Worlds Apart

It is two o’clock in the afternoon. You still have not come home from school yet, which you started going back to a couple of days ago. Mom and dad finally told you that you had to start making an effort to get back to a normal routine. They said that some sense of normalcy would help you feel better, would help you move on. I can tell that you think it is bullshit. Honestly, I think it is too. But you sucked it up and went anyway, probably because mom and dad need a normal routine again, especially since they are the ones that believe it will help them feel better. I did not think I would be able to handle walking, invisible, through the school halls, so I decided to refrain from following you. Instead, I spend my morning wondering the halls of our house, trying to pretend like things are normal again. I pretend that I am staying home because I am sick, and that mom and dad think I am napping which is why they do not try to interact with me.

I know this is not the truth though, and it is hard to maintain the lie when reality keeps pushing its way through. So this is why I find myself unconsciously avoiding my parents all day. When I hear them move from room to room, I automatically drift away from the room I know they are heading towards. I run my hand over the wall, along tabletops, across the glass of picture frames; touching everything I can to prove to myself that I am here. This seems too dragged out to be a dream, but simultaneously too bizarre to be reality. Am I crazy? Or maybe I just never existed at all. I cannot quite figure out what I am. I feel as if I still have a body, though I know it is buried in a cemetery about an hour away from my home, and I still do not have the ability to have a physical impact on my surroundings.

I think I am proof that ghosts exist. But what good is proof if you have no way of showing it to people? Mom never believed in ghosts, she always went on about something along the lines of it being against her religion. Dad, however, used to sit and watch all the cheesy ghost hunter shows with me whenever mom was not around to scold us. I know that mom believes I am in heaven now, but I wonder if dad believes that I am, at least partially, still here with him.

I have been noticing that mom and dad are growing more distant from each other with each passing day, and I cannot help but feel that I am responsible for this. Mom spent most of her time crying at first, but lately the tears have turned to a strangely blank expression in her eyes at all hours of the day. I caught her awake once at two in the morning, sitting silently in the living room staring off at nothing. Dad is dealing with his grief much differently though. He puts all his time and efforts into making sure he is busy with something at all times. He has done more renovations on our house since I have died than I think he ever did in my entire life. It is almost as if he thinks that if he stops moving, he will fall to pieces and the truth will set in. I am not sure which approach is the better one, and honestly, they both seem to suck equally in my eyes. Neither of my parents are dealing with the problem at hand, they simply bury it – literally, since I am the problem - and try to move on.

This should not surprise me really. Mom and dad have always been professionals at not dealing with the problem at hand. I think that trait passed down to me. None of us like to talk about our emotions, instead we keep it all bottled up until we cannot possibly hold onto it anymore and we explode. I suppose this trait is partly what got me into trouble in the first place. Since I always held my emotions in, when they finally emerged they seemed to be diminished in other people’s eyes, it was as if they were no longer important since I had held onto them for so long. While the things that hurt increase in significance as time goes on and you do not express your pain, the value of your hurt decreases to outside parties. It is a vicious cycle, but then again so is life, and pain is an essential part of living.

You, on the other hand, you are an open book. You always were frustrated with me when I wanted to walk away from a fight and all you wanted to do was talk it out. I will admit now that I hated you sometimes for this, but now we can see whose method was better off. Clearly, mine was not.

While I ponder our differences, I find that I have wandered aimlessly through the house only to wind up standing outside the kitchen entrance. I do not look inside, but I can hear mom rushing around looking for something. I can also hear my dad grunting as he tries to fix something that probably was not even broken in the first place.

“Have you seen the salt container?” Mom asks frantically. I can tell she is getting worked up about the salt already.

“I can’t hear you,” my dad answers crossly, his voice muffled for whatever reason.

I peer inside the doorway to watch them. Dad has somehow contorted himself so roughly three quarters of his body is cramped inside the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Tools that he probably has no idea what they are called, let alone how to use them, are scattered beside him on the tiled floor. Mom is rushing around looking for the salt container. She always gets herself worked up over stupid things like not being able to find the salt container. As her unnecessary panic builds, she trips over one of dad’s unnecessary tools and curses loudly.

“Do you really have to be in here right this very second?” she screams at him.

At her shout dad jerks in surprise and I can hear a loud bang, presumably from his head knocking against the pipe connected to the sink. He curses too, and awkwardly disentangles his body from itself as he slowly wedges himself out of the cabinet.

“Do you really need the salt right this very second?” he demands, rubbing the back of his head. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Mom looks like she is about to explode. “Do not take the lord’s name in vain!” she sputters at him, practically spitting.

“I’m sorry,” dad says, a hard, mocking edge clear in his tone. “I forgot about that. Why would I take the Lord’s name in vain? What would I have against Him? If He even exists, that is.”

I know the last bit cuts mom down in the worst way. Her faith in God is her rock, the one thing that she can always hold on to. And it is also the one thing we all know to never question her about. I stand rooted to the ground, watching mom anxiously to see how she will react to this. To my surprise, she remains calm. She simply smooths her shirt carefully with her hands, takes a breath, and looks deep into dad’s eyes.

“I hate you,” she whispers.

“Goddamn it!” Dad shouts, slamming his hand down painfully hard onto the counter top. “God fucking damn it!” Mom winces visibly, but dad continues. “Our daughter is dead, fucking dead, and you’re worried about me taking the Lord’s name in vain? Our daughter is dead and you hate me?”

Mom slaps him.

Dad looks taken aback.

I do not know what to do.

I cannot stand the thought of staying here and watching them fight so I turn and leave. Even as I try to tune out their heated argument, their words follow me down the hall, up the stairs, and into our bedroom. I cannot imagine which is worse: pretending that fights like this happened even before I died, or thinking that the fight is my fault.