A Memory: An excerpt from The Breaking Point

No story is ever a straight line. There is no beginning, middle or end; a perfect course or line of symmetry we beat a path towards. Only now, in the middle, am I considering that although there must have been a beginning; a nucleus from which everything sparked, it's difficult to identify what that is, what the trigger was. And my beginning was no doubt the ending of something else, or maybe even the middle of someone else's.

I allow my thoughts to rest on the car; like a puma set to pounce I had seen on a programme once. Flashbulb, deep breath, pull back. I can do this. I remember the car. It glided down the center of the road before stopping with a growl in our driveway, while I watched from upstairs, a cobweb-thin slip of curtain over my eyes. Wait. Even before that, I remember her hair. See? I told you there's never a real beginning.

My mother's hair was beautiful. Not just in the way all daughters think their mother's hair is, but in the universal way. For as long as I remember, a thick browny-black mane cloaked my mother's neck and shoulders like a finely pressed robe. The way it shone reminded me of light reflecting off an ocean's surface. The tips of her hair curled underneath expertly like a wave trying to go back on itself once it had broken the shore. I was always afraid to touch it, anxious not to spoil its perfection, misplace a hair and alter the regal profile that was so distant from my own. I lost count of how many times we walked down the street; my little hand aching at the angle it was extended at to grasp her own, that we stopped to talk to someone, friend or foe, stranger or known who would pass judgement on my mother's hair.

"May, your hair does look pretty today."

"I swear there must be some horse in your family, your hair grows quicker than mine's going grey."

"That sure does suit you! Now why can't you fix your hair up like her, [insert the offended partner's name here]?"

"May, there'd only be one thing more beautiful than your hair, and that's your hair all over my pillow. . . . "

The last comment belonged to Mr. Jackson, who looked like he'd swallowed a barrel whole. When he laughed, which was all the time, having appointed himself the funniest person he knew, his body would weave from side to side like a bowling pin, reluctant to throw the fight. Mr. Jackson fascinated and repulsed me at the same time. He was a great source of entertainment; his voice undulating from highs to lows as if one was trying to tune in to a radio station to find their favorite song, but I couldn't look at him directly, preferring to take measured glimpses from the corners of my eyes. Remembering him, I can understand how some children become fearful of clowns, grown-ups sent to ridicule themselves and add color to your party, oblivious to the fact that their wild gesticulations and face-pulling have unconsciously released the pee from your insides which is barely being contained by the tight elastic edges of your panties. His comment always fascinated me more than the others because I had seen my mother's hair all over her pillow and I didn't think it looked special at all, it was tangled and hung in clumps from where the hairnet had run off with a roller in the middle of the night. I couldn't imagine why an old man like him would get all excited over the type of hair my mother would never be caught leaving the house with.

Our house used to belong to my paternal grandmother. I don't remember how I know that, who whispered its heritage to me in a darkened corner or pointed to a dusty Polaroid when I was little. I just knew certain things. We lived...