Chapter 4

“Rested,” I lied and nodded, as I sat facing the breakfast buffet. Usually I would grab everything in front of me, but it was all too much to take in.

I lost my mom and my home (I couldn’t go back in there. Not live there without Mom) on the same night and after spending a night away from the place that it happened, I didn’t feel any better. Why should I? It wouldn't bring her back.

“I didn’t sleep at all. All this was going on with my twin sister and I was out there….”

I choked, “All this was going on and I lived in the same house.”

I stood up in the noisy restaurant and swallowed the ball of grief in my throat down. I saw the food spread out in front of me and began to reach for things, as if my mom hadn’t just died and guilt didn’t consume me. I did what I’d done so recently and tried to drown the weight of guilt out with the weight of food. When I first came into the room I didn’t feel like eating, now I couldn’t think of anything more welcoming than the crispy bacon in front of me, and enough pastries to put my local bakery out of business. My favorites, cherry and raspberry strudels were in front of me and I couldn’t think of anything better than just eating, eating, and eating.

I grabbed everything I saw and put it on one plate. I didn’t have an appetite to eat all of the food I’d collected because I was hungry. No, I had an appetite because I was an emotional wreck and food would sooth me.  

I sat down, my mind empty except for the vision of the food in front of me, and I ate. I started to feel like an empty shell on the beach. I could hear echoes and waves, those were the sounds that others were making in the restaurant, but I was invisible to them.

I didn’t even notice if Aunt Rose or Uncle Graham were still seated at the table.

I just didn’t care. I had this crazy reasoning that if I ate, then all my troubles would go away. I stopped when reality invaded and I realized that not only did I feel sick after what must have been my tenth piece of bacon, but the strudels, which would normally curb my sweet tooth, didn’t do their usual job. Mom wasn’t coming back, no matter how much I ate, and our house wasn’t going to be home, not anymore.

A wave of tears entered my eyes ready to flood out in a wave of devastating grief.

That’s when I felt a hand on mine and I turned to face the owner of it, to discover that it was Uncle Graham.

“Hey,” he whispered, probably unsure what to say after that. But in some crazy way it made me feel better, knowing that I wasn’t alone even if it was for a little while.

“Rose’s gone to see how much of your things she can get out of the house. We don’t think that it’s a good idea for you to go back now. Well, not right away, it was probably the reason why you had the nightmare in the car?”

I nodded, thinking that I didn’t want anything from that house near me right now. Photos of Mom, maybe, but then again, I had a ton of pictures of her on my phone. My mind was racing about all the things that I could want and if I really needed them.

But my thoughts were interrupted as Graham said, “You don’t need to worry about a thing, baby girl.”

I had to look up to him, to figure out if he was patronizing me or if, in his own kind of way, he was trying to comfort me.

As I saw his normally sky-blue eyes turn dull, I knew that it was the latter. He was trying to find comfort in his words and for the second time since I heard that he wanted to be a rapper, I doubted his ability to express himself.

I shook my head thinking about my thoughts — bad, ungrateful thoughts that wanted to lash out and take my misery out on Graham.

“So, not fair,” he sighed.

“Why?” was the only word that muttered out of my mouth. I realized that he didn’t understand what I’d actually meant. He thought I’d asked him why because of what he’d said.

“I know that you're probably beating yourself up about the whole thing, but hey, we’re just as much to blame. Rose thinks that she should have been supporting Lily more and she should have been here for you. Hell, they’re both my older sisters, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t do something for them in return. Instead of always waiting for them to do it for me. I’m a grown man for crying out loud.”

We were talking more now than we’d done in the last few years. That’s the thing about grief. I remembered seeing Gran’s friends so many times in the past and never having a real conversation with them. But when she died, and they all came to the funeral? That was when we really had conversations. Not the usual ones, that we’d had in the past. ´How’s things going dear?´, then I would respond, ´Fine.´ They told me things that I’d told Gran that she passed on to them, about which grade I was in, things like that, before she died.

After she died we spent our time reminiscing about her. Her smile. Her laugh. Especially about her kind heart. That was what Uncle G and I were doing now, talking as if we’d just met and we were talking about things that we’d never done in the past.

“All I ever thought about was my career. That was the center of my world and part of me would forget to ask her how she was. Or even you, how you’re all doing. Selfish, right?”

I wasn’t going to let him take the fall for that one. Sure, I was still at home, but I wasn’t really a kid. I didn’t have to act like one.

“We’re nearly the same age. We have more in common than the oldies. I could have picked up the phone and talked to you. I mean there was never anything to stop me from reaching out to you or Aunt Rose and saying the situation in the house sucks. We really need help! With Aunt Rose, it’s a bit difficult with her job, she’s always on the move. Being a journalist and all.”

“Mom knew or suspected that something was wrong with Lily and Stuart. She’d told me to keep close to you. But as I said, it’s been all about the rap,” he sighed.

“Selfish me. My head had been filled with thoughts of Abe, the guy next door and how he’d asked me to prom…finishing high school and going to college. I just knew that my time in the house was nearly over and I couldn’t wait to get out.”

“I think that she was gonna leave him…maybe that was what happened. She called Rose and said something, but Rose couldn’t make out what she was saying. Not properly. It wasn’t the first time that she’d said things weren’t going too well, but she just didn’t go into too much detail….well none of this matters now…Because she’s gone.”

I felt sick, I’d eaten too fast and the secrets that had been behind our closed doors had led to my mom’s death. I hated myself for being so selfish and then anger flooded into my veins. I hated Stuart for taking my mom away. I had to find him. No matter what, fuck school, fuck everything, Stuart had to pay for what he’d done. I’d let Mom down once before and I had no intention of doing it again.