Ringing

The crisp and driven blaring of my 5:30 alarm echoes throughout my bed as I again fight myself to get up and start the day. The luke-warm water from the shower head falls upon my shoulders like it has every other morning; nothing different, nothing unusual. The smell of fresh toothpaste lingers on my breath as I get dressed and pull myself through another dull Tuesday morning. Coming downstairs, I can sort of hear my mom talking in a low voice, as if she were hiding something.
“Happy birthday” she said, rather blandly. “How does it feel to be 12? Do you feel any older?” I simply laughed and proceeded to make myself breakfast. I kept feeling like there was something she hadn’t said; something hidden, something… unusual. My mom is a pushy woman. She holds grudges and rarely ever holds back her emotions. She tends to be a little too fierce.

Feeling a bit uneasy and tedious, I continued with my Cap’n Crunch and orange juice, hoping I was just still tired. Dad walked downstairs in that old Algonquin, Canada shirt he got during vacation 3 years prior. Dad, on the other hand, is a reserved man. He doesn’t really know how to express his emotions and usually keeps them in if he is afraid his opinion will offend somebody.
“Happy Birthday, bud.”
“Thanks Dad.” I replied. I couldn’t help myself. First mom, then dad? What is going on? The tension I had built up inside was getting ready to bulge out of me like a parasite searching for its last bit of salvageable food. “Is something wrong?” I profoundly expressed to my parents. No response. I was beginning to get worried. As if scripted by Hollywood, my little sister, Grace, had just walked in the room and instantly shattered the shrieking silence.
“Hi sweet pee,” Mom again lifelessly gestured. Grace is more like dad than mom. She would rather spend a day alone in her room and read than have interaction with anybody outside the characters in her fantastical fiction.
“Grace, do you want any toast?” I asked her trying to rid myself of the angst I had bundled.
“No thanks,” she replied, seemingly just as lost and confused as me.
I finished my breakfast and walked over to the chair where my backpack was, assuming I was just going to the bus stop like any other day.
“Hey guys? Come sit on the couch,” my mom asked us. We looked at each other with blank expressions, hoping for the best; expecting the worst.
Dads almond eyes began to well and cloud as a tear formed and slowly gripped his aging skin as it plunged down his face towards the dirty old carpet. “I can’t live with your mother anymore.”

My eyes scrunched up. My face felt hot. My head started pounding. My knees began to shake. “What?” was all I could stammer before my sister burst into tears and the magnitude of the situation instantly became an engulfing tsunami that stole my childhood with one swift wave. The flash of 12 years of summer vacations became all I could think about. “Does this mean no more camping in Algonquin? No more canoe trips on the Manistee? No more summer vacation?”
“We didn’t get married planning to get divorced. I’m sorry, Charlie. You guys didn’t do anything wrong. Things just didn’t work out,” dad injected, trying to lighten to blow.
“Does this mean no more family?” Grace managed to spit out in between fits of wiping her nose and drying her eyes. But before my parents could find the strength to tell their 8 year old daughter that our family was going to be forever shattered, she got up and grabbed my hand and took me up into her room. She grabbed me and squeezed me like a terrified child would and said only one thing: “I love you, Charlie.”

We, together, for hopefully not the last time, walked down the creaking old steps and strode with confidence into the room from which our lives had been altered once, and may never change again. With a little more humility, and a little less stability, we walked as one pair into the room and began bombarding our parents with questions that we knew wouldn’t be answered. Years later now, separate lives again, just like the beginning. I still have my issues; we all do. Be that as it may, instead of standing out and protesting a change, I choose to slip into conformity and simply abide by the rules, hoping I never hear the ringing of those words ever again. Happy Birthday.