Manic

Chapter 6.

I'm eating edamame beans. You probably know them not from the name but as the little sweet pea looking vegetables that you stick in the microwave for two minutes and then dabble them with salt and then eat the beans out of the vegetable? Well maybe you don't know them. Regardless, I am eating them while I write to you today. You probably are wondering why I decided to write you these letters.

My answer? I don't know.

The truth is, I probably will never send them. But you've been gone my whole life. And a part of me remembers the good times we had before you got locked up. That same part of me wants you to know about me. About your own son. Don't you want to know about me, dad?

I like to imagine that you wonder about me. I like to tell myself in the hours before I get taken by the sweet sensation of sleep, that you wondered about me in prison. That you hoped I was okay. That you wished I would grow up to be a good man, better than how you ended up. I always wondered if you wanted me to visit you or write to you.

Not that mom would have let me do either of those things. She really hates you. Mom started reading self help books recently. I guess she finally realized that she has been as absent as you have. I mean sure, she took me to therapy for the 17 years of my childhood and she fed me and she loved me the best that she could, but honestly speaking... she was as present of a parent as you were all these years.

Locked up in her room, constantly. Silent when we were together. It was like walking on eggshells around her, scared to step on a shell and make her cry. She was broken, and I can't blame her. I don't blame her.

Recently, my Voices have gained some more control over my mouth. Take last week for example.

"Your mom doesn't love you," Danny tells me this out of his own insecurities.

But his insecurities became mine. "You don't love me." I blurted out at the dinner table."

Mom had made a TV dinner for us, broccoli and beef with colas to drink. She sat at the opposite side of the table as me, silently eating her food. She looks up, and tears come to her eyes.

"She is too wrapped up in her own problems to care about you," Reid says.

"You're too wrapped up in your own problems to care about me." I repeat.

"Elijah-" She starts to say.

"She's as absent as your dad!" Danny yells.

"You're as absent as dad!"

"That's not fair I-"

But I wasn't finished. This time without the promptings of Reid or Danny, I go off on my own. "You never talk to me, you don't ask me about my day, I mean god mom, I'm almost 18 and I have never heard you tell me you love me."

She starts crying now, "I'm sorry I-"

"You need to get help." I tell her. "You're sad and depressed all the time and it brings me down whenever I'm around you."

I felt terrible about the words leaving my mouth but I couldn't help it. I blame the DID for this one, but honestly it felt really close to what I had been wanting to tell her for years.

She nods her head, "I promise,"

I got up from the table and went to my bedroom.

This morning when I got up for breakfast, the blinds were opened, inviting light into our kitchen. The stove was on and I smelt the bacon before I could hear the crackling of it cooking. Mom had her graying hair pulled up in a bun and was smiling. I hadn't seen her do that in so long that it felt fake.

"Good morning, sweetheart, how did you sleep?" She asks me.

"What if this isn't your mom?" Reid's paranoia creeps into my thoughts.

"Are you real?" I ask.

Mom laughs, "Of course I am. Oh! I made eggs and bacon!" She grabs a few off the stove and adds scrambled eggs to the plate and hands it over to me. "And I know you like ketchup with your eggs," She hands me the bottle.

Let me explain. Eggs. Ketchup. Heaven. Try it.

"Wow, uh, thanks mom." I tell her. "What happened?"

"What do you mean what happened?"

"I mean what happened to you? You're so... happy." I say.

Mom smiles, "Thanks sweetheart. Eat your breakfast. Big day."

She was right, of course. It was a big day. School has been in session for a while now, and today is the day my english 101 teacher is announcing the genre for the writing contest. I know, I know, a writing contest sounds super lame.

But the winner of this contest gets a $500 dollar reward from the city and their story gets published. It's a really big deal. To me.

$500 dollars would mean the world to me and mom. Mom just lost her job, so really, any amount of money would mean the world to us. I'm 17 and I'm pretty much the only income that the two of us have. That's why we need you, dad.

You didn't understand this before, but I like to imagine that you understand it now. A dad is supposed to be the protector of the family. Not something his family fears. A dad is supposed to provide for his family. Not leave a mother and child starving for days at a time. And a dad is supposed to be an example, and stick around.

Not abuse and leave me.