Max

Chapter Two, Doors and Windows

The room was still dark, the light hanging from the ceiling was not illuminating anything for me accept itself.
"Max, how old are you?" a voice rang
"I'm 10" I replied

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"I could have fell down a well yesterday David." I told my dad, he was sitting at the kitchen table typing sometimes on his laptop, boxes still scattered around some full, some empty, some in between. I was scratching the rash on my hands, desperately trying to get the itch away. Stupid poison oak.

"Really?" dad said, but he said it with no emotion.

"I could have died yesterday." I told him, he just said 'uh-huh' with no expression as he continued to type. I frowned to myself, I was facing the window of the kitchen, looking outside at the rain. It fell from the sky and pooled in cracks and dips in the earth. I liked rain, it was misunderstood like I was.

"I think it's a great day for biking, what do you say David?" I asked dad, turning to face him. He let out an annoyed noise and looked at me. He looked tired, and a bit sick. He had bags under his eyes but they weren't from lack of sleep, I knew they were from crying. I did feel bad for dad, but I didn't understand what he was doing. This whole thing breaking up with mom and moving away clearly made him upset, so I didn't understand why he did it. He would always tell me I would understand when I'm older but I was 10, that was plenty old already.

"It's pouring out there isn't it?" he replied, I starched my arm and nodded to him sadly. He shook his head at me.

"We can't go biking today." he answered, I hunched over and groaned. Dad just went back and started typing again. He was doing stuff for work, he was an editor for a few magazines about parenting and news, he wrote an article himself here and there but they were nothing to interesting. Dad always says 'it's not glamorous but it pays the bills' and that was the words he lived by.

"Well I can't survive another day standing around doing nothing this is killing me." I complained, Dad sighed and looked at me from his laptop.

"Listen Max I know the past few days have been really hard on both of us but I promise when we get settled in and all is finished with your mom everything will go back to normal, or as normal as it can get." Dad explained, I wanted to believe him but I just couldn't. Nothing would be the same again. Dad and I stood in silence for a while and finally he pulled out a pad of paper from a box beside him and grabbed me a pen.

"Here, this house is over 100 years old." dad told me, I raised an eyebrow at him.

"So? Why do I care?" I answered, dad handed me the paper and pen.

"So, go explore it! Count all the doors and windows and write down everything that's green, just please let me work." dad spoke, I frowned and took the paper and pen. Yes dad, give me meaningless tasks to complete to I'm out of your hair, great parenting. I started to leave when Dad told me to wait a second. He walked over to the door and took something off of the box sitting beside it. It was wrapped in newspaper. He handed it to me.

"Here, some kid left this on the doorstep for you." dad told me, I looked and it confused and then saw a note taped to the front. I unfolded the paper and read it.

'Hey Maxie, I found this in a box in my attic, it belonged to my dad. Look familiar? -Neil' is what the note read. I opened it up and saw something inside. It was a doll, sewn together with black yarn hair and big green buttons for eyes. The doll was wearing a blue hoodie exactly like mine and blue pants with red shoes, just like me.

"Huh? A little me?" I asked out loud to the doll. Dad spoke but didn't turn his gaze from his laptop.

"What's his name?" he asked, I dropped the newspaper wrapping to the ground and made a noise of distress.