beginning

THE WINDOW started to streak with rain, gliding down the glass. Each drop would meet my eyes, reflecting the green, and then disappear. The rain got harder, punishing, while it splashed the windows. I began to pull myself up from the window after the cab dipped violently into a pothole, smacking my brow harshly to the glass.

My stomach squelched. I was so hungry that I was in pain, and neither the rain or the radio station that blabbed in Spanish distracted me from my hunger. I tried to find something in my bag next to me to distract myself, anything, but I ended up wringing my sweater by the fragile sleeve.

The cabdriver, around 40, kept glancing to the backseat where I sat, watching my thin and nervous hands wear out the wool of my sweater. I didn’t like him constantly glancing back at me. It made me uneasy and even more uncomfortable than I already was. I just needed space. That’s all.

            “You okay, Miss?” He struggled through his accent. I didn’t know if it was one of those questions that you feel obligated to ask, but yet again, what is a cab driver obligated to do but drive you to where you need to go?

            “Fine.”

I couldn’t recognize the street through the pouring rain. The houses were dark and blurry, but I couldn’t concentrate anyway. It had all happened too fast, and I couldn’t think. My mind had stopped and is now running on auto mode, the only way I can process anything at all. So these images- these bleak and dark images- didn’t mean anything to me. Just something I’m seeing, or imagining.

The cab slowed down and glided into a 5-house cul-de-sac, stopping at the one in the very middle.

She was standing by the door, Aunt Rachel, holding a large dark purple umbrella with both hands. She was distorted by the rain, but I could guess that her eyebrows were low with concern and her lips indulged with tension.

The cab driver opened his door, got out and opened mine, and popped the trunk to grab my stuff. He was rushing because of the rain, but I took my time putting my bag over my shoulder.

Aunt Rachel was now rushing toward the cab, grabbed my stuff from the driver, and paid him for the trip. I heard Aunt Rachel whisper, “Come on, Honey.”

 She put one hand on the small of my back, gently and lovingly, leading me into the house, umbrella over my head. I peaked my head out from underneath the umbrella, and looked up to the deep grey sky. I was a raindrop- a drop of rain falling from the sky. Falling so fast that I couldn’t be controlled until I hit the rough pavement and was no more.

Aunt Rachel brought me into her house, which smelled so strongly of candles and incense I was getting light headed by just stepping over the threshold. Her house was large and spacious and seemingly clean, but I knew that this was all for show, all for me.

She didn’t say a word, just smoothed my hair, and held me tight for what seemed like hours. She started sniffling, and then crying into my shoulder, sopping my hair with her tears. I didn’t cry. I just couldn’t anymore. Then listening to Aunt Rachel’s tears just made me wish she’d stop. I almost wanted to push her away and tell her no more, but she stepped away finally, wiping her face with the palms of her hands.

            “I’m gonna make some dinner. You remember where your room is, right sweet-heart?”

She smoothed the back of my head once more, and walked into the kitchen. I stood there for a while, and took time to take this all in. This is my new home. She is my guardian. Aunt Rachel- who we’d used come to visit every summer to drink lemon-aid on the porch swing and wave around sparklers out back at night. Aunt Rachel, who always smelled of the same sweet perfume, wears her hair down to barely touching her shoulders, and who carried my seven year old self into the house and took care of me after I took a nasty fall off my bike. I missed those days the most- those hot and sticky summers here, but soon we had stopped paying visits. My mother and Aunt Rachel had had a fight, and stopped talking to each other. And now this.

I turned and went up the stairs then, dragging my suitcase along. My room was three doors on the right, the one with the chip in the paint from when I was five and thought chipping the paint made the door look unique. I opened it, and turned on the light that filled the room with something that was close to sorrow- I missed my room. In my house. I then saw that Aunt Rachel, sweet as she is, had put up posters of popular music stars, none of which I was into. There was Jordyn Carey, the wildly popular country singer. I almost gagged at the sight of her face smiling at me, with her blonde curly hair fanning out through the picture. There was also another poster of Daniel Hayz, who sang sweet love songs that brainwash the ditzy high school girls into a trance. There wasn’t a period in time 3 months ago when you could turn on the radio and not hear his high voice singing about the girl that could have been, or his teary eyed breakup. Then again, 3 months ago everything was normal. Two months ago, I would not have expected this ‘visit’ to Aunt Rachel’s. Two months ago, my mother was alive.

It was around 1:30 on a summer morning when my father shook me awake and told me to go out to the car. This was two months ago, one sleepy, dreary July night. I kept asking him what was going on, what happened- but he’d shake his head and keep his eyes on the road. He was speeding now, on the highway, his brows bushy and low. I wanted him to slow down, but I didn’t say it out loud. My heart was beating a million times a minute, and I thought for a second my ribs wouldn’t be able to control it, the bones would crack and my heart would plop down into my stomach. We slowed down when we reached a traffic of cars, stopped and clogged, and a few people were getting out to see what happened.

            “Get out,” My dad said, opening his car door and running towards the scene. I got out too, squeezing between people and their cars, seeing police car lights, blue and red, flash in my eyes over and over again. I couldn’t stand those lights. They struck such a fear in me that made me instantly tear up, the blue and red becoming watercolors.

I walked further, until a policeman stood in front of me, holding his hand firmly on my shoulder. “Whoa, whoa.” He boomed. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Dad came to us. “It’s her mother, get out of the way.”

The policeman stepped aside, bowing his eyes to me. “Oh… Sorry.”

I was still dumbstruck, my mother? No, it couldn’t be. He lied to get us closer. But then I saw it. The silver BMW, license plate DRS356, almost in pieces. The back of the car was beaten, the bumper slanting off the car in the front. The front was shattered. It looked almost like an accordion that hit a wrong note and splintered in a thousand pieces.

I didn’t quite know what to make of this, too many thoughts were swarming in my brain. I couldn’t think.

I couldn’t remember much after that, just little snippets and fragments that I could put together to finish the night. Getting back into the car with my dad to rush to the hospital… Seeing my mother wrapped up and bleeding in the emergency room… Hearing the nurse say, “That was her final breath…” And yet, the picture that stayed in my head from that night was the dark navy blue sky, strewn with clouds still, covering the moon. I still cannot shake the sky out of my head, and every time it pops in my mind, I think of her, and that morning.

She had died, and my father became different, the house was empty, and he’d spent most of his time in the basement, drinking the thoughts of my mother away. Let’s just say he became… less than incompetent to be my father.

I lay on my new bed now, discovering a Daniel Hayz CD underneath my pillow. I smiled, then cried silently- as quiet as I could. I didn’t go down for dinner. The thought of joining Aunt Rachel by the dinner table, eating, mourning… didn’t sound good to me. Nothing sounded good to me. The only thing that sounded good was lying down, closing my eyes, and wishing the day dead.

 

Reviews

[Rhea752]

man that was depressing. great write. i really enjoyed it!! :D