Dance With the Devil

I didn’t have much on my mind once Axel left. I didn’t have anything on my mind at all honestly. All I knew was that I was standing alone, in a supposedly haunted playground that I used to come to with my father in the falling snow in the dawn of morning. I suddenly felt like a freak for being here. I sulked myself over to my car, and crawled inside. The heat greeted my face with a pleasurable familiarity. I cupped my hands over my mouth and breathed into them, trying to get feeling into them once again. As I did so, I stared at the playground. I couldn’t look at it enough, something about the essence, or perhaps just the memories in itself captivated me.

Once warm blood was successfully surging through my veins again, I pulled out of the parking lot, with not a single legible thought in my head.

I didn’t live far away from the park, yet the drive back home seemed longer than it should have. I don’t exactly understand how that happened, considering that all the roads were pretty bare. The sky had finally gotten back to its normal blue gray sky, and was no longer that pretty dawn swirl of purples and pinks. It made the world seem more of what it really was again, and less of what we all wished it would be.

When I got home I noticed my mother lying on the living room couch. I furrowed my brows at her, well the back of her head, which was all I could see from the angle I stood at. “Mom?” I said, though quietly. I didn’t want to wake her if she was sleeping.

I saw her move slightly, but she didn’t say anything, nothing audible anyway. I walked over to the side of the couch so I could see her face. She was awake, but she didn’t look at me. I could see in the way the light caught her face that her eyes were glistening with moisture. My face dropped instantly. “Mom…?” I said again, louder this time, though it trailed off at the end. She looked up at me; her eyes were so red and wide. I knelt down beside the couch and looked her over. She was still in the same clothes that she had on last night, and her hair was completely a mess and totally undone. Now my mother was the kind of woman who took pride in her appearance, even from the moment she just woke up, she would make sure she looked presentable. She looked like a mess.

I wanted to ask her what happened, what was wrong, but I couldn’t make my mouth do anything; probably because I didn’t even have the words in my head. No matter what my mother and I had been though, no matter how many fights we’ve had, I still couldn’t handle seeing her in the condition that she was. It doesn’t matter who you are, no one likes seeing their mother cry.

“What’s wrong?” I finally asked. She stared at me with her big brown eyes all in disarray. I saw her lip give the tiniest of quivers before it opened to form very broken words.

“I thought you left…” She blinked hard, most likely to stop another tear from escaping, and turned her head away from me. I stared at her for a moment, as her head was away. She suddenly looked so small and fragile laying there. My mother was nearing 60, and she was such a skinny small thing to begin with. She almost looked like if I so much as touched her she would break. Facially she didn’t look that old at all however, but you could see it in her eyes. My mother had very defined eyes, like they could really tell you anything about her. I had always liked that I got my eyes from her.

She looked back at me after a moment, her cheeks were wet. “I woke up this morning, and I wanted to go in and check on you, like I do every morning, but you weren’t there. I looked all around for you, but you weren’t here. I just thought that, because of our fight last night, because we’d been fighting so much lately, that you just got tired of me.” I had heard everything she said, but only one thing caught my interest.

“You check on me every morning?” She looked at me for a few moments, and then slowly nodded her head.

“I always have ever since you were young. That’s always the first thing I’d do when I woke up.” My mouth was slightly open in surprise. “This morning when I woke up, I went in there and saw your empty bed. So, being a mother, I only expected the worst. And when I couldn’t find you anywhere else, I thought you left.” She paused for a moment when another round of quivers came over her lips. “Ever since I woke up to an empty bed where your father used to lay, it had been my greatest fear that I’d wake up and find the same thing with you.” I felt like crying. I started shaking my head back and forth.

“No, no, mom. I’d never do that to you. I could never ever leave you.” She sniffled.

“But with all the fighting we’ve been doing, I just would have thought—”

“You thought wrong. It doesn’t matter how angry I get with you, or how much we might fight. Mom I wouldn’t leave you. Especially not without telling you. I know that I’m all you have, and I sure as hell wouldn’t let you live the rest of your life alone.” I grabbed her hand. “You never have to worry about what happened with dad happening with me. I got all my better traits from you.” She tightened her grip on my hand and gave me the slightest of smiles, and she sniffled again.

“I’m so sorry for how I’ve been acting lately. I’m going to be a better mother from now on, I promise.” I gave her a small smile.

“Don’t worry about any of that. I know things have been hard, especially for you, and I should have been more considerate.” She smiled as she seemed to sniffle the last of her tears away.

“Let’s not worry about any of that. I’m just glad you’re here, and that I have you.” She furrowed her brows slightly. “Where were you anyway?” I stood up beside her and moved myself to the adjacent couch and sat down. Besides the sounds of me and my mother, everything was so quiet. The TV was off, which was actually quite uncommon in our house. We always liked white noise in the background, just to make things sound livelier and busier than they were. Though some may argue there is no sound, I could hear the rays of light shining through the windowpane and glistening and gleaming and illuminating everything it touched. I had always through that the light made a sound when it sparkled like that, though no one ever believed me. I had always thought they just weren’t listening close enough.

The light glazed over my mom too, illuminating her entire body to look as if it was glowing. Just seconds before, my mother had looked a wreck, and now she was glowing. “I just wanted to get out. I woke up so early, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I just didn’t want to be home, I didn’t have an exact place in mind.”

“So you didn’t go anywhere?” My mom sat up and picked up her cup of coffee from the table and took a sip.

“No I did.”

“Where?” I didn’t know if I wanted to tell my mom that I went to the old playground that my father and I used to go to or not. I didn’t want her to think that I missed him. However, I swallowed my emotions and opened my mouth.

“Do you remember that old playground that Dad used to take me to?” She took the cup away from her mouth after she took a few sips and stared at me, though not a hard stare. It felt more like she was trying to process my words.

“You went there?”

I nodded.

“Didn’t a kid die there?”

“Yeah. The playground isn’t in use anymore. The swings are all broken and everything has graffiti on it and stuff.”

“How come you went there of all places?”

“I don’t know. I passed it the other day when I was driving and I just wanted to check it out.” She looked away from me, into the ray of light that was shining inches from Jack’s head on the floor. Each of his gray, white and black hairs caught a sliver of light, and they seemed to make his fur really shine. I looked back over at my mom. She seemed to be staring at Jack too, though something about how she was presented, be that the light behind her head or whatever else, something about her looked elegant in the moment. She generally looked beautiful. Though I don’t know why it took me eighteen years to realize that.

“Do you miss him?” Even though I had seen her lips move, the question caught me off guard so much that I nearly didn’t hear it. She turned to look back at me, though I didn’t quite know what to say.

“Do you?” She looked back over at Jack, who was turning in his sleep, her grip on her coffee in her hands tightening.

“I miss how things were. I miss how he used to leave little notes for me on the kitchen counter in the morning before he left for work. I miss how he used to sneak up behind me and hug me from behind when I was cooking dinner. I miss those walks we used to go on, holding hands after we had put you to bed.” She slowly turned her head to look back at me. “It’s the little things you miss when someone leaves.” My mother’s slate blue eyes glistened with tears.

“Do you think we’ll ever see him again?” She wiped a finger under her eyes to catch her tears.

“I don’t want to. Because I know that if I even so much as look at him, I’ll fall right back in love with him when all I’ve been trying to do this entire time is forget him. You know, love is harder than most people think. Sure, loving someone is easy, but no one ever tells you how hard it is to stop.” All I could do in that moment was stare at my mom as she completely opened up to me. I had never seen this side of her before. “Karlee, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that love is evil, or that you shouldn’t fall in love. Love is a beautiful thing. But it is hard. And it’s most likely going to be the hardest thing you’ll ever do in your life. But if it’s with the right person, it’s worth it.” She wiped her tears away again and took a small sip of her coffee. I looked away from her, and looked down at my fingers on my lap. Nick had been in the back of my mind ever since my mother brought up love. I looked back up.

“Do you think love can last forever?” She was quiet for a moment, like she was thinking about what to say.

“I believe it has the potential to.” I never really realized until now how wise my mom actually was. I smiled slightly at her and stood up.

“I hope so. Well, I think I’m going to go call Aubrey or something. Make some plans for tonight. And I’m sorry again for scaring you, Mom.” I turned to walk away to the stairs.

“Karlee, Nick did a stupid thing.” I stopped and turned back around to look at her. “But I don’t want you to turn away from love just because of that. You’re too young to be that bitter. You’ll find the right guy someday.” I gave her the smallest grin.

“So will you.” I turned and walked upstairs to my room.