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dukearchive · 2 years ago

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Action Potential

By Monika Narain

My friend Jessie has been dating Ben for three years now. An economics major and an English major walk into a bar during freshman orientation; they hook up once and they become inseparable. But now they’ve gotten into a big fight, and everything’s awkward, and they are apparently broken up.

Again.

At a surface level, Ben is a basic guy, who plays a lot of video games, is aggressively passionate about “impact investing,” and always cries during the Lion King. And Jessie, while I love her, is a pretty basic girl, who writes lifestyle and culture articles for the school paper, wears a lot of chunky sweaters, and also always cries during the Lion King. The two of them spend much of their evenings, weekends, and summers together, and they have seriously considered taking the “next step” post-graduation.

The two of them are terrible for each other.

Maybe it’s because Ben is too demanding, or Jessie is too loud. Maybe it’s because of all those other girls Ben keeps making out with, or that Jessie is too desperate to leave. Maybe it’s because I’ve never met two more stubborn people in my life. But for the majority of my collegiate career, I’ve been forcibly sucked into this coming-of-age soap opera, this endless saga that everyone is frankly sick of watching. Their love is a confusing flow of oscillatory moods, waves of anger immediately followed by brief moments of pure affection. And these arguments are routine, like clockwork, and they always occur in the same way.

I don’t think I’ll ever be equipped with the emotional language to fully describe the intricacy, intimacy, and inadequacy of such a couple. It’s too complex; it’s too stupid.

But let’s imagine their relationship as a dynamic system, separated by a distinct border that divides the messy region of “outside the relationship” from the even messier region of “in the relationship.” Ben, of course, as the classic dominant boyfriend, takes up a greater space “in the relationship,” and exploits a variety of controlling tactics that metaphorically push Jessie “outside the relationship” into the uncomfortable sidelines where she naturally feels upset and unappreciated. Over time, her anger and resentment towards Ben accumulate, and inevitably she reaches a point where she physically can’t take it anymore.

It’s 7:13 and Ben scowls in impatience as the basket of garlic breadsticks before him starts getting cold. He stares at his phone, then at the front door, then at the hot hostess cleaning up some annoying six-year-old’s spilled apple juice; and at that instant Jessie is staring at him from across the table.

“You’re 15 minutes late.”

Jessie sighs. She is visibly exhausted. “I’m sorry - I was finishing up a history paper and then lost track of time and then I had to get gas on the way here and yeah, it’s just been a long day.”

Ben loudly slurps his water, crunching on a piece of ice.

“So how was your day?”

“Fine. Had a midterm but I thought it went pretty well. Did some laundry. Took a nap.”

Jessie loudly slurps her water, spitting out a piece of ice.

At the start of each of these aforementioned “waves” is a trigger, a stimulus, a brief, inciting event that’s often the buildup of a series of smaller everyday annoyances.

“Have you finished editing my resume? It’s been like a week, and my dad’s been on my ass for getting a good job this summer.”

“I’m almost done, I promise! It’s just - it’s taking me a bit long to put all my comments in, and I’ve just been so busy and -”

“So you’re calling me stupid.”

“No! NO, no, no, that’s, that’s not what I’m saying at all. There’s just some areas that could use some work, you know?”

At that point a sixteen-year-old probable stoner in an “Olive Garden” button-down approaches the table. He says, not as a question but as a statement: “Hi my name is Derek Welcome to Olive Garden can I start you two off with any appetizers or drinks.”

They ignore him and keep talking. “What do you mean, ‘work’?” He makes air quotes with his fingers.

“I mean, Ben, some of the skills you write about could be framed a lot better and,” she lowers her voice, “I think you might have lied about some of the things you wrote.”

Ben scoffs. “WOW, I lied? That’s pretty ballsy coming from someone like you. Do you know how hard it is to apply for major-corporation finance jobs?

Jessie doesn’t say anything. The breadsticks are a bit stale by now, and the salad has become soggy. She looks at the clock on the wall. 7:17.

“It’s not like you’d have that much to write about anyway.”

And at that very moment, something changes in Jessie’s demeanor. All of that nice-girl energy she once performed with ease transforms into coldhearted fury, as if some switch were flipped or channel activated in her head.

What happens next is a rapid, non-reversible, all-or-nothing response:

Jessie puts her fork down. A cherry tomato from her salad falls on the floor. The kid who spilled his apple juice what feels like hours ago cranes his head in their direction.

“You know what, Ben? I’m SICK and tired of ALWAYS having to do things for you and you never accepting my opinions. It’s like, it’s like you don’t even listen to me half the time, it’s just ben ben ben ben ben ben ben 24/7! Being your girlfriend is like - a full time job, honestly, and it’s NOT fair. When are you going to start helping me with my work, get my dinner, hang out with my friends, say my outfit looks good; when does Jessie ever get anything? Sometimes, you make me so mad I just, I just, I…”

One can actually document this particular moment graphically. Over the years of observing edgy mid-adolescents in their natural element, I’ve come to observe that all young relationships are constantly fluctuating on a continuum of passivity and aggressivity, with very few (if any) consistently maintaining at the center. If we monitor points along this continuum over time, the resulting trajectory for Jessie and Ben will look something like this, beginning from the aforementioned “passive” equilibrium to a drastic rise in emotional activity that crosses into major aggression:

As is made clear, during this rising phase Jessie characteristically voices her angered sentiments in feeling excluded in attempts to normalize their imbalanced equilibrium to that of a healthier nature. And characteristically, she goes a bit too far and overshoots the monologue:

“...I just want to scream! Have you even looked at that piece of crap you sent me? You literally CAN’T. DO. SHIT. That was actually THE WORST thing I’ve ever read, and if I EVER submitted that anywhere - I honestly don’t know what I’d do to myself. And I know you flunked math, and I know your dad thinks you’re in a job, and I know ALL ABOUT Christa - did you honestly think I was that naive? God, for putting up with you as long as I have, I should get a goddamn prize, because that’s a skill way better than whatever the hell ‘synergistic analysis’ is.”

On occasion, these insults reach a point of diminishing returns.

Now, something truly remarkable occurs. Just when Jessie feels like she has power over her boyfriend, that she’s the dominating the relationship, and her verbal attacks reach their expected fortuitous conclusion, this happens:

“Well, if I’m so bad for you,” he takes a deep, calculated breath, “maybe we should break up.”

Jessie freezes. Her mouth is stuck in a halfway open and closed position. She’s getting a spam call on her phone but it feels like she can’t even get her hands to move. The entirety of the Olive Garden dining room lingers in suspense. Derek will probably tell all his friends about this when he gets more baked than a family-style lasagna.

In a hoarse whisper, she says,“Yeah. I think we should.”

They pick up their things and try to leave in separate directions before realizing there is only one exit. They don’t look at each other as they get into their cars. They forget to leave a tip.

After the fallout, there is a period of relative refractory tranquility, where there’s no fighting, no rage-drinking; they barely even talk to each other. Their dynamic can still be described as passive, but now it’s through a lens of callous indifference rather than one-sided obligatory compliance. They are now pretty much “outside the relationship,” Ben more than Jessie because he’s not as used to criticism. From anyone, really.

Despite having hit a low in their love lives, they carry on with their daily lives and pretend like they’ve never even met before. This quieter phase may be graphically represented in this manner:

But eventually, they “spontaneously” run into each other one night. He makes a joke, she laughs, even though it clearly wasn’t funny. Soon enough, they start texting and kissing and making out and before you know it they’re back to eating out of the same organic turkey sandwich and making out on the soccer bleachers. The mechanisms that have long defined their relationship - passive, active (if you know what I mean) - are seamlessly reintroduced, and things return to their default, egregiously problematic state. They seem to forget as quickly as they forgive. It makes me sick.

And the whole cycle repeats. Over and over again.

Can two people be terrible for each other, but at the same time meant for each other? I’ve always thought that this incessant emotional rollercoaster is their fatal flaw, a blatant indication of a toxic relationship. But what if this volatility is the key to their success as lovers? What if these perpetual peaks and troughs are not only a natural, but necessary part of their love, creating its foundation and subsequent continuation? What if arguing is their way of communicating with each other, and what if it’s working? And who am I to judge whatever the hell they are, when I’ve never shared an organic turkey sandwich or made out on the bleachers with anyone?

What their dynamic reveals is more than the fascinating inner workings of juvenile lust. It actually reveals a great deal about the neural mechanisms that facilitate such romantic idiocy, namely something called the action potential. This is nothing more than a temporary disruption in electrical activity, a characteristic “spike” that sends the voltage of a nerve cell from low, to high, to low, to really low, and then back to low again. This particular pattern is namely the result of the interplay between sodium and potassium ions, two like charges that move in and out of a cell based on varying thresholds of electrical activity. Such a pattern forms the basis of all neuronal communication; and, in turn, all human behavior.

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dukearchive · 2 years ago

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forgive me

Against all odds, I hope that you will one day return. But I know that whenever you do, I will be ready to forgive. I know how it will go. You will come to me, heart in hand, and I will rip my own out to replace your missing. I will offer it with shaking arms, bleeding out from the hole in my chest, and you will look at me with pitying eyes. I will forget what you look like when you are not terrible. And you will laugh, not unkindly, never unkindly, and hold your hand out expectantly; I will wonder if you are helping me stand or taking my resolve. I will offer you both then, and you will not choose because you have always been selfish and I have always been weak. And when I am finally level with you, I will glance up quickly and you will smile then, not unkindly, never unkindly, and ask for another chance. Another chance to change, to repent, to regret. And I will hesitate, biting my lip and looking everywhere but your eyes. You will take my hands in your own, folding them in on each other and intertwining them easily with yours, and I will notice that your hands are softer than mine. And then you will tell me to look at you, and I will (because that is what I do), and there will be tears in your eyes. They will be awful and apologetic, threatening to spill over with the thought of losing the part of me that is yours, and I will cry too. Leaving splotches on your sleeves, trying desperately to wipe them away before you notice. But you will notice (because that is what you do), and you will hold my face in your hands, and you will tell me that it is okay. And you will pull me in, whispering in my hair that it was just a mistake. And I will believe you, allowing myself to deafen the alarms I have grown accustomed to. And I will look at you again, and you will smile, and I will too. I will then pull away from you in an attempt to regain my sense of balance but you will not allow it, pulling me back into your chest and wrapping your arms around my head as if you were the sole thing holding me together. So I will tell you to wait and that I need some air and that it will only be a second. And you will not listen, and you will tighten the grip you have around me, and you will move your arms down from my head and encircle them around my neck instead. No sound will come out of your mouth, nothing I can hear anyway, but if I were to look up at that second, I would see the corners of your mouth tilted upwards, not kindly, never kindly. If I were to look up, I would see the veins on your upper arm screaming with no intention of letting me go, of letting me breathe. If I were to look up, I might catch the sweat beading off your forehead in an attempt to escape the poison emitting from your pores and I might let myself believe that I am one of those drops. That I will find some way to wrestle your arms off of my neck and fill my lungs again. But I will not, so I will not be able to breathe until you allow me to (because that is what we do), which I know that you will at some point. You will never intend to silence me permanently. You will never aim to kill. Only, perhaps, to scare. To remind. So I will know that the moments I spend in your lethal embrace are only temporary, and it will be this thought that comes to mind when I look in the bathroom mirror the next morning to find a crown of blue around my neck. And in nine days, when the blue fades to yellow, and the yellow fades into a memory, I will touch the skin and flinch because it is still raw and fresh. And when you go to reach for my hand, I will flinch again, and you will become frustrated, and grab instead.

Folding them in on each other and intertwining them roughly with yours, and the only thing I will think is that your hands are softer than mine. You will yell, and I will listen, and I will apologize, and you will not. You tell me that kinder people would be more upset, and I will nod, and I will apologize again. Will offer my hands out in desperate compromise. You will look at me then, and you will shake your head. No, you will say, you are not worth it. And you will turn, and glance back once, and leave. And, against all odds, I will hope that you might one day return.

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dukearchive · 2 years ago

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Knit

By Raj Bagjain

Sometimes, When I miss you so much, I feel like knitting you a sweater, a red orangy one, which looks just like hot burning coal, to show my heart’s conditions, burning in the pain aching for your presence.

While knitting, I want to kiss each knot, Play with the wool thread as I would play in your tresses, fill each knot with love, That would last a lifetime, fill each knot with warmth that your smile brings to my heart!

Everyday, I just want to knit you my love.

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dukearchive · 2 years ago

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Sweet sweat and coffee and clocks

I’ve always preferred to drink my coffee black Just water and beans – and mild dissatisfaction Something my grandfather would approve Sipping solemnly under his grandfather clock

But I’ve never know why I prefer it so Maybe it makes me feel strong like a man To grit my teeth and drink dirty dark water Pretending I had no time to find the cream and sugar

Or perhaps it’s because I’ve never known sweet – Well – at least not how to spell it Always ending up with sweet on my skin Always baking sweaty deserts

Excuse me – desserts Not one ‘s’ but two Apparently two servings is better than one, For those who like sweet desserts

Well today I couldn’t pretend And why would I try When I’ve got all the time in the world And there isn’t a grandfather clock in sight

And now in front of me I have my options Sweeteners in the colors of the flag My mother once told me the difference One of many things I’ve since forgotten

Clueless I chose one of each and poured And watched my coffee carefully, waiting I heard a big clock start to chime And felt my grandfather’s approving smile turn

But it's time to taste my monster – Doesn’t seem like coffee to me, Surely sweet not sweat, Dessert with two s’s not just one

This doesn’t feel right. Too sweet and creamy Where’s the gritting and groaning When do I pretend?

I think I’ll do this again tomorrow And drink my dessert at grandpa’s To ask what he think of my mix And sit and listen to his clocks

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dukearchive · 2 years ago

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Logos

By Tina Xia

vinyl is read 2 for 10 it’s yours, someone touched it before you did fingerprint imprints like stained glass “but we like history, right?” kayaks scintillating in the light a few loose limbs the water tepid dive into the weak currents just succumb in its embrace, it’s trying to hug you the droplets coming off neon plastic in spray, slim waist pulled against me come hither w/ the oar whirring dog w/ a boat i was here for a long time my tree shaking from wind my heart pulsing from the shake am i here am i am at night it’s not cold at night there’s just life an ant crawling basic predatorily squeeze it feed the world fall asleep convinced you were a savior this is what you are, a logo, a promise that sticks, an empty one the twigs are falling like bridges i mean it’s the future all us shells ant hills and kayaks clean vinyl at a still

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dukearchive · 2 years ago

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Down in Nags Head it is cold today

by Tina Xia

If we get to be here today at the street you spent your childhood on the one that still has your brother’s rope swing and that baseball glove it has been worth all these years this Thursday morning my artificial heart. Even if nothing is the same, the jetty down by the beach fully eroded that’s just the water, baby. Nothing emblematic beyond what we need. And the festivity of blinking lights a couch large enough for your sleep deprivation the same tune stuck on your toy piano the keys as tiny seams in your sleeve. And the alcove you drove to as a lapse to respond to me an interloper of private neighborhoods all synapse and connecting bushes. Despite the distance from thread to needle it always gets there eventually, a special point this. When the moon gives you its pillowcase you say you and I and you and you and how maybe it was always you.

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dukearchive · 2 years ago

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Forrest Drive

By Ethan Gurwitch

Wooden alphabet blocks sliding across a red, tiled floor—my first memory of Forrest Drive. I did not know why we were looking at houses, as our 1915 craftsman bungalow in Sanford, N.C. seemed perfect. Nonetheless, I was happy to be there. The “Red Room,” as we would soon call this seemingly ever-expanding space, was equal in size to the bungalow’s ground floor. The room, empty at the time, was the perfect play space, so we decided to knock down a stack of wood play blocks and slide them across the floor. At one end, I stood, sliding blocks to the others, who attempted to dodge them. During this newly created game, we were barefoot. So, getting hit surely meant you would break a toenail at least.

The "others" I am referring to are my sister Gracey—my “Irish Twin”— and my two cousins, Caelan and Jimmy, who were two years older and younger than I, respectively. My mother took us to this house, just two miles from the bungalow, with an exterior of chipping, tan paint in hopes of buying it at a bargain and accomplishing something on her own, while my dad was away. She told us the house was a "fixer-upper," while emphasizing this repeatedly to the seller’s realtor. I assumed this to be a ploy at reducing the asking price, $350,000. As we walked upstairs, into the hallway, equal in length to my 26-foot Rainbow Loom necklace created in middle school several years later, I ran my hands across the lawyer’s wood. The dark, outdated paneling, with its woody knots and decorative molding, was in stark contrast to the worn-down, orange, wooden floors popular in the 1950s.

As we walked past the kitchen, library, office, and dining room, into the foyer, I was awestruck, and by the look on my mom’s face, so was she. My naive nine-year-old self wondered, how could a house so large be going for this price?

At this point, my mother was a stay-at-home parent. Unlike those on Desperate Housewives, a show we would both come to love, she had a do-it-yourself mindset—doing most of the renovations with her friends while my dad worked overseas. With her experience in home remodeling, she had high hopes for what I now understand to be a dilapidated, mid-century modern mansion.

Despite her efforts, she could not get the price reduced. As we drove away, disappointment on our faces, we decided to end our home search there. That is, until the realtor called us three months later. She told us the house was not selling, and knowing my mother was interested, they decided to lower the asking price for her. She signed her name the next day, making us the proud new owners of my childhood home.

As we re-entered the foyer of our new project, moving boxes in hand, the daunting scale of the work hit us. Struck with the heavy smell of mildew, we noticed the water stains spotted across the formal living room’s ceiling. In the dining room, the Paris-themed wallpaper was worn through, exposing yellowed drywall underneath. Given the house was built in 1953, the AC could not keep up with the sweltering southern heat. In the back yard sat a 35,000-gallon swimming pool laden with cracks, weeds, and one enormous frog, which would have to be removed by hand.

Regardless of the flaws, including the mustard yellow, shag carpet installed in the early 70s, we knew we could make it work, and work we did. Our uneventful move into our home would signify the start of my mother’s many projects.

The first thing that “had to go” was the kitchen. At the time of this remodel, my mom’s friend and her two daughters—Nina and Nadia—were living with us after recently immigrating from Sweden. My mother, being the strong-headed caregiver that she was, was determined to give her friend a helping hand. Her friend, Lena, had little money and knew bits of English. In between taping up doorways and removing noxious green countertops prevalent in many homes of the area, my mother would help her friend with notecards, quizzing her on facts ranging from our first president to the past participle of the word “run.”

Though it may seem unusual, at least to me at the time, that a grown woman was learning, what I, a student at B.T. Bullock Elementary School, had been told a dozen times, Lena was trying to earn her green card. In return for helping her study, she would help my mother with the kitchen, as my dad was away in Afghanistan, and my siblings—Gracey, Jernigan, and Alexei— and I were too young to help her.

My dad, an E-6 in the U.S. Army, was gone for six months out of each year. Though I am nineteen now, he has only been my father for nine and a half years. In and out, a father and husband one day, and a man over the phone—a white landline— the next. I am reminded of his absence whenever I pass one of the many gifts he sent me, even to this day: wood dolls, stuffed animals, and other boyish things. I wonder what it is like to have a father who knows you, who raised you?

The sunset yellow cabinets were repainted a desert tan and the counters were tiled over with variegated, brown, and gray stone. Despite the impression given off by Southern Home, we later regretted this dysfunctional design choice, as tile makes for an awful baking workspace and is too difficult to clean. At the same time, we converted the tired, Parisian-themed dining room into a makeshift kitchen. Though we had no stove, we did have a waffle maker, an instant pot, and an assortment of handy, easy-to-use cooking gadgets.

After a humid, summer day, the AC barely hanging on by a thread, my mother made us breakfast for dinner—my first encounter of such a meal! The moist smell of vintage furniture that usually lingered throughout our house was replaced by sizzling sausage, a mountain of pancakes, two-dozen eggs, and Aunt Jemima syrup. Our dining table, laced with memories of dinners past, was now bursting at the seams. Gracey, Caelan, Jimmy, Jernigan, Alexei, Nina, Nadia, my mother, Lena, my uncle, and I were crowded around the buffet.

As I finished off my last flapjack, rubbing it through the last dribbles of syrup on my plate, I wished these nights—gathered around the table, with my family and friends— would never end, but end they did. The last door handles were screwed into the cabinets. The curtains, a paisley red, were hung up, regardless of their clashing with the farmhouse yellow of the kitchen. Lena, my makeshift stepmother for months on end, eventually passed The Naturalization Interview and Test. She secured a job as a bank teller for Wells Fargo and moved out.

With this, my mother’s first projects were complete.

Six and a half months later, while my brothers were in early high school, it would be time to tackle the fractured, concrete swimming pool. Around the same time, Julian, a “friend of my brothers,” came to live with us. While driving home from Davison’s Steaks, my parents saw him sitting on the side of the curb near the downtown train depot. As I heard through the fiberboard hollow core doors of my parent’s bedroom, he was kicked out for reasons unknown and needed a place to stay. Initially a temporary situation, they thought about adopting him down the line, later disclosed to me by my mother.

With my mother’s next projects in full swing, the aforementioned frog would be scooped out of the pool. And, yes picking up a Bullfrog the size of our neighbor’s small dog was strenuous and left our hands covered in a syrup-like mucus. Which would later end up in my sister’s hair.

Our goal was to finish the pool before summer. After pumping the water out of the massive pool, all that was left were mountains of leaves. Unlike those covering the surrounding trees, these leaves were brown, compacted, and reeked of sewage. The pool had all the characteristics of a swamp, including large quantities of algae and precariously aggregated flies. This would be one of the first projects I got to help on, so I was cautiously excited. With our shoes off and rakes in hand, my sister and I jumped into the shallow end of the pool. The calf-deep leaves were heavy, damp from the algae-filled water that was previously removed.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch!”

On the other side of the fence, I could see Julian running down the street with his skateboard in hand. Unaware at the time, preoccupied with a cumbersome pile… mountain, of leaves, he just fought with my parents over snake bite lip piercings he got with his stepmom’s approval, in secret. Regardless of Julian’s pugnacious attitude, he was ordered to take them out. Interestingly, I learned from my dad three days after that he had tried to convince my parents to take him to a piercer—they had obviously told him, “No.”

The pool would not take that much longer. With most of the leaves out of the way, I could see the extent of what was left to do. As far as we knew, the pool had not been used for at least a decade. The Pomeranz family, at the peak of Sanford society in the 60s, commissioned the addition of the pool. With their booming success in the international looming business, they could afford such an extravagant addition. However, much to their chagrin, the loom was phased out and replaced with speeder, modern fabric manufacturing techniques. Thus, marking the end of their business, their use of the pool, and the rest of the house for that matter.

Sitting unused for such a long time, the sea-foam blue paint covering its walls had chipped away. Hoping to complete the pool in just a few days, we would need to strip and repaint.

You have not experienced summer heat until you’ve stood inside an empty, lightly painted swimming pool in the middle of June. Sunlight, great for the garden just nearby, bounced off the rough concrete, heating it to skin blistering levels. To make the work bearable, we needed to keep a water hose running, which allowed us to walk on the surface freely.

With just a few chips of paint remaining, we worked to finish the scraping. After washing out the pool, my mom painted it a powder blue with an air painter she got from the local Rent-All down the street. Despite how grueling the renovations were, our family manual labor felt cathartic. When I think back to Forrest Drive, passing just nearby, I think of the work we did together, and of course, the time we spent gossiping over pizza and Subway after. My siblings and I now had a common thing to bitch about.

I saw my father stumble back into the wall adjacent to our front door, bracing himself against the white, bowing chair rail jutting out from the wall. Julian was the opposite of him. When I turned the corner, into the foyer, I saw my mother standing, attempting to diffuse the situation. The air was still, the calm before a storm. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her phone, a burgundy Motorola Razor. Before she finished dialing, she told me to go back to my room.

Wrapped in my Toy Story quilt with Woody and Buzz’s faces plastered against a cloud speckled, sky blue background, I could hear the tidbits of commotion. Splintering, as if a tree had fallen—which, did occur twice while we were leaving there: one landed on the roof and another in our backyard both while I was 16.

A few hours later, I crept down the stairs, still lacking a railing. With each creak of the floorboards, I froze. The tension in the air was heavy, but also, meeting an untimely demise was not on the day’s agenda. When I made it downstairs, back to the foyer, the weight of that afternoon hit me. Without hesitation, my eyes darted towards the doughnutted Formica door leading into the office.

The pool was complete, and Julian— “a brotha from anotha mother,” as he would say, for almost two years— was gone, picked up by his stepmom. I never asked what happened to the door. Though, it was replaced by an oak and glass pocket door.

January 2016, passing the glass pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee, we were almost to the group home where my stepcousin, Paige, was staying. My sister, my mom, and I were cramped into the blue, two-door Mini Cooper purchased just two weeks prior. A few months before, my mother learned Paige moved into a group home after being kicked out of her grandparents’ house. Before staying with them, while I was still in diapers, she lived with us.

Unconvinced the group home, located in the mountains of Missouri, was a safe place for an impressionable teenager, my mother wanted to let her move back in with us. Bumping along the gravel driveway winding around the split-level ranch, with its white columns and red brick façade, we could see the kids standing up top. “Which ones Paige,” I remember asking. Before today, I had never met, let alone seen her. After listening to Bad Romance played on the grand piano by one of the other group home girls, we loaded what little Paige owned—three pairs of jeans, a selection of tops from Justice, a purple body pillow, and three Beanie Babies—into the Mini, and head home. Apparently, from what she told me; the other girls had stolen the remainder of what she brought there.

The sleeping arrangements had all been worked out. I would take the downstairs bedroom, my brothers would be moved to the far back rooms, Gracey would stay put, and Paige would take my old room, just across from my parents. For this to work, however, the bedrooms would need a facelift.

We first started with Paige’s room. Before, the walls were a cobalt blue and the floors a faded brown with the gloss worn through, revealing the rough untreated wood underneath. To remedy this, cheaply, my mother decided to hand paint the floors. In both Paige’s and my sister’s rooms, rugs were painted onto the floors to match their new wall colors. Paige’s floors were painted cream with white daisies. Her walls were a pale turquoise. In my sister’s room, the walls were painted pink. In the center, a rectangular section of wood was painted with black and white diamonds. Around the edge, a black and pink striped border was added. My mother did both rooms by herself while attending Campbell Law School.

When it came to my room, on the sub-floor of our three-floor split level, I had the freedom to do as I saw fit. With a grey concrete floor, and a white acoustic tiled sealing, I knew the room would need a total remodel.

“Give me the phone!”

“What phone?”

From my room, connected to the Red Room by a short hallway, I could hear my mom yelling at Paige. This was just three months after she moved in, and my concrete floor was painted pumpkin orange. The ceiling tile was replaced with ice white sheetrock and the walls, the familiar cobalt blue—I realize this did not match.

My sister came through the door. “Paige stole a phone from the Temple Theater,” she told me. Her hands were around herself and her quivering lips were drawn in. Her eyes were hidden by the side of her turned-down face. She confessed to me that she knew Paige had stolen a phone and told our mother. Worried as to what her actions might have done, I consoled her. “She’s not going to kick her out,” I repeated. Gracey grew up with only brothers, and though I played Barbies and dress up with her, Paige filled the sisterly gap.

A year later, those words would come back to haunt me. Crying at the top of the stairs, Paige was standing with a bag of clothes at her feet. The day before, my mom walked into the living room, catching Paige and her boyfriend on the couch. “What if one of my children walked in here and saw you two,” she screamed. I do not know much of what happened, but that would be the last time I saw her in person.

Over the 12 years we owned that house, we poured in hours of labor and love. With the help of my mother, we built a home and memories. As I drive by, even now, I think of what my mother has created, and what we have done. Paint, pool, floors, doors, trees, family, and friends—all are a part of Forrest Drive. Though not all, both people and things, had a successful, permanent ending. I do wish the new owners would have refrained from painting the front door a seashell pink. After all, this is not the beach.

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