Immortality

For the better part of a lifetime, my father bought into mainstream media.  Sitting on his saggy sofa, flipping through channels, checking tickers, taking mental notes of who was wrecking the world.  

"These Muslims are going to come over here and take our freedom," he would whine, dinner warmly waiting in front of him, the white plate laden with meat and gravy.

"Most religions take away some freedoms dad," little Jamie echoed from the side.  She always knew how to knock dad off his news line.

"A good Christian upbringing would've done you good."

"And a bad one would've done me bad, your point?"

"Jamie, you're just like your mother, you don't know when to shut the f**k up."

"Stop," I demanded, dinner halting for that one second.  Hollow echoes haunting the once clinking china.

Talking about mom was like mentioning massacre in front of a flashback-prone Vietnam vet.  

"They can't just come over here and take our liberty."  Dad hacked at his pork, tearing the pinkish flesh to riveted pieces.

"We went into Afghanistan and Iraq, took out political systems that had been in place for some time, we bomb, they bomb," Jamie fought; she never knew when to water the plants and when to let them shrivel.

"Well, evil isn't going to get rid of itself."

"So life is that worthless to you?"

"How do you care about the people who kill people like us?"

"I said stop," my words created silence, the clinking stopping  in shivering reverberations.

"She's gone, you just need to understand that," Jamie began, looking up at me with her slanted silver eyes.  Some fox feeding her eternal need to fight everything.

"What is fighting with dad fixing?"

"He's an a*****e."

"What did you just call me," dad joined in, his invitation held tightly in his lips.

"An a*****e."

"Stop it you f*****g morons."  They stopped, I stood, left them staring at my surrendering figure.  Upstairs I searched for relief in a book, bleeding heart propaganda for love and loneliness.

Her picture was still in the hallway, hanging right across from my door dangling on the hinge.  Her smile wide with anticipation, witnessing her son with his first real job, taking portraits of people, his studio freshly whitewashed.

"I'm proud of you," she said, turning in her chair, choosing how to lay her hair.

"Thanks mom, but stop moving," I laughed, focusing the lens for distance, clarity, choosing what way to turn.

"Don't worry so much, you look like you're performing brain surgery."

"Well I'm sorry, I'll just snap it and say f**k it.  Or I'll do a good job."

"That's my boy, but really, don't stress over this."

"You'll do fine, you care, you're good at what you do."

The flash went off, the room whiter, witnessing the scene of what would be our last conversation.  A kiss on the cheek, like warm toast, her chapped lips tickling my cheek.  She was gone.

"Eric?" Jamie's form, long and scrawny, scrunched hair, stood in front of mom's picture, like a reject reincarnation.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be, I understand.  It was easier before."

"He doesn't understand the world.  Mom did, and she balanced it out."

"I understand, please."

"Eric," Jamie whimpered.  The tears titillated her eyes like glitter dancing defiantly.

"She isn't dead, she just left for a while."

"No one leaves and doesn't say where they're going, not if they love you."

"She'll come back Jamie.  She's left before."

"She left for a weekend, it's been over a month."

"Look, I know the f*****g situation Jamie.  I know we're fucked.  Now stop reminding me."

"Dick," she said, slamming the door.  Mom's face gone just like her, the ghost of the image graining into my mind.  And none of it matter, she'd manifest herself, maybe someday. 

After a whole year, yelling, venting, breaking, we gave up.  I moved out, a small apartment in bumblefuck with Jamie, just close enough to home to make sure dad didn't drown himself in dishwater. 

"When are you going to start looking for a job?" Jamie asked, washing her hands.

"When someone is hiring."

"We can't afford this, s**t I can't.  I'm paying for rent, food.  I'm not your mother."

"We both know that."

"Get the f**k over it, she left."

"I can't."

"Pretend she died," Jamie muttered, "that's what I do."

We both sat at the counter, staring blankly at shadows on the walls, memories.

"If she died, I would know she was gone," I started, slowly choosing my words like poison, "but I know she is still somewhere, I still know her, and she is here.  If she was dead, she would be gone, but Jamie, she's not."

"I know," her words echoed in the empty house, the two of us twisting and tangling our fingers, trying to repair the spaces in between them.