Fear Itself

On my eighth birthday, I stopped waking up with the same fanatic excitement that birthdays usually brought me. It wasn’t that I was unhappy; it was quite the contrary. Birthdays brought gifts, time with my dad, and a whole lot of presents. Presents were only good to a point, and this may sound a bit existential of me, but I was not a normal child, and material things grew boring. I wasn’t to the point of frustration yet, but I was dreadfully bored. I still loved my books, and I still loved escaping within their pages. It didn’t change the reality, but it was a nice adventure for a few hours a day.

Today was different though. I didn’t charge out of bed like I usually did. It was a little later than I usually woke up, but it didn’t matter. My father was still going to be at work, so I took my time. I stayed in my bed for about twenty minutes, wondering if now that I was eight years old I’d finally be allowed out in the backyard for a few minutes.

I knew the stories. I knew why my father protested when I asked to go out and play. He said that the world was cruel, that people were mean, and that I would get hurt. Going outside was bad. Mom died because of the people outside, he had told me. She was friends with people who couldn’t be trusted: a woman addicted to alcohol and her son. He said that they were the reason she died; he didn’t go into much detail, just that her trusting nature and empathy were her downfall, much like mine would be. The world was no place for compassion because the people of London preyed on it. Good people simply couldn’t survive in this world; the world was no place for a girl like me.

Around 8 o’clock, I finally rolled out of my bed, not bothering to brush my hair. Why bother? I wasn’t going to see anybody today; I had nobody to impress. Even my father wouldn’t be due home until between noon and one o’clock. He always took a half-day for my birthday, rushing home through the mid-July heat and the sweltering summer sun just to spend the rest of my birthday with me. In the meantime, I would have to occupy myself. I would have to attempt to make myself breakfast since I clearly missed that boat, and then, I would decide from there what to do until my father got home.

My feet thudded down the polished steps leading to the first floor as I wiped the sleep out of the corners of my eyes. My hair was a ratty mess, knotted and tangled in untamed waves. My hand slid down the railing on my way down, keeping me balanced on my way. As I came to the bottom of the steps, I was alerted by sound in the kitchen, and I couldn’t keep a sense of hope from rising within me. Excitement replaced it when my eye fell upon my father, sitting at the island counter, drinking his morning coffee.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” he greeted me with a smile before taking a sip from his mug. I couldn’t keep the grin off of my face. Suddenly, I didn’t care that nobody else was going to come to my “party.” I didn’t care that my friends were books, and I didn’t care that I couldn’t go outside. My father was home for my birthday, all of it, not just half of it, and for some reason, that really meant a lot. I scurried over and hugged him. “Happy birthday, Tali,” my father added, a wide smile on his face to match mine.

My eighth birthday was the only one my father ever took a full day off for; I guess it was the only time he was ever able to do, and that’s probably the reason my eighth birthday sticks out so much more than the others. My father was constantly trying to appease me. It was never clear at the time, but he felt bad. Later in life, the guilt poured out his eyes, even when he tried his best to hide it. Things got complicated.

But when I was eight, nothing was complicated. All I knew was that he wanted to spend my birthday with me. He bought me many presents, probably more than I could count on both of my hands. I had books, and I had art supplies to practice my painting with. My favorite that year? The ukelele. I fell in love with music. When I wasn’t reading, I was listening to the old records my father either bought for me or pulled out of the attic. I was sitting on my window sill, people watching and plucking at the strings until I struck the right note. It occupied me for hours, which was a blessing in itself, and I found myself getting lost in the melodies. Music moved me just as much as words did, if not more. I discovered that music really could soothe a restless soul, and it became one of my favorite pastimes.

The best part of that birthday wasn’t the presents. It was the cake. It was a small, circular cake (chocolate, not vanilla, because I didn’t like vanilla) with pink frosting and my name spelled across the top in lilac. It had eight candles in it with flickering flames glowing.

“Make a wish, Tali,” my father told me.

When I blew out those candles, I wished for friends: real ones, not fictional characters, not my dad, not a picture of dead musicians on an old record sleeve. I wished for real people that would come over on my birthday, real people that would come play with me in the afternoon, and maybe even some family members: not even a brother or a sister… an aunt or uncle would have done fine.

There was nothing more disappointing than waking up the next morning to find that my wish had gone unanswered. I didn’t know what I expected; they never came true, anyway.