Un-fufilling Realizations

The first time the walls of my ignorant life started to crack after Stanley’s death was the summer of my fourteenth year. I was still festering in the gashes of fear my brother had bestowed to me upon his leaving. There were only periods of great sorrow that hovered over plateaus of numbness. My existence was just that. I stood to make no mark on the world that was cruel enough to absorb even a single life. 

It was a blazing summer, alike with many in the north east. The heat was moist. Just being outside near noon was sentencing one’s self to lungs filled with the thick, hot, air. We’d been living by a sparkling lake for the season. My mother filled the halls of our lake house, which in my opinion had too much grandeur to hold the name that encompasses shifty cabins along murky waters. She was at the side of nobody for months. Being a trophy wife was her calling. Sadly, that did not include prize-winning mother.

All year I had been waiting for the hustle and bustle outside of my head to halt. For the skies to become swollen with water above the tepid lake. Each time that it did I would sit in a dark corner and stare as the dramatic drops of water fizzled out over the small town to which we trekked often, yet I do not remember the name of. 

One afternoon the heat had been so exhausting that I retired into my vacation room early. I never liked moving into my second room. The sheets were always too starched, the bed always too cold. When I was younger, my older brother, Drew, told me that the summer house was always cold because ghosts lived in it during the other three seasons. The realization of air conditioning took some of that mysticism out of my consciousness. I always resonated with the ghost family that ever so often resembled my own.

I saw my mother, hunched over some laundry that had been freshly ironed by a maid. Her hands were greedily grasping a lime green polo Tee-shirt. Stanley’s favorite. 

My mind jumped into and out of the room. She seemed upset, but she might have wanted silence. My feet swiftly decided for me, collapsing me to the ground. 

My mother’s head darted up, her hands swatting at her eyes rapidly. She waved her hand slowly, motioning for me to come in, while swiftly stuffing the child-sized polo under the mattress.

“You scared me.” She whispered.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...” I trailed off, my point receding into my mind further every second. Moisture started to gather on my hands, which still stung from clawing at the hardwood. “I fell.”

“Do you think I’m a good mother?” 

Thoughts pulled at my mouth. I struggled against both, wracking my head to find something that would avoid the evils that stressed me. I could have shown her the screams that had been filling my seconds since I lost my younger brother, but having learned that nothing good comes from a disappointed parent I panicked and lied. 

“Of course you are.” 

“No, I’m not,” She retorted.

“Who else could do what you do?” Anyone, I said to myself, Anyone whatsoever.

“I don’t even do anything. The maids clean, and cook. They even take care of you kids.”

“You’re the mom, though. You run the show.” I maneuvered her mind so it would move towards a beam of light.

“I don’t even know my kids. What kind of mother is that?” Salty tears streamed from her wonderfully blue eyes which now seemed frail with sadness. She did not swat them with her hands. I silently registered each small drop in my mental notebook. 

“There’s not much to know. We’re just kids.”

She hugged me tightly after that. There was no combination of words I could tape together to build a dam across her eyelids. 

Before she could surrender her words she talked at me for what seemed like a lifetime. She poured thoughts into molds for me, and I cooked them into ideas silently. It was a slow time. As if every flag was at half mast for an hour while I glimpsed at Mrs. Anita Thorpe, wife of a governor, and mother of four. 

I patiently twiddled my thumbs while she droned on and on about the drags of her life. The non-existent love life of a politician’s wife that she dreaded, and the overbearing and annoying wives of my father’s friends. 

“They’re all twits in disguise. I’m telling you, it’s true. I’d never dream of angering one, though. Those nitwits are insane, but they sure are capable of revenge.”

She dabbled into almost every subject I could imagine. My stomach fluttered with the anticipation of the one she was avoiding, Stanley. 

Her voice started to stutter as she talked of the forgotten dead boy that we had once loved. 

“It was four years ago. It seems like longer. That first month was like heaven. We all cried and for the first time felt emotion as a family. I remember hugging Lena for hours. She was older than you, and she was sadder. We would cry every day, and sleep in. Some nights I had to calm your father down. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now, his drinking that is.” She paused when she saw my eyebrows hit the ceiling and my eyes explode with fear. 

“That’s right, I never told you kids about your father’s alcoholism. Well, most of you aren’t home to see it, I guess. It started after the accident. He never lets anyone know it, but he feels responsible for letting your brother come with him to the press conference.”

He is responsible, I whispered into my own ears. Now he’s causing even more problems, that selfish idiot.

I cringed, my body pushing away from my mother’s. She smirked at me as I pulled the frigid sheets up over myself. My aching eyes craved sleep. 

“Shayne, you don’t know what depression is. You lead too privileged a life.  I don’t expect you to understand why your father would turn to drink. Loosing a child is very painful.” With this, I showed no hatred, or even annoyance. I drew down a metal wall between my emotions and my visage which I often did with other people. 

“I’m tired,” My voice uttered coarsely as I listened.

“It’s midday, you know.”

“I know; I just want to sleep.”

“Figures. You can’t even take advantage of an afternoon for goodness’ sakes. Do what you always do: waste time.”

I didn’t respond. 

“I guess I’ll be leaving then,” she stood up and flattened out her skirt. 

As she clacked out I let my mind work at untangling the knots that her words made. Slowly, they straightened the meaning from the endless one-way conversation. 

When I knew she had left, I blindly reached my hand under the mattress to find my lime green treasure. It was an absurd color, that was what Stanley liked about it. Mom wouldn’t let him wear it outside the house. Holding it was like holding an urn. The sight of it, obscured by the lazy shadows summoned a pang in my chest. It held me by the throat and threw salt in my eyes. All I could help but think was that it wouldn’t fit him anymore, had he survived. Would it even be his favorite if he was here? Looking at it was hopeless. I stared, sorely at the old thing, waiting for Stanley to return for it. 

I wrapped it tentatively around my arm and tried not to look down. After a while this simple task became daunting and I tried to let sleep claim me. It confined my analytical mind to a far corner and the words sloshed around within the limits of my shrinking consciousness when it came. I was far too tired to do anything else. Well, that’s what I convinced myself anyways.