The Maze We Built by Barakova Dieujuste (22)
The feeling of autumn was the same feeling as wishing upon a star when you were 16. Now Lilo was 17 and wishing for things that not only involved stars but galaxies. She wanted the same grades as Asia, who was on the top of the honor roll, she wanted to understand if the person she had feelings for was Cameron, and she wanted to go to the movies with her friends instead of a fair with her mom.
It didn’t feel like autumn. It felt like winter was refusing change. As they walked around the fair, it seemed to get colder. Lilo’s mom, Nanna, felt too warm over the layers of clothes she packed on. Lilo was shivering but refused to show so. She wrapped her arms around herself and kept warm by walking faster than her mom. Nanna was trying to catch up, but couldn’t decide between wanting to ride the ferris wheel or getting food.
They had different opinions about the fair. Lilo loved how loud and lively the fair was, it made her feel alive. Yes, it helped her feel invisible and that strangely brought her warmth in the cold weather. Nanna hated how loud it was, but she loved seeing parents having fun with their kids. It brought her to a different time, when Lilo was smaller, quieter, and less defensive.
“Do you want to ride the ferris wheel?” Nanna asked, still trying to catch up.
“No.”
“When you were younger you loved riding the ferris wheel with me. You would cling to me and scream about wanting to go again and again.” Nanna was stuck watching the ferris wheel go round and round as her daughter continued walking without looking back.
“No, when I was younger, I didn’t know what I wanted,” Lilo spoke to the cold air. She made an active effort to not look back. Behind her was her way home and if she looked back she would only want to feel the comfort of drinking hot chocolate on the sofa. Now she was outside, it was cold and it felt strange but looking back would only bring anger she didn’t want to feel.
Suddenly Lilo stopped. It felt has if she has been walking for hours and seeing the same yellow ferris wheel over and over again. She squinted looking around her, and finally noticed the absence of her mom. Maybe it was because she hasn’t eaten much all day but the world felt as if it was spinning. Yes, the earth naturally spins, she reminded herself, but not like this. She wanted to call out for her mom, but felt silly and immature. Instead she kept on walking north.
Nanna lost her daughter the moment she started talking about the past. She got so lost in what she wanted to say and the shrinking ferris wheel she didn’t notice her daughter disappearing in the distance. It was as if time had sped past them as it grew darker and darker in the seconds. She decided to go to the ferris wheel believing her daughter to be there waiting for her. She knew her daughter would be waiting for her. So she went south.
Nanna stayed on the line for the ferris wheel time after time waiting for Lilo to come back to her. She watched people do all the things she wanted to do, like riding the roller coaster she wanted to, or eating the wings she wanted to try from the food court, or taking the pictures she wanted for memories. But she stayed stationary waiting for her daughter to come back to the place they knew.
Instead of getting colder, it seemed to have gotten warmer. The fair grew a little quieter as a result of the children leaving, and the teenagers coming in with their friends.
The truth was Nanna was only 42 and she never really had a mother of her own. When Nanna was only 12, she moved in with her aunt and from there on she had to be an adult. Nanna would only see her mother on some summer nights with little to no conversation or help. So now, she worked day and night to give her daughter what she never received: a home, a childhood, security. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t understand how her relationship with Lilo mirrored that of her’s and her mom.
Walking down a row of disoriented glass, Lilo saw some of the people she went to school with making the trip to the fair seem less useless. The first person she saw was Cameron. Being around them felt less forced. Intense but not forced. She was surrounded by people who understood without an explanation. She didn’t have to tell her friends she was cold because it was known. She didn’t have to tell them she didn’t want to ride a teacup ride because they knew the fact that she was too grown for it. Most importantly her feelings of confusion and the constant change of her mind was a common fact that her mom couldn’t understand even if she tried.
“We should ride the ferris wheel,” Cameron stated looking up. It was huge and yellow in front of them like a mountain that was waiting to be climbed.
“Definitely,” Lilo answered in chorus with the different yeses and of courses in the group. It felt right. So they walked forward to the Ferris Wheel.
Nanna left the Ferris Wheel to find herself, instead of waiting for her daughter to come back. She saw other moms from the neighborhood and wad at them with a smile.
“Nanna! Come over here!” One of them called out to her.
They sat and spoke and ate together. They talked about their lives, their jobs, and most importantly they spoke about their kids.
“I lost Lilo here about an hour ago and I still don’t know where she is,” Nanna explained to the others.
“Ha! My son disappeared two hours ago. I can’t complain though, when he’s ready to find me, he will.”
“I’m so worried. She’s all I have, and I’m all she knows. How am I supposed to know she’s safe if she isn’t with me?” Nanna asked. She was unprepared when Lilo was born and raising Lilo on her own had been a challenge.
“They are at an age where they don’t need us as much. That’s okay, because we’re at an age where we need to let them go. We are our own people outside of being their moms.”
As her friends spoke, Nanna finally saw Lilo exactly where they parted ways. Lilo was grinning from ear to ear and laughing with her friends. reminded her of how everyone said they were twins. Lilo never saw it and neither did Nanna but that didn’t stop everyone from making the same comparisons over and over again. They had the same lips, the same nose, the same smile, the same walk even. They started and ended with each other.
They started and ended with each other. Lilo would find her way, Nanna knew that. She taught Lilo how to read and how to write in two languages. She showed Lilo the beauty and the tragedies of the world, either informatively or unknowingly. She explained to Lilo the importance of her intuition. Lilo would find her way.
“Ladies, we should get on that ride,” Nanna said, finally letting her sight off of Lilo and to the biggest rollercoaster in the Fair. With a million loops, a million highs and a million lows, it was hard to miss. It was so big, it overshadowed the ferris wheel making it look small and uninteresting.
“Are you sure it’s not too scary for you, Nanna,” someone asked.
“It is, but I'm ready,” she laughed.
It felt like nanna was 16 again, riding rides in a fair with no worries or care. She had friends and it wasn’t just her daughter. She felt alive.
Lilo had never felt so dead before. Her body was sore and her stomach called out for every food her eyes saw. Maybe there is a thing as having too much fun. No matter how tired she felt she couldn’t knock the smile off her face as she rode the last ride.
It was small and childish. A tiny spinning tea cup, too small for her to even fit in.
She jumped in closing her dark brown eyes and enjoyed the ride. This was peace. Maybe a big part of being 17 was feeling those feelings of being 16 or 15.
By the end of the ride she was 12 and waiting for her mom in front of the car. It got cold again, feeling less like autumn and more like a winter. When Lilo finally saw Nanna walking towards her, a warmth followed Nanna with each footstep.
“I can’t believe how lost we got from each other”, Nanna smiled instead of the anger Lilo was expecting.
“That place felt like a maze,” Lilo answered with honesty.
“We were only lost for a small moment, how could I live without my little fire?” Nanna said jokingly.
“You are my only match” The statement fell out of Lilo’s mouth like water in a waterfall. Growing up Nanna would call Lilo her last match, and Lilo would repeat like a parrot.
“My only source of light”
She was figuring things out and so was her daughter. There isn’t a blueprint to understanding each other and the mazes they build.