Puzzle Pieces (formerly Reach for the Sky)

Chapter 17

Every night, sitting in my room, I listen as Grandmother climbs the stairs to my father's bedroom and office, the only two rooms on the third floor. Usually, she only stops for a moment to bring him dinner on a tray, maybe make some attempt at conversation before giving up and going back downstairs. Today, though, almost fifteen minutes have passed, and Grandmother has still not returned downstairs. Curious, I walk quietly up the stairs and listen outside the door of my father's office.

They're arguing, but in low voices, so that I can only catch a few snatches of conversation. "Your own daughters—barely ten words to them since—it's been seven years—she wouldn't have wanted—can't hide forever." That's Grandmother's voice— calm and reasoning, but insistent. I strain to catch a few phrases of my father's quiet reply.

"You can't expect—I can't forget—" His voice trails off, but then comes back stronger, and I can hear every word. "Every time I see them... They look so much like their mother. I can't see them without seeing her. And... It's not fair to blame her, but... If Angelina had never been born, my Lilia would still be alive."

"You know it's not her fault. Jared... They need you. Today, I found Angelina crying, and she told me it was because all the other kids had a mommy and a daddy, and she didn't have either. 'You have a daddy,' I told her. And she said, 'No, I don't. Daddies play with their kids and talk to them and come to their skating competitions. I don't have a real daddy.' And she's right. You haven't been much of a father at all."

I realize he has begun to cry. "I can't," he repeats over and over. "I just... I can't."

I've heard enough. Turning away, I silently creep back to my room.

I feel a sudden surge of anger towards my father. Yes, he lost his wife, but I lost my mother, and that didn't make me push away everyone close to me. It's been seven years. He doesn't have a right to make everyone around him suffer just so he can wallow in his grief. I had hoped that if I was good enough at running, he'd take notice of me, even come back to the life he'd been ignoring. But there is nothing I can do. He will never see me as me, only as yet another reminder of my mother. A single hot tear trickles down my cheek and drips onto the pillow.

Eventually, my thoughts wander back to the engraved brick in the little garden in the clearing. In loving memory of Louisiana Davidson. I'd never really questioned why Coach Davidson is so bad-tempered, assuming that was just the way she was. Maybe, although she deals with it in a different way than my father, her emotion is the same: grief. Who did she lose? A mother, an aunt, a sister, a daughter? Or was Louisiana Davidson not related to her in any way? Finally, I fall into a restless sleep.

I dream about my mother. She's singing, but I can't understand the words. I walk towards the sound, and she stops. "Autumn," she says, sounding glad to see me. I walk towards her voice, but I can't find her. "Right here," she says. Her voice sounds so close, and I reach out, but my hand touches nothing but air. "Where are you?" I ask. "Over here," she responds again. I keep walking towards her voice, but I can never reach her. Eventually, she stops calling to me, and I wake up feeling lost and alone.