Pre-note: If it feels like you've read this already, it's because you have! Pieces of this chapter come from before, and while I was editing and moving those pieces into this chapter, I screwed up the chapter count. So that's why a couple of weeks ago there was some confusion as to what chapter I was posting! So yes, you've read some of this already (if you are reading in order these posts) but it's changed a little as well.
Chapter twelve, section one:
I slept in Sunday. After we’d come back yesterday, I’d watched Amy, Chantel and Cara be picked up by their family. I’d met their moms and dads, as well as a couple siblings. They were so kind to me, although they never asked if my family was picking me up.
Today, I knew there would be no one around. Everyone spent the weekends with their families, so the library was closed and there wasn’t even clubs to go to.
When I finally stumbled out of bed at 11:30, I found three texts on my phone, each from Jake. He wanted to spend the day with me, show me around and such; I sent him a reply saying I wouldn’t be ready for a while, but sure.
I showered, dressed, sent him another text, then paced my bedroom. I eventually decided to give Jake a call, but he didn’t pick up. Finally, I wandered down the hall to the rec room. It was a large, open room with huge windows and deep sofas. The TV was gigantic, spanning half of the wall, so I made myself comfortable and switched through the channels. I didn’t recognize any of the network names, and I had trouble finding a channel I wanted to watch. At home, I was always watching design shows and cheesy romantic comedies, while here every other network was a news channel or stock show.
When I gave up and turned the television off, the room fell eerily silent. With not a soul on the floor, perhaps in the whole building, it was a quiet I hadn’t heard here before.
Back home, there was never much silence. I closed my eyes and was soon in a day dream.
When I was alive, I used to think of all the amazing universities on the other side of the country I could go to as soon as I graduated, moving far away from my crazy family. Sharing a cramped room with another student in a residence sounded amazing compared to living at home. Who wants to live with their parents when they’re a teenager? Now factor in that my parents were divorced, half my mother’s family wouldn’t speak the other, my siblings drove me crazy every day, and you would be out the door, too.
That was before they were gone, however.
I missed my mom. She had the long, golden hair that I’d inherited and the same oval face, but eyes a deeper blue than mine. My mother’s eyes had reflected everything she thought; they would tell me if I could ask her to stay out past midnight or if she was having a relapse into the “off days” that came after the divorce.
When I stood on the beach in Heaven all those days ago, it had been memories of her that came back to me. We used to spend the summers at my grandmother’s house up just north of us, in beautiful Muscoka, before my mom and my grandma stopped speaking to one another. When I was little, I’d get up early before everyone else and run down to the dock that looked out over the lake. If I was lucky, I’d find the sun rising over it, and watch as the rays slowly filled the shadowed trees and spread sparkles across the lake. When my mother and grandmother found out where I went most mornings, sometimes I’d find them there waiting for me with a quilt and a thermos of hot chocolate. I’d sit in one of their laps, and they’d wrap their quilt and arms around me as I sipped the warm drink. Once, when I was about six, I had come out a little too late, and only my mother was there. The sun was already over the trees on the other side of the lake, but my mother had sat with an empty mug smelling of almond seasoned coffee and watched the sun sparkle over the water. I had tiptoed to the end of the dock and sat down next to her.
“Do you see that?” my mother had said, pointing off into the distance.
“What?” my tiny self had asked. “What is it?”
“My dad used to say that the reflections of the first morning rays of sun over the lake were people in Heaven waving to us.”
“Oh,” I had said, not completely understanding what she’d said or what she was pointing out, but then, sitting by myself, I understood. I understood, and wished that I was one of those dancing rays of light, watching a smile light my mother’s face.
I remembered, fuzzy but surely, swimming in the lake all day and eating sandy sandwiches on a picnic bench with a view of the dock. My grandma was always kind to us; I remember turning to her instead of my mother when one of my siblings and I got into a dispute because she’d always resolve it fairly, typically with cookies and other baked goods.
My dad never came on these trips. He had something against my grandmother and I never found out what it was. He was a quiet man who kept to himself, yet was involved with his own family, which made the coldness he felt towards my grandma confusing to me. But when I was little, I never questioned anything anyway. Since my mother was a stay-at-home mom with three children, I saw less of my dad than I did of my mom, and so he appeared second in my stream of memories.
When I was in kindergarten, my dad had worked just down the street from my school, so he had walked me there each morning. I remember riding on his shoulders sunny mornings, with my small fingers tangled through his thick dark hair. He would bring a tumbler full of coffee, with the same almond flavour my mom liked, and sip it as he told to me not to pull at his head. I would put my hand over one of his eyes, and he would respond with an, “Arr! Don’t do that mate!” in a pirate accent, which would send me into fits of giggles.
When my phone vibrated in my pocket, I almost jumped. When my eyes adjusted to the room, I was surprised it wasn’t my living room from back home.
My phone vibrated again, persistent, and I flipped it open.
“Hello?”
“New Wings! How was your first week?”
“Good, thanks, Jake.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t answer my phone earlier, but I’d still like to go out. Feel like Chinese for dinner?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.” I said, still groggy.
“Ok, I’ll pick you up at five then. See you then.”
I hung up, taking a deep breath. It had felt so real, each memory. Had it been a day dream, or had I fallen asleep? Either way, I was left with a sinking feeling in my stomach and a hole in my heart, otherwise called homesickness.
I wish that would be the headline in the newspapers someday.
ReplyDelete"Supreme Court Disputes Resolved Fairly, Typically With Cookies."
all of this was repeated :
ReplyDeleteWe used to spend the summers at my grandmother’s house up just north of us, in beautiful Muscoka, before my mom and my grandma stopped speaking to one another. When I was little, I’d get up early before everyone else and run down to the dock that looked out over the lake. If I was lucky, I’d find the sun rising over it, and watch as the rays slowly filled the shadowed trees and spread sparkles across the lake. When my mother and grandmother found out where I went most mornings, sometimes I’d find them there waiting for me with a quilt and a thermos of hot chocolate. I’d sit in one of their laps, and they’d wrap their quilt and arms around me as I sipped the warm drink. Once, when I was about six, I had come out a little too late, and only my mother was there. The sun was already over the trees on the other side of the lake, but my mother had sat with an empty mug smelling of almond seasoned coffee and watched the sun sparkle over the water. I had tiptoed to the end of the dock and sat down next to her.
“Do you see that?” my mother had said, pointing off into the distance.
“What?” my tiny self had asked. “What is it?”
“My dad used to say that the reflections of the first morning rays of sun over the lake were people in Heaven waving to us.”
“Oh,” I had said, not completely understanding what she’d said or what she was pointing out, but then, sitting by myself, I understood. I understood, and wished that I was one of those dancing rays of light, watching a smile light my mother’s face.
I remembered, fuzzy but surely, swimming in the lake all day and eating sandy sandwiches on a picnic bench with a view of the dock. My grandma was always kind to us; I remember turning to her instead of my mother when one of my siblings and I got into a dispute because she’d always resolve it fairly, typically with cookies and other baked goods.
My dad never came on these trips. He had something against my grandmother and I never found out what it was. He was a quiet man who kept to himself, yet was involved with his own family, which made the coldness he felt towards my grandma confusing to me. But when I was little, I never questioned anything anyway. Since my mother was a stay-at-home mom with three children, I saw less of my dad than I did of my mom, and so he appeared second in my stream of memories.
When I was in kindergarten, my dad had worked just down the street from my school, so he had walked me there each morning. I remember riding on his shoulders sunny mornings, with my small fingers tangled through his thick dark hair. He would bring a tumbler full of coffee, with the same almond flavour my mom liked, and sip it as he told to me not to pull at his head. I would put my hand over one of his eyes, and he would respond with an, “Arr! Don’t do that mate!” in a pirate accent, which would send me into fits of giggles.
all of this was repeated:
ReplyDeleteWe used to spend the summers at my grandmother’s house up just north of us, in beautiful Muscoka, before my mom and my grandma stopped speaking to one another. When I was little, I’d get up early before everyone else and run down to the dock that looked out over the lake. If I was lucky, I’d find the sun rising over it, and watch as the rays slowly filled the shadowed trees and spread sparkles across the lake. When my mother and grandmother found out where I went most mornings, sometimes I’d find them there waiting for me with a quilt and a thermos of hot chocolate. I’d sit in one of their laps, and they’d wrap their quilt and arms around me as I sipped the warm drink. Once, when I was about six, I had come out a little too late, and only my mother was there. The sun was already over the trees on the other side of the lake, but my mother had sat with an empty mug smelling of almond seasoned coffee and watched the sun sparkle over the water. I had tiptoed to the end of the dock and sat down next to her.
“Do you see that?” my mother had said, pointing off into the distance.
“What?” my tiny self had asked. “What is it?”
“My dad used to say that the reflections of the first morning rays of sun over the lake were people in Heaven waving to us.”
“Oh,” I had said, not completely understanding what she’d said or what she was pointing out, but then, sitting by myself, I understood. I understood, and wished that I was one of those dancing rays of light, watching a smile light my mother’s face.
I remembered, fuzzy but surely, swimming in the lake all day and eating sandy sandwiches on a picnic bench with a view of the dock. My grandma was always kind to us; I remember turning to her instead of my mother when one of my siblings and I got into a dispute because she’d always resolve it fairly, typically with cookies and other baked goods.
My dad never came on these trips. He had something against my grandmother and I never found out what it was. He was a quiet man who kept to himself, yet was involved with his own family, which made the coldness he felt towards my grandma confusing to me. But when I was little, I never questioned anything anyway. Since my mother was a stay-at-home mom with three children, I saw less of my dad than I did of my mom, and so he appeared second in my stream of memories.
When I was in kindergarten, my dad had worked just down the street from my school, so he had walked me there each morning. I remember riding on his shoulders sunny mornings, with my small fingers tangled through his thick dark hair. He would bring a tumbler full of coffee, with the same almond flavour my mom liked, and sip it as he told to me not to pull at his head. I would put my hand over one of his eyes, and he would respond with an, “Arr! Don’t do that mate!” in a pirate accent, which would send me into fits of giggles.
OMG LILY! IF YOU ARE GOING TO READ MY BLOG, ACTUALLY READ IT!! THAT'S WHY THERE'S A DISCLAIMER AT THE TOP OF THE POST!! *facepalm*
ReplyDelete