Monday, June 14, 2010

Bombshell

It’s dark outside and my mother is cooking dinner. This won’t strike me as odd until many years later. It’s dark out. And my mother is making dinner. This is summer time. Dinner’s usually done before the sun even has a chance to set. She’s got one hand on her hip. The other is stirring something in a pot. (It’s probably spaghetti. The big pot is always for spaghetti. I really hope it’s spaghetti.) She’s focused on her task and doesn’t look at me when she tells me my father wants to talk to me.

He’s sitting at his desk at the top of the stairs in the attic. Later, this attic will become my room; I’ll seek refuge from my life here. Maybe the same way my father is doing now. Each step I place my foot on causes an echoing groan. To my quiet house each sound is glass shattering. No matter where you step, these stairs will always moan.

Reaching the top I can see him in front of his glowing computer screen. He’s still heavy set at this point in time. It won’t be for another ten years until he begins to lose weight. He reminds me of the Hulk trying to fit himself behind a desk without breaking it.  His knees are scrunched under the desk tightly. He looks uncomfortable. The desk looks like a child’s play desk in comparison to him. I am as big as a mouse to his lion.

He knows I’m there. He heard me come up. I know he did. Yet, here he is waiting for me to acknowledge myself. Anytime my father wants to talk to me I know it won’t be good. It will never be good, not in a million years.

“Mom said you wanted to talk to me?” I squeak out.

He pushes his chair out slowly from the desk, careful not to bump his knees.

 “Your bus route for first grade changed this year. So your mom and I were talking and we’re going to send you to a different school. It’s the public school right up the road.”

He says this firmly, signaling to me that it isn’t up for discussion. That any words I would have at this point would be futile and a waste of perfectly good air. His initial statement doesn’t register with me. I can understand the words coming out of his mouth. I know what they mean. They make sense. But they have no impact on me yet. As he finishes talking he’s looking at me to accept what he has just said as final. I realize I am holding my breath. I let it out slowly, still stunned at his news.

My father is still waiting for me to acknowledge him.

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