I felt my lower lip wobbling and I wasn’t sure why. I started to head back to my bedroom but then stopped and walked towards the bedroom my mom slept in. My friends thought it was weird that my mom and dad slept in different rooms, but it was all I’d ever known.
I made my way to her bedroom and opened the door slowly. I stared into the room, my eyes adjusting to the darkness and then I saw her, curled up on the bed, her face in her hands and she was sobbing, her hair a mess on her pillow. I stood there, watching her, my heart thudding, my stomach feeling empty and my face turning red with heat. Her sobs seemed to get louder and louder as I stood there and I felt both of my toy soldiers falling to the floor. I bit down on my lower lip, scared that my mom heard the noise, but she didn’t. If anything, her sobs got even louder. As her tears cascaded down her face I watched as her fists hit her pillow as if she were punching it. I didn’t really understand what was going on.
“Mommy?” I said softly, not sure what to do. I wanted to go over and hug her. I wanted to go over and ask her if everything was OK. I wanted her to hold me in her arms and kiss the top of my head like she did every morning before I went to school.
But my feet wouldn’t move. I leaned back into the doorway and started to suck my thumb. My dad would be pissed if he saw me sucking my thumb. He told me boys didn’t suck their thumb. I tried not to, but there were some times when I just couldn’t stop myself. This was one of those times. I wanted to be a big boy, I really did. I was eight, I should be able to stop, but sometimes I just couldn’t.
“Mom,” I said again, softly, wishing she would look up and see me, and stop crying, but she didn’t hear me or see me. Instead she just kept crying and crying.
“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you,” she cried out into her pillow and I started sucking on my thumb harder.
“Mom,” I whispered, feeling scared, my whole body feeling cold with uncertainty.
“I just want to die,” she cried out and I so badly wanted to go over to her and kiss her. I so badly wanted to go over to tell her I loved her. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. I stood there for about ten more minutes and then quietly picked up my toy soldiers, closed the door and made my way to my room and crawled back into my bed, closed my eyes and pretended to sleep until sleep finally took me.
When I woke up the next morning, my father told me that my mother had gone to Heaven earlier that morning. All I did was stare at him as my heart closed in and my stomach tightened. He didn’t reach out to hug me or ask me if I was okay and I didn’t reach out to him. Instead I just walked back to my room, got back into my bed, curled into a ball and sucked my thumb.
Present Day
Every morning, I would wake up and just lie there without opening my eyes. It used to be that I wanted to avoid the beginning of the new day for as long as possible. I’d lie there and imagine that I was somewhere else, anywhere else. Sometimes I’d picture I was on a deserted island somewhere, the sun on my face, the salty air caressing my cheeks as I tried to figure out how to climb the closest coconut tree and pick as many coconuts as I could. Other times, I would picture myself at Mila’s house with her family, playing board games or just sitting around the dinner table talking about our days.
I’d always found it funny that they’d always seemed so interested in hearing about my life, as if I were important or mattered to them. No one else had ever seemed to care. Certainly not my father. He cared about: my grades, my sportsmanship and what girls I dated. There was nothing else in my life that was important to him. I’d learned at an early age not to bother going to him when I was happy, excited or sad. He didn’t listen and he didn’t care. And I learned not to care. Not about anything. It wasn’t important. I wasn’t important. Though for some reason I was important to Mila and Cody, and their parents, and even Nonno looked at me like I mattered. It was a strange feeling, nice, but uncomfortable.