Tired of Being All Alone
two
Auntie Olivia never answered my questioned. It’s not as though we never saw each after that day, or that we didn’t get a chance to have a proper conversation. She was the person that I spent the most time around (I was waiting for the answer that I never got) for the days until I left, which were spent finding suitcases and boxes to pack my things away. It took me a few days to manage to fit all my clothes into the four suitcases that I had, as I had to fold and refold numerous times, trying to make everything fit. It was decided for me that the things I couldn’t put in suitcases, like books or photo albums or posters, would be shipped there in boxes. It only meant that I would have less to deal with at the airport, though it meant a lot more worrying about never seeing some things again. I had read somewhere that there was a large percent of packages were lost in transport, never to be seen by those meant to receive them.
My friend Meaghan threw me a birthday/going away party. It was the day before I left at my favorite café in Cambridge, where we always used to go to get hot chocolates during the winter, and iced coffees during the summer—it was October, so we were in a routine mid-season funk with nothing to drink at all. It was cold enough that you froze if you drank iced coffee and you started to sweat if you drank hot chocolate, leaving us thirsty and bored. The café—called Cordon Bleu—was like a hang out for us, but the owner had a strict rule that you could not stay unless you had bought something there. As none of us drank coffee, we were left to hang out at someone’s apartment, usually mine. That hadn’t been happening for the past three weeks since Dad died, and I hadn’t been going to school, so I hadn’t seen any of them.
The party was more of a goodbye party than a happy one. At the end both Meaghan and my other friend Clara started crying, and we stood on the sidewalk hugging each other for an additional half an hour, making promises that I, in the back of my mind, knew that we wouldn’t keep. There was a chance that I might not go back to Boston until I graduated from high school—a thought that I quietly reminded them of, though they shot it down just as quickly as it had come out of my mouth. Clara was insistent that, if I couldn’t come back to Boston, they would come out to Arizona and make sure that the heat hadn’t killed me.
Uncle Drew drove back to the apartment, letting me fall asleep in the passenger’s seat. He carried me over his shoulder into the elevator and then let me slump to the floor until it was our floor, when he let me wake up on my own while he held the door. At the time I was fed up with his attempts at being a good guy—the attempts always consisted of allowing me independence that I wasn’t quite ready for—though when I looked back on it during the plane ride, I realized that he was only trying to help. And he was. Dad’s side of the family was all like that. They were always trying to do something for you, to make you more comfortable or make you feel like they really wanted you to be there with them. For most people, this trait was overwhelming.
To me, it was home.
I woke up the next morning earlier than I had woken up in almost three weeks: six o’clock. I decided against trying very hard, brushing my hair quickly before pulling my hair into a messy ponytail and pulling on a pair of dirty jeans and a loose old shirt that had paint stains all over it. The looks that Auntie Olivia and Uncle Chris gave me were enough, though, once we reached the air port I felt even worse—there were ten year olds that looked more put together than I did.
“Stay safe, love,” Auntie Olivia pulled me in for another tight hug, kissing both of my cheeks twice, before holding me at arms length. “If anything doesn’t seem right—anything at all, Heather—you can call and we’ll get you home ASAP, okay?” She had given me the same speech in the car, while I had dozed off behind my sunglasses.
“ASAP,” I repeated and nodded quickly, saluting Uncle Chris before trailing toward the exit to the plane.
***
The fact of the matter is that I didn’t know Mom’s parents as well as I knew all of Dad’s family. They were, to me, sort of an avoidable evil, as they refused to visit Boston (in fear of the cold) and Dad didn’t talk to them enough to ever get an invitation out to Arizona. They sent us a Christmas card every year, always with their picture, though it was a different one every year. It always had ‘best wishes’ written on the back and then their signatures, which were both almost illegible. Dad informed me once that they didn’t like him, that they didn’t want Mom and him to get married, and refused to talk to them afterwards. When I was born and it was known that I hadn’t been messed up by Dad, they were suddenly teeming with love, sending me clothes that I never wore (Ralph Lauren this, Calvin Klein that). After Mom died, however, the relationship went icy; the gifts stopped coming, as did the phone calls and their yearly visits.
When I stepped off the plane, I was expecting the absolute worst. I had called my Grandma from the flight, and the phone was answered by a maid, who put me on hold, only to come back and say that she and Grandpa had already gone to the airport to pick me up. It provided slight comfort to know that they cared enough to show up earlier than they had to, but it was only slight. Once inside the terminal, I searched around until I spotted an elderly couple sitting on the uncomfortable seats. They both had pained expressions on their faces, though the woman was muttering to the man, “Maybe she lost her luggage, Richard. That happened to Betty—remember Betty, from the Red Hat Society?—when she went to Michigan to visit her daughter…”
When I got to them, I stood there awkwardly until the man got up and pulled one of my many suitcases out of my hands, and then asked if there were anymore. There were, waiting at the luggage claim. I had asked for them to be held with the woman who monitored it, because I had to go find my grandparents. The woman had nodded pleasantly and said, Of course, darling, before calling out to someone who was trying to get their luggage. Even if being sincere was her intention, she definitely didn’t allude to it when I went to get my bags. “You,” she had said, pointing a poorly manicured nail in my face, “are one of the many reasons I hate my job! Little rich girls thinking that they can do whatever they want, parading around the airport like…”
Once we reached the car, I was expecting to be peppered with questions about school, what I liked to do, and other things that grandparents typically asked you. Dad’s parents had died before I was born, and these grandparents obviously had made no effort in recent years to play a large role in my life, so I was vastly inexperienced in this field. I had seen enough movies and read enough books, however, that I knew what I needed to know. Jeanine and David, as they had introduced themselves, were strict, very rich, and not at all used to a teenager. Jeanine seemed on edge the entire ride, twisting around when she thought I wasn’t looking to stare at me, thought David only hummed quietly to himself, driving along without a clue to the tension that had so quickly arisen.
To get into the neighborhood, we had to pass through a gate, scanning a card of some sort so that the little barrier would go up. It was like something that you might see when driving up to a government building or pulling out of a parking garage, when you had to pay for the parking. At first, it confused me – No neighborhood that I ever went into had a name (especially one like Farm Ponds Estates), or something like a tollbooth. As we drove farther into the ‘community,’ as I figured it should be called, the houses got bigger and more expensive looking, which I then realized, was most likely the reason for the gate. Jeanine and David’s house was located on top of a hill, after a long, paved driveway that I longed to draw on with chalk.
Upon stepping in the front door, I realized how the duration of my stay was going to be. The room I stepped into rose upward, with a large carpeted staircase leading up into unknown regions—there were two hallways leading off on either side and then four, identical white doors on the wall. My suitcases were quickly lifted upstairs by the instruction of David and down one of the hallways, disappearing into one of the doorways.
My friend Meaghan threw me a birthday/going away party. It was the day before I left at my favorite café in Cambridge, where we always used to go to get hot chocolates during the winter, and iced coffees during the summer—it was October, so we were in a routine mid-season funk with nothing to drink at all. It was cold enough that you froze if you drank iced coffee and you started to sweat if you drank hot chocolate, leaving us thirsty and bored. The café—called Cordon Bleu—was like a hang out for us, but the owner had a strict rule that you could not stay unless you had bought something there. As none of us drank coffee, we were left to hang out at someone’s apartment, usually mine. That hadn’t been happening for the past three weeks since Dad died, and I hadn’t been going to school, so I hadn’t seen any of them.
The party was more of a goodbye party than a happy one. At the end both Meaghan and my other friend Clara started crying, and we stood on the sidewalk hugging each other for an additional half an hour, making promises that I, in the back of my mind, knew that we wouldn’t keep. There was a chance that I might not go back to Boston until I graduated from high school—a thought that I quietly reminded them of, though they shot it down just as quickly as it had come out of my mouth. Clara was insistent that, if I couldn’t come back to Boston, they would come out to Arizona and make sure that the heat hadn’t killed me.
Uncle Drew drove back to the apartment, letting me fall asleep in the passenger’s seat. He carried me over his shoulder into the elevator and then let me slump to the floor until it was our floor, when he let me wake up on my own while he held the door. At the time I was fed up with his attempts at being a good guy—the attempts always consisted of allowing me independence that I wasn’t quite ready for—though when I looked back on it during the plane ride, I realized that he was only trying to help. And he was. Dad’s side of the family was all like that. They were always trying to do something for you, to make you more comfortable or make you feel like they really wanted you to be there with them. For most people, this trait was overwhelming.
To me, it was home.
I woke up the next morning earlier than I had woken up in almost three weeks: six o’clock. I decided against trying very hard, brushing my hair quickly before pulling my hair into a messy ponytail and pulling on a pair of dirty jeans and a loose old shirt that had paint stains all over it. The looks that Auntie Olivia and Uncle Chris gave me were enough, though, once we reached the air port I felt even worse—there were ten year olds that looked more put together than I did.
“Stay safe, love,” Auntie Olivia pulled me in for another tight hug, kissing both of my cheeks twice, before holding me at arms length. “If anything doesn’t seem right—anything at all, Heather—you can call and we’ll get you home ASAP, okay?” She had given me the same speech in the car, while I had dozed off behind my sunglasses.
“ASAP,” I repeated and nodded quickly, saluting Uncle Chris before trailing toward the exit to the plane.
***
The fact of the matter is that I didn’t know Mom’s parents as well as I knew all of Dad’s family. They were, to me, sort of an avoidable evil, as they refused to visit Boston (in fear of the cold) and Dad didn’t talk to them enough to ever get an invitation out to Arizona. They sent us a Christmas card every year, always with their picture, though it was a different one every year. It always had ‘best wishes’ written on the back and then their signatures, which were both almost illegible. Dad informed me once that they didn’t like him, that they didn’t want Mom and him to get married, and refused to talk to them afterwards. When I was born and it was known that I hadn’t been messed up by Dad, they were suddenly teeming with love, sending me clothes that I never wore (Ralph Lauren this, Calvin Klein that). After Mom died, however, the relationship went icy; the gifts stopped coming, as did the phone calls and their yearly visits.
When I stepped off the plane, I was expecting the absolute worst. I had called my Grandma from the flight, and the phone was answered by a maid, who put me on hold, only to come back and say that she and Grandpa had already gone to the airport to pick me up. It provided slight comfort to know that they cared enough to show up earlier than they had to, but it was only slight. Once inside the terminal, I searched around until I spotted an elderly couple sitting on the uncomfortable seats. They both had pained expressions on their faces, though the woman was muttering to the man, “Maybe she lost her luggage, Richard. That happened to Betty—remember Betty, from the Red Hat Society?—when she went to Michigan to visit her daughter…”
When I got to them, I stood there awkwardly until the man got up and pulled one of my many suitcases out of my hands, and then asked if there were anymore. There were, waiting at the luggage claim. I had asked for them to be held with the woman who monitored it, because I had to go find my grandparents. The woman had nodded pleasantly and said, Of course, darling, before calling out to someone who was trying to get their luggage. Even if being sincere was her intention, she definitely didn’t allude to it when I went to get my bags. “You,” she had said, pointing a poorly manicured nail in my face, “are one of the many reasons I hate my job! Little rich girls thinking that they can do whatever they want, parading around the airport like…”
Once we reached the car, I was expecting to be peppered with questions about school, what I liked to do, and other things that grandparents typically asked you. Dad’s parents had died before I was born, and these grandparents obviously had made no effort in recent years to play a large role in my life, so I was vastly inexperienced in this field. I had seen enough movies and read enough books, however, that I knew what I needed to know. Jeanine and David, as they had introduced themselves, were strict, very rich, and not at all used to a teenager. Jeanine seemed on edge the entire ride, twisting around when she thought I wasn’t looking to stare at me, thought David only hummed quietly to himself, driving along without a clue to the tension that had so quickly arisen.
To get into the neighborhood, we had to pass through a gate, scanning a card of some sort so that the little barrier would go up. It was like something that you might see when driving up to a government building or pulling out of a parking garage, when you had to pay for the parking. At first, it confused me – No neighborhood that I ever went into had a name (especially one like Farm Ponds Estates), or something like a tollbooth. As we drove farther into the ‘community,’ as I figured it should be called, the houses got bigger and more expensive looking, which I then realized, was most likely the reason for the gate. Jeanine and David’s house was located on top of a hill, after a long, paved driveway that I longed to draw on with chalk.
Upon stepping in the front door, I realized how the duration of my stay was going to be. The room I stepped into rose upward, with a large carpeted staircase leading up into unknown regions—there were two hallways leading off on either side and then four, identical white doors on the wall. My suitcases were quickly lifted upstairs by the instruction of David and down one of the hallways, disappearing into one of the doorways.
♠ ♠ ♠
comments/criticisms?