chimney for a guy named Ludvig who keeps saying he’s a ‘pee-anist’. Cos of his German or Austrian accent or whatever, the Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister!) say if he doesn’t clean his potty mouth, they’re gonna wash it out. I know there’s a joke in there, but the only one I can think of isn’t that funny so maybe I don’t really get it. Right when Yakko smashes a bar of green soap into Ludvig’s gob, there’s a crash from behind me in the kitchen.

My head snaps toward the sound so quick that my ponytail whips around and smacks me in the eye. Mum’s arm rises above her head and swings down, like Dave Grohl smashing his drums in that Nirvana video.

CRASH.

She bends and bobs at the waist like a dashboard hula dancer and her arm swings up and over her head again.

CRASH.

Mum’s lips are pressed into a tight, pink line. The rest of her face is hard to read but looks like it does when she’s listening to Pastor Doug talk about hell or to Dad complain about our boy-crazy sister Annie, who moved out a couple years ago right out of high school. Julie scrambles over the back of the sofa and I follow her.

CRASH.

Up close and in slow motion, I watch Mum pick up another clean glass from the dishwasher and smash it into the bin on top of the other broken, clean glasses. The bin lid is sitting next to the bin.

CRASH.

Me and Julie lunge at the dishwasher, grabbing the smashy stuff from within Mum’s reach, careful not to touch her in case she’s made of hot lava. When the glasses are gone, Mum snatches at the plastic soup bowls. The plastic adds a gross thud to the clink of the broken glass that gives me goosebumps.

The top rack is empty, so Julie starts on the lower rack. Out of ammo, Mum glides from the kitchen to the sofa and sits down in her usual spot in the middle. She only floats like that when she’s raging. Like a couple weeks ago when I stomped up the stairs and she magically appeared in my room to whack my legs with the fly swatter and glided out without even making a sound. I hadn’t been spanked in like ten years before that.

I pick the soup bowls out of the bin and put them back in the dishwasher. Julie closes up the cupboards and I shut the dishwasher quietly. I tie the rubbish bag and barefoot-tiptoerun to the wheelie bin in the back garden. When I get back inside, Julie’s scuttling up the stairs like a little spider. Her school books are about to spill out of her arms.

I crouch down in front of the sofa to get my school stuff and peek at Mum’s face. She’s just perched on the edge of the sofa, not even sitting all the way back. Her face still looks like a statue but at least her lips are normal sized again.

‘Mum, are you okay?’ I ask gingerly. She hates that question. But what else can I say? ‘We’ll put away the dishes right when we get home tomorrow.’

She stays staring hard at the TV and doesn’t answer for a whole minute. I decide to finish my homework next to her and sit down cross-legged on the living room floor.

‘Red Aunt hasn’t visited you yet,’ she says. ‘You’ll think it’s bad when she does, but it gets really bad when she stops.’ She sits back on the sofa and picks up the remote control. I don’t know what to say because I don’t know what she means. So I say nothing.

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