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authorjdelavega · 5 years ago

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Peter Tulliver’s life was over. Dirty blonde curls fell over his blue eyes, hiding the wet streaks that trailed the ridge of his button nose. The bare mattress felt scratchy and damp against his cheek. He had been lying alone in his room for the better half of an hour watching burly movers walk in and out with crumbling boxes. Black stains of ink pooled from the cardboard sides onto the yellowing laminate.

Peter untangled his fingers from the thin silver chain clasped around his neck. The embossed charm, a shield containing a lion and a sword, fell next to him. Snatched out of a trinket bowl from his old home, it was the only thing of his father’s that he owned. Peter curled into a ball, warming his hands in the pocket of his oversized hoodie and closed his eyes. The empty darkness behind his eyelids was a welcome reprieve.

“It’s going to be cold.” his mother had sung earlier in a tense voice as they packed the torn backseat of their battered car.

A wave of nausea slithered in his stomach. It threatened to rise as he remembered how much his life had changed in the past two months. Instead of spending Fourth of July weekend with his friends, Peter had filled the back of a U-Haul with twelve years worth of memories and drove away from the only home he had ever known.

The rest of July, and most of August, Peter and his mother Amy had lived with his grandmother Josephine. The three bedroom cottage sat in the middle of a cul-de-sac, five miles from his old neighborhood.

None of his old friends had visited him. More than once he found himself sobbing under the comfort of Grandma Josephine’s wrinkled brown arms. It wasn’t awful living there, but he missed his father. His mother, who had hovered over his every move in the past, now had no time for him.

When she wasn’t sleeping, she’d rush out the door, wearing the same black pants and white button-down from the day before. Bloodshot eyes and a dirty apron became her defining accessories. It was a far cry from the woman he once knew. That mother had filled her hours with charity work and spa days. She’d click around on five-inch heels. Consuming the space of their seven thousand-square-foot home with her presence, she’d wander around making lists of improvements their already decorated house needed. That mother wore diamond studs so large her earlobes became droopy, teardrop-shapes. Her gold arms would shine with a thin layer of geranium and honeysuckle scented oil. That mother would never buy a busted car. A car falling apart so badly Peter had to duct tape the roof to stop the rainwater.

That mother would never move them to a building whose hallways smelled of urine. An apartment that looked as if neglect was its primary form of care since its creation.

He missed that mother.

Peter didn’t know this woman.

Amy’s voice carried from the living room through his closed door. She was instructing the movers where to place the furniture. Her authoritative voice was laughable. There were only two bedrooms and an open space that served as a combined living room and kitchen. They hadn’t taken much, but every room brimmed to the point of overflowing. Their navy couch looked ridiculous against the cracking walls.

“It just needs some love,” Amy had mumbled when they first arrived.

“Or a fire,” Peter replied, looking around.

They had argued the entire trip, making snide remarks to each other every chance they could. Their relationship had never been perfect, but now it tethered on the edge of irreparable. Peter tended to favor his father. His job as a high profiled lawyer meant there were months of separation, but Peter would savor the odd weekend they spent alone. Relishing in his attention, always hungry for more.

Peter rolled onto his back towards the ceiling and sighed. If he squinted his eyes, the brown water stains blended together into the shape of a bunny. Amy called his name. The R obliterated in her mouth from an accent she had acquired from an origin she wouldn’t talk about. It was always “the old country”. Her skin said tropical, but her accent wasn’t anything like their old maids. When Amy and Josephine whispered in the dark, their melodious language was unlike anything Peter had ever heard. Amy called again, her voice clipped and rising. He shut his eyes, exhaling a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

The bars on the windows cut the sunshine into small rectangles against his face. It warmed his forehead down to the far right corner of his chin. He lifted his hand letting the shadows reflect the bars across his palm. This room felt like a prison. He wanted to stay behind his closed door and sleep, tell her to leave him alone. She had caused him enough heartache to last a dozen lifetimes. It was worse than the chipping, lead-filled paint. Worse than the dozen or so sisters next door who only communicated at max volume. Worse than these inconveniences were his unanswered questions.

Amy hadn’t used the “D” word yet, but he had friends with divorced parents. He wasn’t stupid. Yet, none of the kids he knew had to move out of town. The only real difference in their lives was the fact that they now received two of everything. Including attention from their parents, who battled to be the favorite. Peter sulked out of the small square room, letting the door slam shut behind him. The light flickered in the hallway, struggling to illuminate the small space. He squeezed between boxes. Snaking around piled stacks that threatened to topple over with the slightest nudge. The room smelled of wet dog. How they were going to get through this was beyond him.

“Mom?” Peter called out.

“Over here.”

He turned the corner and found her sitting on the carpeted floor. Her swift hands moved between open boxes as she separated their contents.

“Why did we take so much stuff?” she asked not looking up from the piles of paper and knickknacks.

Behind her keep, toss, and donate was scribbled across three of the driest boxes. A mermaid figurine poked out from the top of the donate box. Her delicate porcelain hands reached upward as her mouth curved into a soft O. His father had brought that figurine for his mother after a business trip to Puerto Rico.

“Why are you getting rid of the mermaid?”

Amy looked over her shoulder, tucking the figurine deeper into the box.

“Dad got that for you.” She ripped the tape off a nearby box, her response saturated with disdain. Peter stepped forward, reaching down.

“Stop it, Peter,” Amy said, grabbing his wrist before he could pull the figure out.

“I hate you.”

The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could swallow them down. Amy stared back at him, letting go of his wrist. Her eyes crinkled in confusion. Peter grabbed the mermaid before she could react. He stomped back to his room and slammed the door. The boxes shook, quivering with his anger.

He slipped his cellphone out of his pocket. Letting his thumb hang over the screen before pressing 'call'. The line rang until the monotone voice of his father’s voicemail filled his ears. Peter hesitated. Filling precious seconds with silence before telling the recording to call him back.

"It’s important," he added.

Sniffling sounds slipped under the gap of his door. He could almost sense Amy rocking back and forth, covering her mouth to silence the sobs. For a second he wanted to go back out into that mess and hug her, apologize for what he had said. He was still furious, though, and comforting her would be like waving a white flag. She was the one that had turned this into a war. He wasn’t giving in until there were answers.

Peter looked around at the crumbling boxes. The soaked seams had spread apart, the glue weak from the rain. Outside his window, far in the distance, a bright spot of green lay tucked away in the hills overlooking the city. He never realized how much he’d miss the color green. Peter placed the mermaid on the window’s ledge and turned towards the endless piles. The tape on a nearby box ripped off with ease. Inside, candid photos and souvenirs from vacations they had taken stared back at him. He lifted the picture from last year. The gilded frame felt heavier than he remembered as he traced the outline in his hands. His father’s mouth was drawn into a straight line against his pale skin in the photo. He stood beside Peter, his hands shoved into his pants pockets. On the other side, Amy hugged herself, a half-smile cutting into her dark tanned cheeks. Only Peter looked happy. Why was his memory of this event so different?

His body shook so hard his teeth chattered. Air wasn’t filling his lungs. The world was spinning on its edge. The frame slipped from his hands in slow motion. Clattering to the floor with a crash as the glass splintered, flying in every direction. Peter grabbed another frame and threw it against the wall. Before it reached the ground he tossed another and another. Until the box was empty and the floor sparkled with hundreds of dangerous shards of glass. Peter pushed aside the few boxes left on his mattress, curling into a ball, and cried himself to sleep.

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