People are hard to understand. I always knew that because it is what people say all the time. But if you ask me, there's a difference between knowing and understanding. And I understood that sentence completely when my mother just walk out of our lives. She just disappeared like a beautiful sunset on the horizon - I remember it all too well. She was there the night before, all smiles and kisses with my father. We are in the garden behind the house near the pool and she cooked my father's favorite meal - a leg of lamb with potatoes. The cicadas were chanting and there was this sweet smell on the air of flowers who just bloomed. Like they were happy to be born again.
It was a beautiful scene now that I think about it. We were a happy family. Or at least that was what I thought, until the next day when everything happened. I can still recall it as if it was happening now.
I woke up with an annoying sound that I soon recognized to be the cry of my brother. I rub my eyes wanting to refuse to open and look at the green numbers that flash on the clock screen. I knew from the lack of noise that it was still night, but my father told me that babies slept differently from adults and that they were more strenuous than we were. I think that I could understand that because I had hunger all the time. But different from other times, my brother wouldn't stop crying.
I get up, put my feet inside the Spyder man slippers, the birthday present that my mother had given me, and start wandering to the bedroom door. I open it and the first thing that hits me is the smell. The air in the corridor is impregnated with the perfume of roses that my mother used every day. I loved the scent because it enveloped me when my mother hugged me, but when it was everywhere like this, it felt like too much. I was so distracted by this strange situation, that I didn't understand that the light in the corridor was on. That wasn't normal, the lights at night always stayed off. I walk down the corridor to my brother's bedroom, to know what was happening. There was something that didn't feel right. I open the door carefully, making it creak on its hinges. I see my father leaning over my brother's cradle while making shhh-shhh noises.
I rub my eyes again because what I was seeing couldn't be right. My father was supposed to be working at the hospital tonight. He saved lives there, like Superman, that was what I had learned. My brother wouldn't stop crying so he picks him up and starts to walk around the room, with him in his arms. After a while, the loud crying of my brother stops but there are still crying noises across the environment. I was so confused, what was happening? Why wasn't my father what the hospital? Why was he here? Where was my mother?
"Dad?", I ask, trying not to make much noise because I learned that babies didn't like that.
He looks at me across the room and my eyes widen when I see in the dim light that they were red. I shake my head as I try to stave off sleep. So that was I I was hearing crying sounds? Because my father was crying? Wait, but why was he crying? What was happening?
"Dad, what's happening?", I ask again louder this time, which makes my brother start to cry again.
"Matt, can you wait outside for a moment?", he asks with a funny voice, "I'll be right with you, ok?"
"But I..."
"Please Matthew", he interrupts me, "just wait outside a little bit while I take care of your brother and I...", he stops, like he doesn't know how to continue, "I'll be talking to you and explain everything."
I don't know what he sees in my eyes, because he adds, "I promise".
I nod and close the door. I wanted to stay outside the room and wait for my dad, but he was taking so long that I decided to go to my parent's room to find my mother. Maybe she knew what was happening with Dad. When I open the door and go to my parent's bed, I find it empty. I start to think that maybe my mother is in the bathroom but then I see the open closet and my mother's clothes are not in there. I walk slowly there, looking from one side to the other. What was happening, where was my mother?
YOU ARE READING
All the Things I (Don't) hate About You
RomanceMatthew Clark is socially awkward - and he's ok with being invisible. He is a smart student and all he wants is to have good grades to grant his so dream scholarship to Havard. But, then Olivia Barrow arrives at his school. And when she focuses her...
