Her Room

The first thing my eyes stick to when I walk in is the signature on her own painting on the back wall of the room. I can’t help but say it out loud.

          McClain Mattens.

Her name is one that naturally demands whoever says it out loud to couple first and last together, as if addressing her only by first name doesn't suit the grandeur of her personality. Being her younger sister, she’s only known to me as McClain, but a certain reverence still fills the air every time her name rolls off the tip of my tongue.

       Sometimes I wonder if my parents gave her a name as unique as McClain because they knew she'd be enough of an individual to deserve it or if it was the other way around. Maybe once she was old enough, McClain realized her name demanded a personality worthy of it, so she molded herself to fit. Either way, my parent’s creativity must have dwindled in the year and a half separating our entries into the world. She got McClain, I got Samantha. Most people call me Sam.

The painting bearing her name is large and abstract, filled with streaks of blues, greys, and greens of all different shades. A darkness consumes the bottom left-hand corner, but when I scan across the painting, as if reading a book, the darkness fades and new colors emerge from it in bursts, swirls, and waves, becoming lighter and lighter until they reach the opposite corner of the painting. I walk over and place my hand on the canvas. The dried oil paint is rough under my fingers; I feel every stroke she made. I step back and study it once more. Tilt my head to the right and it’s a thunderstorm, to the left and it’s a waterfall, and if I squint, the colors blend together and it becomes a slow river on a cloudy day.

The rest of the walls are completely covered in all sorts of things. Maps, new and old, zoomed in and zoomed out. Pictures--mostly Polaroids--, full of her friends, favorite places, objects and strangers. There are quilts, intricate tapestries, dream catchers, lamps, globes, candles, and items that have no name to describe them. How an eighteen-year-old got hands on such a collection is out of my understanding.

I make my way around the room, touching my hand over everything to take it all in, to take her in. The thin layers of dust my fingers wipe off fills the morning sunlight. I eventually find her desk, plain and brown, decorated by only an innocent desk journal and pen. Its simplicity sticks out like a sore thumb in the cluster that is her room. But, the journal itself is not ordinary. It is new and bound by string, with a label reading to Sam, from McClain. My stomach drops.

I collapse into the desk chair and rip off the string, but I don’t open it yet. The answers, answers I may not be ready for, could be inside. Where she went, why she went, what she’s doing. So close. I open it. Her loopy cursive handwriting fills part of the first page.

                 Sam,

Happy 16th birthday, kid. I give this to you in hopes that you’ll  actually use it.

                    I know that you’ve always been an old soul, but don’t forget to be 16 while  

                  you’re 16. If you’re too busy living for the future you’ll forget how to live in the

                    present. Go make some memories, please, and record them all here.

-McClain Mattens

The rest of the journal is empty. No answers. This doesn’t make sense, My birthday was two months ago, so she either left this here for me to find or meant to come back and give it to me in person. If she wanted me to find it, why the hell would she not tell me where she was going in it? By this point I’m pacing around her room, journal in hand. The scene of her leaving replays in my head.

A firm nudge wakes me up.

“Sam, wake up, wake up. I need you to listen to me.” It’s hard to focus on her without my glasses, but I can tell she’s rushed because her long brown hair lies unkempt across her shoulders. She wears a Greenpoint University hoodie, the school she committed to a month beforehand, and blue jeans.

“Wait, McClain, what time is it?,”

“Doesn’t matter. Look, I have to go, no time to explain. I’ll be--”

“Where are you go--,” she puts her hand over my mouth.

“Shut up for once, please. Something came up, or happened, I...doesn’t matter. Can’t explain. I’ll be back in a few weeks I think, just in time for your birthday, okay?”

I nod. Her deep blue eyes stare into me. Tears start to form, but she wipes them away.  

“God, I hate to leave like this. I love you, kid. Know that.”

She kisses the top of my head, gets up, goes to the doorway, and looks at me one last time over her shoulder. Even though she’s still blurry, I see her more clearly than ever. Something about her, right here and now, is real. No jokes or ego to hide behind, just McClain.

“Bye, Sam.”

The door clicks shut and I hear footsteps echo as she goes down the stairs, but instead of hearing the front door slam shut I hear mumbles of conversation between her and my parents.  Voices get louder and it’s clear to me that they’re arguing. I roll off my bed and put my ear to the floor; their room is right below mine. I still can’t understand much, though. I think I hear my mom say something along the lines of “NO, you can’t,” then some more, but I can’t make it out. More undecipherable conversation happens, but the last words said are loud enough I hear every one loud and clear.

“I’M 18. You can’t stop me! I’m sorry, but I have to.”

All conversation stops, and a moment later she slams the front door shut. Gone, just like that.

I’m still pacing. Confusion creeps its way back into my head. If she left the journal here for me, then she must have known she wouldn’t be back in a few weeks. Or, she could have planned on being back around my birthday and left it there in case she was a few days late. If that was the case, something had to have happened to her. She could be hurt, or missing, or dead. I’ve always known that was a possibility, but since my birthday, I just figured she found herself somewhere out there and decided to travel the world rather than coming back to Hopewell. It’s easier to imagine her lounging on the white sand beaches of Bora Bora, living off her ability to charm people, rather than picturing her cold, alone, and afraid somewhere where she’s in real danger.

My thoughts are interrupted by a loud crash from the kitchen followed by a select few words I’d rather not repeat from my mother. It reminds me that they need to see this. I rush downstairs to find my mom in the kitchen sweeping up pieces of a broken plate. She wears a large blue t-shirt that says “Property of Hopewell High” and pajama pants, her brown hair streaked with grey pulled back in a messy bun. My father lays on the living room couch, a sharp-cornered, hard-cushioned thing that reminds me of the house itself, reading Fly Fishing For Beginners.

“Well you’re up early,” he chimes. “Your mom’s clumsiness wake you up?”

“Oh be quiet, Brian. It was that damn cat’s fault.”

“No it was something else.” I put the journal down on the kitchen table. “Look at this.” They see the seriousness in my face and hurry over. My father pulls his glasses down to

the tip of his nose and his eyebrows pull together. My mom’s hand covers her mouth.

“You went in her room,” she says. I nod.

A look comes over their faces, pulling them back to the reality of our situation. The masks they’ve been wearing for the past three months fall off.

“This, it...it could mean nothing. Like we said before, she told us all she had to leave. She’s 18, we couldn’t stop her and we can’t make her come back.”

“Yeah but Dad, there’s so much we don’t know. You two, you gave up so easily!” I slam my hand down. Mom starts to cry.“You realize she could be hurt, or dead, or worse. We’re all living in some fake world pretending everything is going to be fine and that she’s gonna show up any day now!”

“Well what do you suggest then?” he rebuts. “We did try, why don’t you see that? We looked for her name on buses, planes, taxis, everything. No McClain. She traveled under a fake name, there’s no place to start. Police won’t investigate because she’s 18 and left willingly. They have too many of these kinds of cases to count. You know these things. What’s changed all the sudden for you, huh?”

“GUILT, Dad. Curiosity, I don’t know. There have to be answers somewhere. There have to be. If it were me missing she’d do everything in her power to find answers.”

That’s it. I have to do what she would do.

My dad tries to have the last word but I’m already heading towards the door. I hear him yell “Some things are out of our control! Accept it!” But by that point I’m on my bike and pulling into the street. I pedal hard and my lungs burn. My mind slows down for once. I don’t think about where I’m going or why or how, but I know it’s a step. A step toward answers.