Chapter 14 Heath
HEATH
It’s late night when I stroll into Emery’s bedroom. It’ll be a sleepless night that I haven’t had in the past months.
Because of Hope.
She’s the reason.
Ever since meeting her, she’s all I can think about.
One look at her and she’s captured my mind and made a home there.
It’s filled with pictures of her smiling, laughing, blushing and crying.
Every emotion that she expresses, my eyes capture it and my brain hangs it on its walls.
Other things exist alongside her, but they don’t compare to her. Even my grief.
But tonight, standing outside my sister’s room, that home gets swept away with the force of sadness that welcomes me.
It’s been a while since I’ve felt this emotion and I realize how much I’ve missed the feeling of it.
I’ve lived with it for more than a year and unknowingly it made a home inside of me.
One that I had no intention of destroying or getting rid of.
Grief and sadness mix together into a strong potion. Within seconds my veins are flowing with the concoction and everything inside of me hurts.
Inhaling a deep breath, I reach for the knob and twist it.
I step inside only to find Mom sleeping on the bed, holding onto a purple dress that Emery used to wear a lot.
I wonder if it still smells like her? No one has touched a single thing in this room.
Kelly and Derek both know this place is off limits.
Kelly cleans it once in a while but she’s very careful with it, making sure nothing gets repositioned.
It’s considerate of her and I’m thankful to her.
Mom frowns in her sleep, and tightly clutches the material in her hands. Distress contorts her face.
The sight tugs my heartstrings for some insane reason.
I’m at a war myself with her and Dad being here and sharing the same with me. For the longest time, this room, this house and all the things were mine, but now they are theirs, too. It all belonged to them anyway because they paid for it, but I felt an ownership because they weren’t here.
A cry leaves past her lips and on instinct my feet move me towards the bed. It happens so sudden, without a second thought. As if my body couldn’t resist not comforting her.
She calls for Emery’s name, her voice filled with pain as if she’s being pulled apart at the seams.
I run a hand through my hair, not knowing what to do.
She is having a nightmare and I just woke up from mine a few minutes ago.
Leaving the dress, her hands drift in the air, desperately searching for Emery as she keeps calling her name. Her cries and worry growing more as she doesn’t find her.
Surprise roots my feet on the ground, my body unable to move.
I knew something was wrong with Mom but I didn’t expect her to be experiencing nightmares. It’s been a year and she lives in Canada where places and things aren’t marked by my sister’s existence.
Sometimes moving away from a place makes it easier to forget the bad memories tied to that place.
However, I understand now that hasn’t been the case with my mother.
She misses Emery dearly. There’s no faking in the way she’s calling her and reaching for her.
In my head, I’d convinced myself that my parents don’t care about us. After all I had a lot of evidence to back up that claim.
From early on they us left us and rarely checked up on us.
Their involvement in our lives was scarce.
Kelly and Derek are the only people we knew who were always present when we needed something and sometimes talked to us.
They had chores to do and they weren’t invested in listening to how we were doing at school, if we had friends or how was our day?
Those random questions felt personal and special because we’d been talking about ourselves, but my sister and I realized that no one wanted to hear our answers.
Our parents lived far away from us and they visited once a year for a short amount of time, even if we answered those questions they didn’t have the time.
Growing up, Dad was distant and quiet and Mom was reserved and hesitant.
She tried to talk to us but it felt like she was nervous so she’d back away or watch us from afar.
Our family dinners were filled with awkward silence and stolen glimpses.
The four of us didn’t know what to talk about or how to talk to each other.
It felt like we were a couple of strangers locked in a room than a family.
It made me wonder, why they had us in the first place? Why they tried to conceive us if they were going to abandon us? What was the point of making a family when you weren’t going to live with it?
I feel physically sick because I don’t have answers and the worst part is I’m looking for them.
Despite saying I don’t care, I want the truth.
I want to know why they live somewhere else and not with us—me?
“Heath, what are you doing here?” Dad speaks from behind me.
“Mom is here,” I answer him.
His footsteps near me and then walk past me as he reaches for Mom who’s now full on sobbing and screaming.
Lost in my thoughts I didn’t hear her.
They are loud enough to tune out the world and sharp enough to dig into me like claws.
“Mia, wake up,” Dad says. What he says next is in a foreign tongue. I don’t know what he’s saying. It’s my first time hearing him speak another language.
I had no fucking idea that he knows a language besides English. Are there more languages that he can speak? Does Mom also know other languages?
How much of it is that I don’t know about these people?
Dad’s voice and touch wake Mom up and she quickly folds herself in his chest as she cries. She looks small and breakable against him.
I look at Dad who looks equally fragile as he holds her in his arms and kisses her forehead. His palm rubs her back, in up and down movement. A movement that is practiced as if he’s rehearsed it every night and now he can do it in his sleep. It’s become a muscle memory.
At two in the morning, he’s dressed in a charcoal gray suit with no tie. His hair looks wild as if he’s run a hand through it a million times due to stress and his face is mirror of tiredness and lack of sleep.
“Stop crying, please,” he assures her. “It isn’t good for your health.”
His words do nothing to her as she keeps crying.
So he just holds her.
The sight reminds me of Hope and I. All those times she was hiding things from me but also couldn’t keep them inside, she’d cry. The only thing that helped was holding her.
Dad looks at me. “Get me a glass of water.”
Without a word, I make my way to the kitchen, fill a glass of water and return with it in Emery’s room. Stepping inside, with them sitting on her bed and me standing beside them, I realize it’s the first time the three of us are together after her death and in her room.
There are no family pictures of us four but still, that’s exactly what we are.
A family.
No matter what I say or what happens, the truth can’t be fucking erased or altered.
Mom calms down after Dad makes her drink a few sips of water and tells her to not cry anymore. She half-listens to him as her tears keep spilling down her cheeks.
Looking up at him, she asks, “Where’s Heath?”
He cups her cheek and wipes away all tears. “He’s right here, Mia Cara.”
Mia Cara? Is that his nickname for her or what?
Gently, he turns her head in my direction, and Mom’s face gains some color.
Abruptly, she stands up and loses her balance, but I grab her elbow and steady her. When I glance to the side, Dad is a second late to help her.
Mom erases the distance between us and wraps her arms around my waist. She hugs me tight as if she’d never let go.
But I know she will.
In a few days she’ll be gone. I’ll forget how warm her embrace feels like. I’ll forget how she smells exactly like summer and spring—flowers and fruits. I’ll forget how when she hugs me, the child in me runs to her silhouette, excited to reach her so he can talk to her.
Those little facts will fade away with time, like leaves change color in autumn and are eventually gone by winter.
“I thought you were gone,” she murmurs. “That you’d never come back…like her.”
My eyes shoot to Dad who closes his eyes momentarily, and when he opens them those gray irises are filled with so much agony it surprises me how he doesn’t sink into it.
I place my palm on her back.
“I am here and I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her.
“For how long?”
“Forever.”
She looks up at me to read me. “You really mean that?”
I nod.
Mom watches me for a long moment, then says, “Your eyes are just like hers… so blue.” She cups the side of my face in her shaky hand. “They remind me of her.”
They remind of her too. Always.
Before she can say more, Dad pulls her out of my embrace and wraps his arm around her waist, supporting most of her weight.
“Let’s go sleep and don’t wander off this time.”
So I guess this happens frequently.
Mom sniffles. “I like sleeping here.”
“C’mon now. I’m done with work.”
They walk out of the room when Mom looks back. “Are you going to stay here? I can stay with you.”
I glance at Dad who wants to take her to their room so she can sleep. The dark circles under her eyes are going to get darker if she doesn’t rest and sleep.
One look from him and I know what he wants me to say. Just to go against him, I want to say the opposite, but what good will that do?
Mom will suffer, meaning Dad will suffer.
I can hurt both of them.
The question is, why can’t I?
I’ve never held any feelings for them. They are not important to me. I don’t care about them.
The why does it feel like all of that is a lie?
Anger and frustration sizzles through my veins. My fingers curl into tight fists, ready to attack. A second later, they start shaking.
I feel like a mess because my head is all over the place.
Nothing seems like what I thought it was.
Without saying a word, I walk past them in the doorway. Grabbing my phone and car keys from my room, I race down the stairs and leave.
I don’t know where I’m going.
All I know is, I can’t breathe in this house.
The walls seem to be closing on me and the ground shaking.
It’s the people, not the house that’s making my heart pound.
I need an escape.
Pressing hard on the brakes, I stop my car. I reach over and check the compartment. Two cigarette packs sit there untouched. Ever since I said those words to Rose, I haven’t smoked.
The urge to light up one and forget makes my fingers tremble.
Rose won’t know it if I smoke right now.
However, I’ll be betraying her trust. That’s the one thing I can’t ever do. I can’t let her down or lie to her.
I don’t want to be like her shitty parents.
On instinct, my hand moves back and I close the compartment.
If only I could see her right now.