Chapter Five: Timeless by Rosaline Saul
My dad turns toward my mom and with a retaliating tone in his voice, he insists, “She is sixteen and not a child anymore, how much tact did you want me to use. No matter how I say it, there is only one conclusion.”
My mom goes red in the face. The glow spreads from her neck
up into her cheeks. When she gets upset her neck and chest turns a bright shade
of red. She often jokes and says it must be her Scottish blood. Her family
moved here a few generations ago. She turns in her seat toward my dad, and she
bangs her fist down onto the table. Her voice is slightly raised when she
exclaims, “John, we agreed we would discuss this civilly.”
He presses his palms against the lip of the table, and his
knuckles are snow white as his fingers grip around it. He pushes his chair back
violently, and as he stands up, he says, exasperated, “Here we go again with
the accusations.”
“Don’t
you dare put all the blame on me, John! How can everything always be my fault?
My fault you think you fell in love with someone else!” Her voice is pitched.
I gasp shocked. They both look at me. My dad is towering
over me while my mom is still sitting across the table from me. She reaches her
hand to me, as she whispers apologetically, “Oh Heather, I am so sorry. You
weren’t supposed to find out this way.”
Pushing myself away from the table, the chair falls over and
the leg scrapes my ankle, but I ignore the sudden sting. I walk away from the
table briskly and then I run up the stairs to my room, taking the stairs two by
two. I walk into my room and then I slam the door shut behind me.
I can hear their voices from downstairs—another fight has
started. It does not last long though because, by the time I find my music
player, I hear the front door slam shut, and total silence fills the house. It
is not the usual silence. It is an empty silence.
I lie on my bed, curled into a ball and I vacantly look
across my room through the window at the pale blue sky. Summer will be here
soon. The sun is setting later and later.
Hearing a funny noise, I sit up. I listen intently and then
I realize it is my mom—she is crying. I feel sorry for her, and I wonder if I
should go to her to comfort her. I decide not to, we all have to deal with our
pain and sorrow in our own way.
Sometimes I just hate life. Sometimes everything just seems
so pointless. Do we not exist purely to love each other? What did people in
olden days do when divorce was taboo? They made it work, that is what they did!
Sometimes I wonder why people even still go through the completely archaic
ritual of getting married. It is a total waste of money if you want to ask me
for my opinion. Unwillingly I wonder when my dad met the new love of his life.
Will he marry her, or did he learn his lesson the first time that love just
does not last. Could people not just enjoy the brief moment they are here on
earth, make the right choices like never get married, never fall in love.
I plug my earphones into my ears, this time not to block out
the noise, but to block out the utter silence left after my dad went missing
from my life. Granted, I never saw him because he was always at work or, as I
have just discovered, with his new girlfriend, but he was always a part of my
life. Now he will become my alternative weekend host.
Soon the music in my ears lulls me as I get lost in the
lyrics of the songs, I only downloaded this morning.
Jayden drops his bag as he walks into the lounge. He looks
around bored and then he sits down onto the musty couch. He slides around and
lifts his legs as he stretches out onto the couch. Folding his arms under his
head, he calls to Kieran, “Did you try to find the worst place in this town?”
Kieran calls back from upstairs, “This is all I could find
on such short notice.”
Jayden can hear the creaks across the ceiling of the lounge
as Kieran crosses the room above him. He sighs as he reaches for the remote
control on the small, dingy-looking coffee table. With the tips of his fingers,
he inches it closer until he can grasp it in his hand. He clicks the on button
and then flips through the three television channels to see if anything
interests him enough to watch.
Kieran crosses the bedroom and moves the curtain in front of
the window aside so he can look out. He has a view of the entire town, from the
railway bridge up to the hospital.
Turning away from the window, the curtain drops down, making
the room twilight dark again. He walks across the hall to the only other
bedroom in this two-bedroom apartment. He looks out of the window and notices
his view is limited to the back gardens of the neighbours.
As he walks back to the first room, he calls down, “I am
taking this room.”
He hears Jayden grunt above the noise of the television,
“Fine. I’ll take this room.”
“You
cannot sleep in the lounge.”
“Once
we buy a decent TV and a nice couch and fancy this place up a bit, I think it
will make a cosy room.”
Kieran leans over the banister. “Are you phoning for a
cleaning lady, or am I?”
“You
are.”
Kieran walks down the stairs as he presses the buttons on his phone. When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he pushes the phone against his ear and then when the Cleaning Agency answers with a polite, sing-y voice, he arranges for somebody to come out and clean the latest dump they have to call home.
“Arranged. She’ll be here in fifteen minutes.” He sits down on the single-seated sofa and lifts his feet onto the coffee table. It sways under his feet, but he balances his legs until the table stands steady.
