Author's Notes:
Randomly got the inspiration for this one random morning, quickly took note of it on my phone, and wrote it out a few hours later. Fairly old piece, wrote it on December 15. Waha. =))The first of my recent pieces that I consider relatively decent. Semi-inspired by We Can Get Them For You Wholesale by Neil Gaiman.
Not sure what to think of this, actually.
I'm not sure if the story is clear. Anyway~
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Something in my family had snapped the day Dad died.
I mean sure, I supposed we were always what some people would call a dysfunctional family. My parents didn't exactly have a good marriage, and my little sister never talked. We still don't know what's wrong with her, neither does the doctor. We have a feeling she just doesn't want to talk. Dad always used to get mad whenever she just stared at him silently, but she never cried like little girls either. I don't really recall ever seeing my sister do anything other than stare off into space or make strange drawings with her crayons.
I, on the other hand, was who they expected to be the good and responsible elder brother. They wanted me to have it all-good grades, good at sports, student council president…all that perfect-student crap that I couldn't be bothered with. Sometimes it felt bad, knowing Mom was disappointed in me. She'd try to talk to me sometimes. She'd tell me about how I should value the future, and try to be more ambitious. I would feel a bit more motivated to study, but then Dad would start talking and shouting, and I knew he was drunk again.
He'd been drinking ever since he got laid off from his job at the company. It wasn't his fault, he always told us. He'd chug down more of his bottle of beer and tell us the story for the nth time in slurred words: that he wasn't supposed to invest that money. He had been tricked, and then framed-and now he could only wallow in misery around the house and expect me to succeed in life. He wanted me to become vice president, like he was, and not mess up like he did.
I felt bad for Mom during that time though. She was the one that had to take charge of earning the money. Dad wouldn't get off his lazy ass to go find another job. He suddenly started believing that companies and businessmen were evil. Mom had quit her job when she had me-but since that day she was hardly ever at home. I was amazed, by how she'd work all day and come home at night and still be able to make us some of her really good, special Mom-style home cooking. And that was the time I started hating Dad with everything in me. He never did anything but complain.
He never did anything but stumble around the house shouting at me to go out and buy some food or some more beer(even when I constantly remind him that I'm underaged and they wouldn't let me buy the beer). Then he'd pass by Lily, who would be coloring her new drawing by the carpet and he'd just kick the crayons away from her and ask her why she wouldn't draw rainbows and unicorns like a normal girl should.
She wouldn't answer of course, and that only made him angry.
Every time things like this happened around the house, it made it harder and harder for me to believe that he was the Dad I knew when I was 5. He used to be my hero-and I told myself I wanted to be like him.
Now I'm doing everything I can to make sure I never will.
I talk to my sister about the old Dad sometimes. I'm not entirely sure if she can understand me or not, but I have a feeling that if she did, she didn't believe me. I don't believe myself sometimes. Maybe I'm just imagining the Dad I never had.
///
It's been around 3 months since Dad's been gone.
Mom's gone crazy, I think. At first I didn't really notice it. For around a week the dishes in the sink started piling up, until I eventually decided to start washing them. She'd been walking around in a daze-and sometimes I'd find her humming to herself a tune that sounded vaguely familiar.
Around the third week since Dad's been gone, I started noticing how she went around with only half her face made up, and the other half of her hair was disheveled. She'd always smile though, whenever she passed by me and my sister at the breakfast table, and then she'd be off to work, humming the familiar tune again.
The worst time was when she just suddenly downstairs; and just broke down crying on the floor of the living room. I was stunned-I didn't have any idea what to say.
And most surprising of all-Lily walked up to her on her small legs and tugged on her shirt, and asked her what was wrong.
Mom stopped crying and stared at her; neither of us could believe she had just talked.
///
I heard Mom humming again in her room. After a few minutes of Lily just staring at her waiting for an answer, Mom had collapsed on the carpet. I slowly opened the door to her room, and saw her propped up on her pillow, and she smiled at me.
She looked fine now. The eyebags were still under her eyes, which had only appeared since Dad died, and she was still kind of pale, but she seemed to have gotten better since a while ago.
I replaced the glass of water and put a tablet of medicine on a napkin on the table before walking towards the door. I was about to leave when Mom softly spoke up and told me about how it was harder for her to sleep now, without Dad to sing her to sleep.
"He used to sing you to sleep too, you know."
I didn't know what to say. I turned back and noticed the sadness in Mom's eyes.
"I know you hated him, but he wasn't always like that. I'm sure you remember."
"Mom, I…"
"He was still your father. He just forgot sometimes whenever he was drinking. You and Lily were always asleep by the time he became sober again."
The last few words were mumbled. Mom had fallen asleep again. I guess I can't blame her. She must be exhausted. She always seems to be, nowadays.
I never considered the possibility that she loved Dad that much. It always seemed like she was just doing all of that for us, once Dad broke down and became a useless drunkard. I never noticed just how much she loved him. But it is kind of hard to notice, when he was always beating her up. That was another reason I hated him. Mom was fragile, and she would always have bruises on her legs or arms whenever I saw her at breakfast.
I went back to my room and blinked, noticing something was different.
The yellow pages directory was open on my study table, on the page I had visited last.
The ad.
And I knew what Mom had seen to make her tell me that.
///
Lily had started talking after that day. She never became talkative, but she does talk now. It was completely unexpected and sudden, but the sad thing is that I think she's become just as jaded as me. She still doesn't show emotion. She never laughs or cries. Apparently some kids in the neighborhood are scared of her.
Although sometimes I pass by her room and hear her screaming, in some weird way. I think she lets everything out in her room. She doesn't draw anymore, and she doesn't want to start school. Mom and I don't know what to do with her, then.
Mom's still working from morning until night. She's better, in a way. She fixes herself up properly now and hasn't broken down again. She stopped making home cooked food though, me and Lily have gotten used to instant noodles and frozen dinners.
Mom has stopped humming the tune, and she had had all the pictures and other memories of Dad thrown out, and his old things donated.
Strangely enough, Lily says she doesn't even remember ever having a father.
///
I guess something in all of us changed the day I had Dad killed.
But I honestly didn't do it on purpose.
I thought the ad in the yellow pages was only a joke.
