Chapter Three - Gone

            I think the hardest part of dad leaving was mum trying to get her head around the fact that she was leaving, for good. I don’t think I can remember once in my life where she had done something that involved leaving him behind. It might even be a bigger jump than she imagined, the fact that she wasn’t going to go back, and he didn’t even know we were leaving. Wherever he was right now, I hoped he was far away, nothing would be worse than him showing up while we were leaving.

            Mum didn’t clean up the shattered bottle or the shattered photo; she simply swept it against the wall and hurried back and forth down the hall franticly. I was lying on the couch, feeling slightly better after receiving a beer bottle to the head, but she kept insisting that I stayed there and tried to get some rest before we left.

            The table a few feet away from the front door was stacked with large piles of folded clothes, a few knick-knacks, blankets, pillows, photographs of me and mum, and mum’s handbag, which was over flowing with all of her things.

            On the ground were four large suitcases that mum was literally throwing things in, trying to squish it down to make more room to try and take as much as she could. She may have thought too far ahead because three suitcases were already over flowing with things, and yet there were piles of clothes on the table that were supposed to fit into the last one.

            “I think there’s a few other somewhere.” She whispered to herself as I approached her, she ran down the halfway and was opening lots of doors and slamming them shut. Her high heels rapidly beating the wooden floor, at this point I don’t think she would give a damn whether or not the dented the wood.

            I looked at a lot of the clothes. I doubt she needed all of it, but I thought better than to ask her as she looked extremely worried running back up the hallway with another two bags flailing in her hands. She hurled one into my chest, completely winding me, but forgetting this she started mumbling instructions to herself.

            “Okay, Winter, go to your room and get everything you need to take, all of your clothes, blankets, shoes, computer, everything.” I turned to walk towards my bedroom with the suitcase dragging at me feet, before she put another in my other hand. “You’ll probably need two,” She said. “Hurry!” I picked up the pace without making my head throb and opened my bedroom door.

            I lay the two suitcases open on my bed after taking off the sheets and folding them and placing them in one of the suitcases, and then ripped open my drawers; my colourful clothing pouring into my suitcase like a rainbow avalanche. Even though I was just packing, my heart was racing. Most likely the fact that this is the last time I’d be standing in this room, but also the thought that my father had actually tossed a beer bottle at me.

            After putting in all of my clothes perfectly and managing to get them into one suitcase, I started placing my pillows, computer and computer charger, my CD’s, games, iPod, everything that I would want to use for entertainment. Some of things I didn’t even know why I was packing, it was one of those situation where you keep thinking ‘Now, am I really going to be needing this?’ and only needing it once you’ve left it behind. But in this case, I threw everything in anyways.

            I zipped up the zips around three sides of each suitcase and leaned them against the doorway. As I turned around, it was actually quite scary to look at. The room was completely empty, except for the bed, the built in desk and the empty drawers. It was frightening how hollow it all was. Every day when I would walk in here, I was used to seeing all of my things where I’m used to them being, and it just felt so strange looking at it, empty.

            I walked over the window, this is probably going to sound extremely emotional, but I wanted to get one look out of the window onto the same lawn that I’ve looked through for sixteen years before I move away from it for good. There was something chilling about it, not the fact that this was it, just something odd, peculiar about leaving, that’s something to be expected though, especially the fact I’m leaving behind dad when he doesn’t even know, but it was something else, I couldn’t put my finger on it. But it was odd.

            I shut the curtains as the sun was setting. The sky was dark grey-blue and it would be night within an hour or so. The blinds shut down, and something I noticed fall from between the wall and the desk onto the floor at my feet. It was upside down, but it was obviously a photograph. As I turned it over, I had to look closely to look at the young faces that were visible in it. I was at the front; I must have been about two. Mum was holding me, she looked so happy with her nineties curly hair and high wasted shorts. Dad was behind her, with his arms around her waist, in a white wife-beater and short black shorts and jandlas, and a wedding ring gleaming on his left hand.

            Despite the past hour and despite the repulsion I felt to so many things in this photograph, I re-opened one of my suitcases, and rested it on one of the pillows. Whether mum would find out I had it or not, I’m taking it with me.

            I turned off the light, and shut the door, for the last time. Mum was calling me from the front door. I came down with my two suitcases.

            “Time to go.” She smiled weakly at me. I didn’t say anything, but just walked outside. Once I was standing on the stone path I turned. Mum had her back to me, and she was staring into the house. She mouthed something that looked like ‘Goodbye.’ And shut the front door. Not bothering to lock it. She carried four suitcases at once to the car, waddling like a speedy penguin, as I felt extremely slow walking normally behind her.        

            She opened the boot of her nice car and packed the cases in evenly. Then took mine and placed them on top. With a quick thud she slammed the boot closed and hugged me tightly. I hugged her back.

            “Thank you, Winter.” She said softly.

            “For what?”

            “Sticking up for me, and coming with me now.” She let go and look up at me, I forget sometimes that I’m a little bit taller than her.

            “You didn’t think I was going to stay here, did you?” I laughed. She smiled widely, and I could tell that that was a real smile in front of me. She ushered her head, and we hoped in her car and slammed the doors at the same time.

            She revved up the engine, we put on our seat belts, and the car began to reverse out of the driveway. The car turned left backwards, facing the end of the road, and stopped. Mum was just taking one last look of the house. I don’t really know how she would react to this, but the temptation was almost painful, before she drove off I wound down my window, stuck both hands out towards the house and ripped the bird with all my glory.

            “Winter!” I heard her growl, but when I turned to look at her, she was smiling, silently laughing at my affection to the house.

            “Not like I’m coming back anyway.” I said staring at the house, and we drove off. We turned the corner, and we were on our way to… We were on our way to go to… Why did I not ask myself this question before?

            “Mum, can I ask you something?”

            “Yea, sure.”

            “Where the hell are we going?” She paused. For this silence, I hoped she had some idea where we were going. Continues driving was not what I thought the idea of ‘making a run for it’ would be.

            “We’ll go stay at my friend’s house, Eloise.”

            “Is she the real-estate one?” I asked. Mum nodded. The good thing about Eloise’s house is that it was a decent drive away from dads. Even if he did try to come looking for us, he probably wouldn’t know where to find us. He was one of those men who rolled their eyes when his wife would tell him she was going to catch up with one of her girlfriends, and would never take notice of anything to do with them, which was an advantage at this stage.

            Driving with mum wasn’t particularly the most eventful occasion. Apart from listening to music or watching movies, (all of which were stored in the boot) there wasn’t really a lot to talk about. Talking about running away was not perhaps the most appealing topic to bring up. Nor was marriage, violence and lies. So really the only conventional thing to do was to ask how long we had to go left.     

            “Maybe about half an hour. Try and get some sleep, I’ll wake you up when we’re there.” Mum answered me.

            “Does she know we’re coming?”

            “Kind of. I’ve told her that we’re on our way, she just doesn’t know why.” I mumbled under my breath and grabbed one of the pillows she had put in the back seat, tilted the seat back and rested my head on it. Only now did I actually realize how tired I was. Once my eyes shut, there was no opening them. The awful feeling of the car swerving and the weak light of street lamps on my eyelids were far from worrying me by this point. I actually felt relaxed for the first time in days.

            Imagining what dad would think when he arrived back to find his bedroom and mine stripped of almost everything in it. The shattered glass still stationary on the floor. I wonder if he’ll even be able to remember it. Probably say something like ‘Good riddance.’ Or something, then invite his new girlfriend over to have pity sex. I wonder what she would think when she sees the broken house. Maybe she’ll leave him, or maybe she’ll assume someone broke in, I don’t know. Whatever it is I don’t care.

            Call me stupid, call me pathetic and dramatic, but through the crack in my eyes, I scrolled through the contacts on my phone. Selected ‘Dad’ and clicked ‘Delete’. I was not going to need that any longer. I felt a little lighter. Knowing that I now had no means of contact to him, and I can finally stop thinking about him.

            When the contact had been removed, the next few contacts came up on the screen. The bottom read ‘Francesca.’ Oh god. I felt heavy again, and sad. I’ve left being Franc, and she doesn’t even know what happened. She’ll go to school tomorrow and wonder ‘Where’s Winter?’ and I’ll call her and tell her that I’ll most likely never see her again because I was abused by my father and now me and mum are on the run for it. Some part of me knows she’ll feel awful, sad and fuming, but other parts of me feels that she’ll be glad we’re gone for our safety, glad that we managed to get away, that we were safe. But none of that seemed to have any help on the fact that I still feel guilty.

            I couldn’t help it. I opened up contacts again, scrolled down to Francesca and clicked ‘Compose new message.’ The blank screen showed up and I began to write.

            “I’m sorry Franc.” She’ll probably assume the worst when she wakes up tomorrow to see a message received at eleven o’clock. But that’s okay, because I’ll be able to describe to her what happened. Maybe even Eloise has a phone and I could call her, I just had to convince myself that she wouldn’t be upset or angry with me.

            My eyes were so sore from keeping them open; I couldn’t manage to stay awake anymore. They dropped down four times as quickly as it took me to open them, so I decided that I’ll sleep, and wake up to mum and we’ll worry about everything else then.

            Just before I fell asleep, I was awoken by a vibration on my phone which seemed two times as worse than usual. She texted back quickly didn’t she? I thought to myself.  I clicked the middle button to read the message Franc replied to me. It took about two seconds before the screen came up, but when it did, my stomach lurched when the dim screen lit up reading four irritating words.

 

Low Battery. Powering Off.

 

            My eyes opened. I looked down at my hand and saw that it was empty; my phone had fallen down the side of the car chair. Did I actually fall asleep? I don’t remember.

            I was still in the car I noticed. Mum wasn’t in the driver’s seat, there was a blanket over me, and as I looked out the car’s window, I didn’t really recognize the roof entirely. Obviously we had arrived at Eloise’s, and mum would have slept inside and decided not to disturb me and left me to sleep. The sky was grey, either from rain clouds or it was early in the morning. Judging by the dew on the front lawn as I leaned up, I assumed it was around seven or eight in the morning.

            The car doors were locked, and there was a not on mum’s seat with ‘Winter.’ Written on the front folded side. I picked it up, it was mums handwriting. It wasn’t a very long letter.

‘Winter, this is Eloise’s house. I’m not sure whether you recognize it or not, but when you wake up, come and knock on the door. Either me or Eloise or Eloise husband will answer the door, they’ll make you feel at home.

Love mum x’

I looked back up at the front door, and then to the kitchen window which had a series of pot plants growing there. The curtains were open form the inside from what I could see, so I may as well go inside.

When I opened the car door, a strong gust of freezing cold air seemed to grab me at every inch of my bar arms and face. I shut the door loudly, maybe they’d know I was awake, and ran up to the front door shivering. I knocked on the door three times and waited a moment.

Eloise’s front garden look stereotypically like a real estate agent’s garden would look like. Regardless of the fact that there house wasn’t for sale, they obviously didn’t neglect their bushes and flowers as everything was almost perfect, the shrubs were all cut down to perfect squares and the cobbled driveway looked brand new despite the amount of years they may have lived here.

The door handle clicked and a woman with shoulder length red hair in a pink dressing-gown appeared peering through the door. She paused but then smiled weakly.

“Winter!” She said and opened the door, grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me inside. Her house was so bloody toasty, who the hell would need to go outside? “Come in, come in.” she ushered me into the kitchen which was a doorway right next to the front door. As predicted, almost everything in her kitchen was stainless steel. Shining brand-new, clean as can be and not a single dirty dish in sight.

She began to boil the kettle and took down two cups hanging on hooks above it.

“Tea?” She asked. I nodded and she began to put tea bags into the cups and a couple of teaspoons of sugar in the cups. As I looked around her clean home, I realized that we were the only ones here.

“Where’s mum?” I asked.

“She’s in the guest room love. She crashed very quickly, but she told us to let you in in the morning.” She passed me the cup of tea and I took a sip. I thought it would taste metallic like almost everything she had on display, but it was actually really nice, one of those cups of tea that you felt like you really needed.

“Are you alright?” She ask leaning against the counter.

“Yea. I’m fine.” She pulled out a chair that was in front of me underneath the counter to sit down. I took it kindly and she walked back to the other side.

“About your dad and stuff. Your mum didn’t really tell us very clearly, but I know that there was a bit of trouble.”

“Well, yea. A bit.” If you called trouble hurling a beer bottle at your sons head ‘trouble’ I felt where the bottle had actually hit me, I flinched. There was a really large bump and the tiniest amount of pressure on it really hurt. Eloise seemed to notice this.

“What’s that?” She was pointing at the bump.

“I hit my head.” I lied, trying to sound sure that it was nothing. But she came over to me and had a look. She was making several noises that sounded like ‘Ooooh.’ ‘Aaaah.’ ‘Gosh!’ as she looked at it. Obviously I couldn’t see it, maybe it was red or there was some kind of deep gash on it that I couldn’t see. But I felt her fingers pinch and area close to the bump. She put her fingers on the table and dropped what she had grabbed, a tiny shard of brown glass.

“Did he throw something at you?” She asked concerned.

“A beer bottle.” I said. “It didn’t hit me very hard, but it shattered.”

“Didn’t hit you very hard?” she repeated, “I think you’ll find that to break glass it needs to be hit quite hard.” She walked back to the other side of the counter. “At least you’re alright love. Gave me a bit of a scare getting that text from your mum though, didn’t quite know what to think.” I hardly knew this woman and her attempts to make general conversation weren’t working very well. I wasn’t saying anything because it was a bit too awkward. And I was distracted by a lot of her family photographs that looked like her as a young girl with other siblings.

And then I remember the photograph in my suit case. I hope it’s still okay. I wouldn’t mind keeping that photo safe.

“I’ll go and see if your mum’s awake.” I nodded and she waddled out of the room, scuffing her feet on the linoleum with her slippers.

It sort of felt like an old person’s house. The smell, the photos, the books that were on the bookshelves, the lacy placemats on the dinner table. You think that a lot of people actually have this, and yet I wonder why they associate it with old people, Eloise wasn’t even that old; she was about mum’s age. But I guess with all of the new and improved appliances and home needs and being a real estate agent she almost has to keep up with the latest designs.

I reached into my pocket to pull out my phone, but then remembered that it died. Franc’s probably sent me ten text’s freaking out as to what was happening. I still felt really awful. I’d have to get the charger from my suitcase when mum comes in to charge it.

A sliding door in the lounge slid open and a man with short hair, a grey T-Shirt and black shorts, all of which looked like they had been whipped with paint brushes, took off his gumboots outside and stepped in. I sort of just stood there, he looked at me a bit confused and I didn’t say anything. God this was awkward.

“Hello.” He said. His voice sounded uneasy. I took a gulp of tea.

“Hi.” I replied.

“And you are…?” He trailed off.

“Winter. I’m China’s son.” I said quietly, still sitting in the chair drinking from my tea.

“Oh right!” He jerked his head backwards and walked into the kitchen, pulled a cup down for himself, and turned on the kettle. “I’m Luke, Eloise’s husband. How are you Winter?” He smiled.

“I’m fine thank you.” He was a typical kind of ‘bloke’ that was into a construction kind of business. Not only were his clothes stereotypical, he had stubble that was the same length as his shaven head, hairy legs and dirty hands that seemed almost impossible get any cleaner. It was funny how well couples like him and Eloise get on seeing as though they’re almost complete opposites. But it was almost normal for them to have that kind of relationship.

“Where’s your mum?” He asked pouring boiling water into his cup. But Eloise came back into the kitchen followed by mum. Her hair was quite messy and she was wearing exactly what she was yesterday, except for her shoes.

“Winter!” Mum called out and rushed over to hug me. I just sat there awkwardly and said nothing. She seemed to hug me for so long. Eloise and Luke had said hello to each other, Luke had offered Eloise another drink and they began to get out frying pans and eggs from the pantry.

“Staying for breakfast?” Eloise said to mum.

“Uh, I don’t think we will.” Mum said. I was so hungry, she had to say no didn’t she?

“Come on!” said Luke reassuringly with his deep voice, “You can’t call scrambled eggs delicious until you’ve eating Eloise’s.” Mum hesitated and looked at me, I didn’t want her to see my expression as I was so hungry, and she’d end up feeling bad for saying no.

“Oh, all right.” She said. Eloise starting preparing the food, and Luke began to make mum a hot coffee. I took this chance to ask mum for the keys to the car. She gave me them with the main key sticking up and I ran outside. The icy weather seemed six times as worse than what it was when I first came in. It took me a couple of try’s to unlock the boot through shivering arms to get to the suitcases. I grabbed one of my ones; I didn’t know what order they were in. I zipped it open and all it had was blankets and my clothes. Damn, now I’ve got to rearrange the cases. I zipped it back shut and pulled it out onto the driveway. Then, the one sitting underneath it was in reach. I pulled it up to rest on the edge of the boot and zipped it open.

There was my computer, computer charger, games, CD’s, my shoes a couple of knick knacks that I had. And that was it. I rummaged through it again, but there was no phone charger in there.

It wouldn’t be in mums, these were the only suitcases I used. F**k! I left my phone charger behind! S**t, s**t, s**t! It was probably under my stupid bed! Why didn’t I think to look under it! What else was under there that I needed? I can’t believe I did that! DAMN!

I angrily threw the suitcases untidily back into the boot and slammed it shut, locking it angrily. I marched back inside and gave mum her keys.

“What’s wrong?” She asked taking the keys with a half drunk cup of coffee close to her mouth.

“I left my phone charger at dads.” I said grumpily. Five bet’s she’ll ask me if I look properly.

“Well did you look in your suitcases properly?” Told you.

“Yes mum, I did. It’s not there. It will be under my bed; we can’t go back and get it!” Mum didn’t say anything, she obviously didn’t care that much, but was trying to sympathise with me for the time being.

“Sweetie, it’ll be fine. You can use my phone if you like?” She went into her bag to get it out.

“You don’t have the numbers that I need, and my phone doesn’t use a SIM card.” Stupid a*s technology, you learn to love it until it screws you around, and then you just want to smash it all. I sat at the opposite side of the table that Luke was sitting at. Eloise was sitting in the middle drinking tea and getting up occasionally to look at the eggs that were cooking on low.

“What about their home number?” Mum suggested. I don’t really understand why she was suggesting this, because how often do you get a teenager using a home phone? Not very often. If we pay money to get free texting every month, we don’t see a point in using home phones, I don’t even know if Franc has one.

“I don’t know if they have one.”

“Who is it?” Eloise asked. I sort of got wondered why she even cared, “If I’ve worked for them before, I might have their contact details written down.” I almost leapt out of my chair happily.

“Her name is Francesca Joy.” Eloise thought to herself for a moment.

“Do you know her parent’s names?” I shook my head, and she walked over to the wooden bread case next to the kettle. In between the case and the wall was a neat pile of books and opened envelopes. She took a blue book and flicked through the pages constantly muttering ‘Joy, Joy, Joy,’ as she flicked past the centre of the book.

I had my fingers crossed as she stopped on one page and read down it with her index finger, hoping she would stop and say ‘Ah, here it is. Joy.’ But her mouth twisted at the edge and she said:

“Ah, I’ve only got Joyce and Joy-Smith.” I shouldn’t have got my hopes up then.

“You’ll be able to get hold of her somehow.” Mum tried to reassure me. How though? The only way I could was to write a letter and send it to her, which wasn’t a particularly a bad idea, but it’d take longer and from what I can remember, there isn’t a post office anywhere near here.

“Maybe I can just, buy a new charger or something.”

“Would mine fit yours?” Mum offered. I shook my head and she took another large gulp of coffee. “We better be off then.” Mum said as Eloise was putting back the book and pouring the scrambled eggs onto a piece of toast for everyone.

“But you haven’t eaten anything yet?” Eloise said sadly.

“I know but-” Even though mum would resist eating the food, I knew that the level of kindness and hospitality Eloise and Luke had they weren’t going to let her leave without a full stomach, which I can barely argue with.

“Just stay for breakfast, and then you cam be on your way.” Mum agreed, and sat opposite where Eloise would sit at the table. Eloise served us a piece of toast each, which didn’t seem like much, but was actually really filling. Luke was right; you don’t know what good scrambled eggs tasted like until you ate Eloise’s, they were amazing.

We ate talking about casual things, majority I didn’t care about, and mum was listening to Eloise talk about business and retail and a bunch of other crap I didn’t understand. But the talk of houses brought up the idea that neither I nor mum had any idea where we were going.

“Mum,” I asked, she let Eloise finish talking before paying attention to me, “We still don’t have anywhere to stay.” I could tell that she was trying to avoid thinking about this, and wanted to worry about that when it came to the time of needing somewhere, which was a complete bullshit plan if you ask me.

“I don’t know. Maybe we can find a hotel and stay there until we can get sorted.” Eloise almost chocked on her tea as mum said this.

“You’re going to s-stay in a hot-tel?” She chocked.

“Well, we don’t have anywhere else to stay, and we don’t have any beds or anything.” Eloise jumped to her feet almost knocking over her chair and hurried out of the kitchen.

“Where’s she going?” I asked. Luke shrugged; he too was clearly confused to his wife’s apparent idea. When Eloise came back, she was holding a piece of paper that had some pictures and words on the side facing her. However this was going to help us, I didn’t know.

“There’s an apartment building on Moore lane in Strensall that I have to put on the market in the next few months, you could stay in there! I can postpone the market date as long as you need to get on your feet and once you’re ready, you can move out!”

Thank Jesus, a place to live, well, kind of. Strensall, where was that?

“Strensall is about an hour’s drive from here. It’s not far from York.” Mum looked so much more relaxed. I felt it too; we wouldn’t have to live in a s****y little motel for months, surviving of what little we would have. And Eloise is a real estate agent, she could help us! At least this day was getting better.

“Thank you much! But,” mum began, please take this mum! “We don’t have any beds or furniture to sleep in?”

“I can call a couple of my mates to come over in an hour or so,” Luke began, “we can drive round to Blake’s place and take all the furniture that you need?” and then it just got a bit better again, my own bed, they’d be able to get my bed! And my charger!
            “Do you think you could please get my phone charger from under the bed then?” I asked Luke. He nodded happily and took out his phone, put it up to his ear and left the room. I didn’t even notice Eloise leave the room, but when she came back, she was holding a small silver key, and handed it to mum.

“That’s the key to the apartment. Its room number seventeen. I’ll write a letter to whoever is there to tell them that you’ll be staying there, they should be fine with it.” Mum smiled at me, and I smiled back, thank f*****g Christ for Eloise and Luke. I’ll be able to get used to living with just mum for once in my life, and actually enjoy it. And I can start fresh, although I’ve moved so much in my life, at least this time it will be for good.

Author's Note

This is the longest I've wrote so far :o all reviews will be much appreciated :)

Reviews

[Gregory]

Loving where this is going. I'm not sure if this is something that is personal to you or anything, but it most definitely seems like you are in touch with your main character I so deeply, and I envy this about you. I'd never be able to achieve that. So congrats, mate. This is amazing.

[Coyote Poetry]

A very good chapter. Moving is always hard. I like the thoughts and the conversation in this chapter. Thank you for the excellent chapter.
Coyote