Dear Diary

Monday, April 20, 1987. - Dads been acting strange today. Something was off first thing this morning. I had come down to make breakfast for Melody. Stumbling down the stairs making more noise than I had planned, cringing at the cascade of a green and yellow toy with bells built-into the wheels; something more for a toddler to drive around on the carpet rather than my six year old sister to play with. Dad didn’t make a sound. As I passed by my parents room he was sitting on the edge of his bed (now it’s his) looking through a box of papers and pictures. He didn’t even look at me. I was braced for the hollering, the barking of orders for having disturbed him, but nothing, he didn’t even look up. Relief and worry washed over me as I got to work on breakfast. Melody was sitting at the table gazing absently out the dinning room window. Rain trailed the view through the pane. Mom’s car sat in the driveway waiting, the big maple tree across the street waving back at me; everything seemed paused, anticipating. They didn’t know there was nothing to anticipate. Breakfast was cold cereal and a banana. Mom always made us eat a banana with our cereal and there was a bunch of them browning on the counter. She must have gone shopping before….

Melody and I sat eating, heads bowed over bowls as if praying. I just wish it wasn’t so quiet. Dad came into the kitchen. He tossed mom’s car keys on the table, “Take her to school.” The keys splayed out on the table like a hand holding on to the smooth surface right in front of me. If this had been last Monday they would have been snatched up and Melody would have been rushed to finish and hurried off to school; today they just laid there, frozen to the table, my gut knotted, the picture of Melody and I smiling up at me; strangers. Her hands held those keys everyday. The hemp braid I made at camp when I was ten strayed off to one side out of alignment with the rest, an extra hair tie for Melody, mom always had handy to tame her mane of curls. The cereal floated in the bowl a thin banana slice resting on the spoon paused for the next bite. Melody’s eyes were locked on the keys, if I didn’t do something we’d be home for another day. I don’t think I could stand another day pressed in with all those memories. The house is so full of them there isn’t room for us. Looking through the drizzled window at the distorted view of mom’s car; it’s going to be a tight fit in there too.

Dad just stood there watching me; no yelling, “Well get moving boy!! Didn’t I just tell you to do something!!?” He just waited, his eyes searching me. I don’t know what he was thinking, he just wasn’t acting himself. He was wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday and now that I think about it the bed was made when I saw him earlier slouched at the edge; dad never made the bed. His eyes ringed with red but dry, he could have just come in from work, eyes irritated from the dust of the mill; only it was morning, mom was dead, the funeral had been yesterday, and we are dieing here slowly, instead of the aneurysm that exploded in her, ending everything so quickly.

They had been arguing, mom’s patient voice murmuring between his clear loud thunders; I can’t even remember what they had been arguing about. Just another of many. Then quiet. - - - “Jaaack!!” The anguish in his voice, I don’t remember how I got down the stairs. He was crumpled on the floor with her in his arms, rocking; she wasn’t moving, her mouth slightly open, her hand limp, her keys on the floor, splayed out like a hand.

Mom told me once that because I was first born and a son, that dad named me; mom named Melody. She’d laugh a little and smiled at me conspirator like, “but you’re more like me than you are him”. Then her face would change, her eyes looking at me so far away, “He really does love you, he’s just had a hard time of it and doesn’t know any other way”. “When you get older you two are going to go around, just remember he loves you.” “He wants to prepare you for the world out there that hurt him, but you’re more me than him, so the world you see is a lot prettier.” “Oh, there are monsters out there for sure; walking around looking like people, but inside each one there is a piece of a good soul just waiting for someone to call it out.” She leaned in and looked at me, straight in the eyes, so close to my face, all I could see was her eyes. “That - is what we’re good at.”

I looked in dads eyes, looking for that ‘piece of a good soul’ mom was talking about. His hard look intent on intimidation, looking for a fight, wavered around his eyes; the line of his jaw, muscles twitching with the tension of clenched teeth, proud shoulders pulled back to his military pose, heavy boots anchored to the floor balanced and ready to chase and fight, but his eyes. They looked so frail, tired. Is that what she saw; the man, tired of the fight, but doesn’t know any other way?

I put down the spoon and reached for the keys. They were warm, held by dad all night. I looked at Melody, her face set, like dads. “Maybe we should go to the coast today dad?”

His body shrank a little, off balance, his eyes trailed between his children. All that’s left of her. All that matters. He reached out and took back the keys. “Sounds like a good idea.”