Little Update
Just popping in to put up a very small chunk of story.
It's the next piece, and very small, but I didn't want to group it with the next excerpt. So, it gets to float on its own.
Once I clean up the next piece a bit, I'll post it. Maybe again tonight, if I write a bit more and get the time.
Whoop.
I learned soon after the incident with the rehabbing letter, that I could indeed feel again, and that I would often wished that I couldn’t. I could feel again, but not in the same way that I had before. It was as if being asleep for that long had damaged something permanently. Nothing felt quite right. Everything inside me felt sharp, or unfamiliar, or staticky, no matter whether it was anger, happiness, or otherwise. Everything hurt a little bit.
It seemed that my mother was going through her own version of what was happening to me, finding herself just as strange and different from what she had lived before. She was not the same woman anymore, I felt as though I was getting to know a stranger. It made me worry, and I can only imagine that my sisters felt the same way about it. Eventually, I became used to her looking spooked and distant, and complaining about how ‘David’s house’ haunted her. The woman who sang in the kitchen was never seen anymore, and I soon began to forget that she ever really existed.
The day that she came home smiling was so out of the ordinary, then, that I actually found myself a little frightened.
She seemed happy, and she almost bounced as she walked through the house. We were at her sister’s home again that day, spending the weekend there since there was no school.
“Hello everyone!”
There was a little music in her voice, cheery where she usually exuded exhaustion upon getting home from work. Aunt Carmela looked up from her book and over her glasses, her eyebrows so high that it wrinkled her forehead.
“You get paid today or something, hermanita?”
“Nope!”
I could only wonder if my mother knew some joke that none of us were picking up on, by the way she acted. Dancing away, she disappeared into the spare room, where we stayed while visiting, for most of the night. By the time we saw her again before bed, I had forgotten about it, because her attitude had pretty much returned to normal. I don’t think any of us thought anything of it again until a few weeks later, when she didn’t come home from work when she should have.
When we asked Aunt Carmela where our mother was, she didn’t seem worried, and explained that she was just going out with friends and would be back much later. That night, I couldn’t sleep, and my irrational worry that she wasn’t coming home at all that night came true. It wasn’t until breakfast the next morning that she came whirling into the house, finally abating my fears that I had lost another parent.
Again she looked as if she had some great private joke that she was keeping, but this time, my aunt followed her into the other room, presumably to finally be let in on what the big secret was. Part of me wanted to know, and the other part inexplicably did not.
The trend continued, and us kids could do nothing but grow accustomed to it. We had gotten good at that, whether we liked it or not. Just follow the adults, and life in general, and go along with whatever was going on. We had no power, no voice or control over fate, and we could only blindly hope that the adults knew what they were doing.
Mom sometimes came home, and sometimes didn’t. When I did see her, she often seemed distracted. Most of her was there in front of me, but part of her was somewhere far away. I was fairly certain that, whatever she had been looking for and missing since the accident, she had finally found it.
It's the next piece, and very small, but I didn't want to group it with the next excerpt. So, it gets to float on its own.
Once I clean up the next piece a bit, I'll post it. Maybe again tonight, if I write a bit more and get the time.
Whoop.
I learned soon after the incident with the rehabbing letter, that I could indeed feel again, and that I would often wished that I couldn’t. I could feel again, but not in the same way that I had before. It was as if being asleep for that long had damaged something permanently. Nothing felt quite right. Everything inside me felt sharp, or unfamiliar, or staticky, no matter whether it was anger, happiness, or otherwise. Everything hurt a little bit.
It seemed that my mother was going through her own version of what was happening to me, finding herself just as strange and different from what she had lived before. She was not the same woman anymore, I felt as though I was getting to know a stranger. It made me worry, and I can only imagine that my sisters felt the same way about it. Eventually, I became used to her looking spooked and distant, and complaining about how ‘David’s house’ haunted her. The woman who sang in the kitchen was never seen anymore, and I soon began to forget that she ever really existed.
The day that she came home smiling was so out of the ordinary, then, that I actually found myself a little frightened.
She seemed happy, and she almost bounced as she walked through the house. We were at her sister’s home again that day, spending the weekend there since there was no school.
“Hello everyone!”
There was a little music in her voice, cheery where she usually exuded exhaustion upon getting home from work. Aunt Carmela looked up from her book and over her glasses, her eyebrows so high that it wrinkled her forehead.
“You get paid today or something, hermanita?”
“Nope!”
I could only wonder if my mother knew some joke that none of us were picking up on, by the way she acted. Dancing away, she disappeared into the spare room, where we stayed while visiting, for most of the night. By the time we saw her again before bed, I had forgotten about it, because her attitude had pretty much returned to normal. I don’t think any of us thought anything of it again until a few weeks later, when she didn’t come home from work when she should have.
When we asked Aunt Carmela where our mother was, she didn’t seem worried, and explained that she was just going out with friends and would be back much later. That night, I couldn’t sleep, and my irrational worry that she wasn’t coming home at all that night came true. It wasn’t until breakfast the next morning that she came whirling into the house, finally abating my fears that I had lost another parent.
Again she looked as if she had some great private joke that she was keeping, but this time, my aunt followed her into the other room, presumably to finally be let in on what the big secret was. Part of me wanted to know, and the other part inexplicably did not.
The trend continued, and us kids could do nothing but grow accustomed to it. We had gotten good at that, whether we liked it or not. Just follow the adults, and life in general, and go along with whatever was going on. We had no power, no voice or control over fate, and we could only blindly hope that the adults knew what they were doing.
Mom sometimes came home, and sometimes didn’t. When I did see her, she often seemed distracted. Most of her was there in front of me, but part of her was somewhere far away. I was fairly certain that, whatever she had been looking for and missing since the accident, she had finally found it.