To Be Or Not To Be

Chapter 2

To Be…Or To Not To Be

 

            The automatic lights flash on as I walk into the barren kitchen. Only Berta is standing alone, boiling purely white eggs and I can smell the wafting bacon coming out of the oven. As I pass by, toast flies out of the toaster and into the waiting hands of our housekeeper. I slide onto one of the barstools and Berta hands me a cup of warm, sweet coffee.

            “How did you sleep last night?” she asks, crinkling her eyebrow. Berta knows I have been having vivid nightmares since my father’s funeral. She recommends that I go to therapy, but my mom refuses. She says it’s unnecessary and unrequired. “You know what? I’m going to put you through my own therapy. You’re internally struggling and your mom is too blind to see that.” I give her a look, raising my eyebrow. She raises her arms innocently. “Hey"I’m sorry. But someone had to say it. This place has been a morgue lately.” I grab my steaming plates of eggs benedict and bacon and scoot on over to the dining room where my mom is, drinking her usual black coffee and sitting in my dad’s chair. At least she got up this morning. Usually I have to drag her out of bed.

            “Good morning, Mrs. Hayward,” Berta says politely, pouring more coffee into her cup. “How are you doing today?”

            “Oh, the usual, Berta. I’m going out to meet with the girls today. They’ve been lost without my guidance for the country club,” she rolls her eyes dramatically. We look at her. She looks at us, “what?” We look away instantly. My mother hasn’t left the house in weeks; her hair is so greasy, I don’t think she hasn’t showered in a week. Although I feel for her, I don’t want to be around her. “School today, honey?”

            “It’s a Saturday,” I remind her gently. She laughs it off as if nothing is tense around here.

            “Heavens, of course! Silly me!” she exclaims in delight. “You should invite Marissa over! You haven’t seen her in forever!” I give her a look.

            “Marissa moved away five years ago,” I remind her again.

            “Really? I just talked to Marissa’s mom a few days ago…hmm. Maybe I should talk to her again. They were real nice,” she notes. I pick up my fork and start eating. “Berta, darling, please. Will you pour me another cup of coffee?” she asks, holding up her already full cup. Berta pauses.

            “Ma’am, I just poured it for you. Are you sure?” she asks hesitantly. Mother gets frustrated, her brow crinkling.

            “I said, more coffee,” she says sternly. Berta rushes to pour, almost spilling on the two thousand dollar carpet handed down from my grandmother to my parents as a wedding gift. Berta pours the coffee to the rim of the cup, almost spilling. Mom smiles delightfully and sips it carefully.

            “I think I am going to walk over to Debby’s and stay there for a while. We have a bio test next week and I really need to catch up on my studying,” I say, grabbing my biology textbook and throw it into my shoulder bag. As I walk out of the door, I almost hear my mom’s muffled good bye. I don’t look back.

 

 

Debby Jones is a wealthy daughter of a restaurant owner. She lives next door to me and we’ve been best friends ever since my parents dined at one of her dad’s restaurants when we were both three. We have played together since then.

            “How is Scott?” she asks, as I finish reading a section in the textbook. “I mean, is he doing okay after the funeral?” Debby is the only one that can understand how to grieve and what to say when someone is grieving; her own sister died, when she was only ten, and her sister was two. Her sister, Nanny, died of a heart condition that I do not know the name of as of right now. Debby was there when I found my father on the floor, dead.

            “He is doing fine. He is acting very distant, but I think that is just him trying to move from this. We are all trying to move forward with our lives after this. My mom is losing it, Scott is shunning his own family, and me, well, I have no idea what I’m doing,” I sigh deeply.

            “You’re recovering from a tragic loss. It will take some time. When my sister died, Nanny, my mom was losing it also. But over time, my mom got better. She started loving me and my brother, Max, even more. She wanted to be the perfect parent, as if she was still raising all three of her children,” she says with a twinkle in her eyes, “but even sometimes I see her flicker out of reality. I worry about her sometimes, but I just have to trust that everything is alright. You can’t control everything, you know.” She sighs. “That’s what took me so long to figure out. I was trying to control so much about what was going on around me, I didn’t have time to grieve properly, even though apart of me didn’t want to grieve. I didn’t want to be mournful, that meant she was really gone. I didn’t want to believe my own sister was gone.” She wipes a single tear from her cheek.

            “I am sorry,” I say, comforting her. Now I’m the one comforting her. “I know you don’t like bringing up your sister.”

            “It is okay. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I imagine my life with her. I could be pushing her on a swing set outside, or teaching her about make-up and boys, or telling her to get out of my room when I am on the phone…,” she trails off. “Is that how you feel with your dad?”

            “Well, not the make-up, or the boys, or the swing set, but I can see the memories.” I wasn’t close with my father; I was closer with my mother. But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t distant with my father. I loved my dad very much. Scott was better in that field. “But some part of me, a little while later after they announced my father’s death at the scene, I thought back to my last words to my father. I had said, ‘don’t eat my last cookie.’” I pause. I wait for her to respond. She doesn’t. “I never got to say, I love you.”

            “That’s what you have to get over and accept that he knows that, and he loves you too. You can’t blame yourself on his death"unless you did it. Which I am positive you didn’t,” she pauses for a moment, and then proceeds, “but you have got to let that go. You cannot keep holding onto that regret forever. It will come and haunt you.”

            “Scott talked to me about it in the beginning after the funeral, but he can’t just find the courage to come back here. Neither my mom or myself haven’t seen him since the funeral,” I explain sadly. She rubs my shoulder.

            “Everything will be fine,” she says. “Scott will come back. He always does.”

            “No, I think he doesn’t want to come back. He doesn’t want to face the memories of my father,” I point out. “I don’t want that either. Neither my mom nor me would ever want to live in that house. It’s unbearable.”

            “When I lost Nan, I almost ran away, with a local boy that was five years older than me. Do you remember that? I was going through a rebellious phase,” she laughs to herself. “Do you remember the thing that got me out of it?” she asks. I shake my head. “Hope.”

            ~         ~         ~         ~        ~         ~         ~         ~

 

When I finally left Debby’s house later that afternoon, I decided not to go back home, but to the local bar and pub where all the college kids go at night. But throughout the day, the bar turns into a ghost town, with only bums and alcoholics drinking away their pain. It’s a suitable location for my feelings right now.

            “You okay?” a man asks me two stools down. “Looks like you’re not okay.” I stare at him for the longest time; his eyes are a deep shade of brown, his nose is slightly angled, and his lips"are perfectly centered and kissable.

            “Um, yes"erm, I mean no,” I stutter, looking away, blushing, and then looking back at him. “I was just in the neighborhood and I wanted some fresh air.”

            “In a bar?” he asks. “How old are you?” He lifts his eyebrows.

            “Nineteen,” I lie through gritted teeth. “I am currently a student at Greenwich College.” He nods his head as if he is agreeing with me. “What’s your name?”

          “Ian,” he smiles back. “So, Aria,” he turns so he’s facing me, My mother would never let me date a nineteen year old. Then again…she is absent-minded lately.

            “I don’t think I know that college. Hmm, something new,” he shakes his head. 

            “I see you like to read classics. I love to read anything by Harper Lee,” I gush, changing the subject. 

            “Really? I've never met someone with the same exact taste as me,” he marvels. “Do you like this one?” he holds up To Kill A Mockingbird.

            “I love that book! It is an American classic,” I gush. “I must’ve read it a thousand times on the plane to Barcelona.” He twinkles his eye.

            “You’ve been to Europe?” he asks.

            “Oh, yeah. It’s so beautiful over there. The landscape, the cities, even the beaches…,” I trail off.

            “I’ve been to London, Paris, and even some parts of Russia,” he admits. “I have family in Russia, so I visit every once in a while. Not so much anymore, though.”

            “Oh, really? I am currently writing a book about a Russian tsar princess. I would love to visit Russia someday and retrieve background information,” I explain.

            “Do you want to grab some coffee sometime and talk about more stuff? I really enjoyed talking to you,” he grabs his phone out of his pocket. I stare at his face. He really looks honest and sweet. But he’s nineteen. My mother"and father"would never approve of me dating an older man. Especially when lying. But my mother is not here mentally.

            “Of course. Let me give you your number,” I smile.

 

END OF CHAPTER 2: TO BE OR TO NOT TO BE