The Disbanders

Chapter 1: Nothing to Lose

December 2019

Your parents are dead. A sentence that for many, tears them apart, forcing them to contemplate how to move forward. For most people, it leaves them heartbroken and entering a downward spiral. For me, however, it only means one thing--I am free. 

While I am now aware of my freedom, I try to find an emotion within myself to describe it. However, my life's experiences are leaving me to struggle with pinpointing exactly how I feel. I expect a weight to pile up on my shoulders, or a feeling of devastation to fill my heart. Instead, I feel lighter, lighter than air. 

I lean onto my kitchen counter as I watch my grandmother finish her phone call. I struggle to read her expressions as well. After all, she's in the middle of hearing that she's lost her only son. I'd expect more from her.

Then again, it's complicated for both of us.

Grandma hangs up the phone, sighing. Without saying a word, she wraps her arms gently around me. I wait to hear the vibration of her chest, the release of a built-up sorrow. Nothing. I'm not sure if it's to my surprise, or not. She holds me for a moment, as I then feel the slow rise and fall of her breathing.

I have lived with my grandmother for several months, now permanently, with the promise of legal guardianship. After my parents cut me off from seeing her, I never learned of her address until a few months ago. She was moved by my parents when I was eight after her cervical cancer diagnosis. My father wanted nothing to do with her, despite her best efforts to help him through his addiction.

"They can't hurt you anymore, Candice," my grandmother tells me. "You no longer need to worry about them catching up with you." She releases the embrace and looks at me. Her eyes, which normally sparkle with joy in their familiar emerald hue, stare down on me sadly.

"How did it happen?",  I ask. Grandma sighs.

"Fentanyl overdose. They were at some crackhouse, and it was laced into whatever they were smoking. Both of them," she replies coldly. She then walks away and grabs a tissue, blowing her nose quietly. "Their stupidity killed them. But you know that, don't you?". I nod.

"Yes," I whisper faintly. "I know. Who called you?"

"Your aunt Jessica." My mom's sister. I scoff, stunned.

"I'm surprised that she'd even care to contact one of us. That she'd even know where I am."

"Well, even if she knows that you're safe with me, she wouldn't know the whole story, would she? It's not like she's been around recently. You know that better than anyone." I reflect on her statement.

"I guess not," I shrug, feeling slightly relieved. I pause, looking at the kitchen counter, unsure of what to do or say.

"Jessica said that she'd.....take care of them. She'll let us know where to go from there." My grandmother looks back up at me, this time with even more misery in her eyes.

"I'm sorry you lost your son."

"I lost him a long time ago, Candice. I've long mourned that loss." So have I. I notice my eyes becoming heavier, compelling me to sleep and give my mind a break from this whole thing.

"I'm going to bed. There's no point in losing any more sleep over them. Let me know what Jessica says, whenever that is." Grandma nods.

"I will, dear. Goodnight."

"Goodnight," I say, grabbing her hand gently. She squeezes it before letting me go. I turn around and head upstairs.

For several years, I had been trapped in an emotional prison by my two parents. Their drugs had consumed them, both by occupation and through addiction. They were desperate for work after going broke, partially from having an unplanned child. My parents weren't themselves for a long time. They had turned on me, and made my life a lonely, dark and painful place.

I left my parents' house about a year and a half ago, at age fifteen, in search of a better life. Ultimately, I had a simple goal in mind--to reconnect with my grandmother, whom I had been cut off from seeing. In the end, my objective was finally met. I found my freedom with her. The only difference between that moment, and this one, is my certainty that there's nobody searching for me anymore, threatening to pull me away from liberty.

As I finish brushing my teeth, I wash my face. The water drips down my cheeks and my chin, as if it were representing tears I should be shedding, what I should be feeling. Pain. Agony. Sadness. I know, however, that my grandmother was right--they can't hurt me anymore, and they won't be catching up with me. That thought rationalizes my absence of emotion.

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Over the past several days, I've continued to expect to hit a rock and finally feel something in the name of sadness. If nothing else, it's been a sort of emptiness. It's not to say that I haven't felt a form of loss before. I've felt more than enough in one lifetime, in too short of a timespan. I suppose that now, I have no loss left to feel for my parents. Nothing to lose. My grandmother is the only person I would have left to lose at all.

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Today, my grandmother and I are going to see my parents' bodies at the morgue. I am to lay eyes on them for the first time since I left. Maybe then, will I feel some pain from their death. Maybe.

As my grandmother finishes putting on her makeup, I hear a soft click, indicating her closing a tube of lipstick. I enter her bathroom and face the mirror, as I start to fix my hair.

"There's going to be a funeral in two days," she tells me.

 "Are you going?", I ask.

"I will. You don't have to. I can see why you wouldn't want to."

"No, I'll go," I sigh. "It might give me some closure to see them lowered into the ground. Then, I can move on with my life. I can focus on what to do after high school." My grandmother smiles, for what feels like the first time in a while.

"Candice Alicia, I know you'll be a brilliant surgeon." Sometimes my grandmother will use both my first and middle name, particularly in moments of pride. "It's too bad that your aunt was the one who got you down that road."

"I don't have to focus on that," I tell her. "I don't even need to see her again after the funeral. I proved that I have a passion of my own, as I've told you." A silence returns to the room as I think of my aunt. An anger bubbles up in me, but I repress it as I finish brushing my hair. "I assume it'll just be the three of us? At the funeral?"

"It seems like it," replies Grandma.  

"What a surprise," I scoff sarcastically.

While I may comment like this whenever my parents come up in conversation, the truth is, I don't hold a grudge against them anymore, nor my aunt Jessica for that matter.

My parents' death is the final glimpse of closure in my life, and I feel that running away and enduring my journey to freedom was worth it. I'm certainly lucky that my grandmother is alive and well, that I found  her again.

From running away to reuniting with my grandmother, I've learned to love and to hate. To fight and to make peace. To know when to keep going and to know when to give up. My family didn't teach me that, but they were what sent me over the edge, in pursuit of a better life. After a long search, I finally found my way to where I'm supposed to be. I've found my purpose.

However, it didn't simply happen overnight.