I did not thank the heavens for losing my family, on my behalf, I felt released but lost at the same time. Such a strange feeling. A mixture of fear but freedom, adrenaline with dread, a dangerous mix.

I recalled the scent of evening flowers from the lavish backyard in my family’s home, memories came flooding back; I saw mother holding on tightly to the beautiful silk that was to be her dress...father, in the backyard garden before my ninth birthday, planting wonderful orange blossoms along with tulips...and wishing that I could numb the memories forever.

Now after the loss of my mother and father, my only family that I had known of, I had set out to leave the venue and create my new life.

Adeline is my name, I was eight, and had my family. I was there when my mother voluntarily sent herself into many institutes to help with her psychological complications, I did not shed a tear, I did not cry out her name, I did not tell her goodbye…I had simply turned and walked away. She did not call for me. It did not matter to me that she had left, she always left and then came back, I had never been close to her. My aunt, before she passed away, had said that mother always cared for me, she just had trouble trying to express it in a way that would not terrify me. I wanted to believe it, but inside, I felt that I should not believe it because one day she would leave forever… Father could not persuade mother to stay with us, mother always had her way and father could simply agree, after discussing whatever it would have been, father left to the garden and tended the plants as if they were his children. I usually stayed in my room and drew or wrote what I was feeling at the moment, then after I would see father out in the garden I would go out to him and join him. We always spent what time we could together, always made me daisy chains and placed them on my head, I would be his princess he would say to me… I never thought that my father would be taken from me so soon….

It was months after mother was admitted into the institutes where I knew that she was not going to be better at all, she never asked to see me and I never asked to see her. I felt that I did not have a mother to begin with, she was just someone who lived with father and I who continuously snapped at me to do what she felt I needed. Grandmother had come to see me and father, care for us a while, when mother came home grandmother was always there for me, to calm me down or to be someone who I could talk to with no fear. On the nights that mother had turned dangerous, grandmother always consoled me and climbed into bed with me to pass the night, sometimes father would come in the room and silently prayed for a blessing for mother and I. I did not know this until much later after his death with his left letters for me, much of which I kept inside a beautiful blue box under the tulips he had planted before his death, I had kissed the box and whispered, “Thank you for the wonderful memories father..” Placed the box in the ground and ran off to find a memory release from the nightmare that consumed me as flames would consume a body leaving only damage forever.  Mother did not know of father’s passing until a year later, the knowledge had left her in a much worse condition than she was in the first place and forever changed, she screamed if nothing was as the way she wanted, she slipped into her own world when things became unbearable or she just was uninterested, she always flew into rage when things were “wrong” for her, and she always attempted to self-destroy herself with no results. Since then all the doctors in the institutes began to heavily keep an eye on her and not allow for mother to have in her possession any sharp or potentially deadly materials, not even scissors or pencils were allowed to be sent to her at all.

Grandmother offered to take me to see mother in the asylum one day, I stood quiet and looking over at the sunset and carefully put my thoughts into words that would not hurt grandmother, “I...do not think it is time...to see mother yet grandmother… for her health…” in return grandmother carefully masked the relief in her face and carefully said, “My dear, are you sure you do not want to see your mother? This is not an everyday opportunity, you must think carefully-” “Grandmother, I do not believe I should go see mother yet,” I interceded. I was confused for why grandmother wanted me to see my long lost mother, I did not want to see her, now or ever. After a while, grandmother gave me permission to go to see Jacob, the new person in town who is oddly clandestine and belligerent most of the time-also a baker, just to clear my mind and not be locked up in the house. “I will be back in a few hours grandmother,” I said, and walked off into the lonely and grotesque square. The squared used to be beautiful, or so they had told me, father always teased me that it was the world becoming increasingly full of loss everywhere and everyday, he had once claimed, “If the world did not have much pain and loss, maybe just maybe, the square and the world would be the most beautiful thing that you have set your eyes on…” I stayed thinking of what father had said and thoughtfully replied, “Maybe the world requires pain and loss father… if we did not have that… then we would not have a balanced life…” Father becomes thoughtful and mumbles, “One day, I shall take you to a place where we have never seen before and you will see what I mean,” No such day came, father had died of a little known disease, he had a hole somewhere in his chambers of his heart and had decided to make itself present on the day that was supposed to be marvelous. It was exactly a day before mother’s death, I was seeing the garden waiting for father to pass through the beautifully antique gates and smile at me once he caught my eyes. I did not think anything could happen to father, he was a strong man, when mother left he was strong, he never showed weakness of any sort--but I never dreamed he had a ticking bomb inside of him. I saw the crowds gathering in front of the square, few people turned to look at my home, some caught my eyes and hurriedly turned away as if they had seen the eyes of their worst nightmares. It took a while for the group of people to work up the nerve to knock on the door and deliver the worst news ever possible, Grandmother was the one who answered the knock, I did not understand what it meant at all, Grandmother burst into tears and argued to the townspeople that Father could not be gone. Did not die from an unknown heart disfunction coming home from work, the people claimed that they found father on the ground by the tree, the tree that father always said was OUR tree...I looked for him everywhere, refusing to believe he was gone, but tears did not flow from my eyes, I did not feel depressed, I felt...rather numb… I kept mumbling to myself, “Do not fret, everyone goes eventually… father will always love you, always be there for you...do not fear…” Grandmother broke the news to mother when she went to visit her at the asylum, mother was transfixed when the news was delivered, she then started screaming and that was when the meeting was cut short and mother taken to her room. Everyone was surprised that I did not show any feelings for my father, I was almost placed into an asylum with mother for everyone believed I was mad for not showing any feelings for the one I had spent many memorable feelings with. I sometimes thought that I was a different person for not crying for my beloved father.

Jacob was inside designing a beautiful cake themed after the Greek goddess Athena, wisdom and daughter of the great Zeus, owls all around the cake with a hint the goddess herself. Jacob, knowing how I was one to not greet but just surprise, calls out, “If I were to be paid for every time that you had simply snuck up on me, I would probably be wicked rich by now.” I did not give him a quick response, I took my time, but just as I was starting to respond Jake instantly feels the atmosphere and says anxiously, “Hey, are you alright? You seem to be… different and tense…” I start again before he interrupts, “I am not even sure myself if I am even ok, I see that I am different for everyone tells me so, I’m not sure Jake… father died recently…” A heavy and tense feeling fills the room and silence takes over, I could nearly see Jacob’s actual thoughts running through his mind, after a thought his face became soft and kind, a rare sight. “Well...I’m sorry Adeline...Your father must have meant the world to you, right,” asked Jacob, he took his time placing the words in the sentence and waited for my response. “He did mean the world to me Jake...it’s just that I didn’t show that he mattered to me. I never shed tears or fell into depression, I was just normal and I am not sure why,” I replied and Jacob had multiple expressions on his face and tried to hide them at the same time but utterly failed. I thought that maybe one day I would ultimately leave this town full of ubiquitous melancholy, but then my thoughts were immediately shattered when Jacob interrupted and said, shocked, “You mean to say that you did not cry for your father or even became sad as all other people would? I wonder why Adeline, your father loved you dearly, I would see it in his eyes when he would look at you when you were not looking. He absolutely adored you Adeline, didn’t you adore him as well?”  I had no response to that. I stayed thinking and Jacob finally said, “Your father would have done anything to keep you well and by his side, do not ever think for a second he wanted to leave you Adeline.” And walked out of his bakery leaving me behind.

I went back home to Grandmother, still thinking what Jacob had told me before walking out on me. The sun was just setting over the horizon, a strange shimmering pale pink with hits of violent pulsating purple. Birds flew above my head and taking their blessings to someplace else, someplace where a miracle would be needed. Wind blew and it was almost as if it carried mysterious messages to some secret land that only the dead knew of. With every step i took, it seemed as if all died around me or scurried away to find a better place. Finally arriving to my home where Grandmother was just finishing up cooking tonight’s meal--peas with fresh cooked eggs along with chicken slices. I open the garden gate and walk through my father’s peaceful and vibrant garden, then inhale the scents that emerge from the blooms surrounding me. I slowly close my eyes and let my mind wander with the scents, my life walks slowly and  I see what i lived so far: mother going mad, father making me daisy chains, father found dead...Jacob leaving me behind in his most favorite place. I never thought that Jacob would be capable of leaving me alone, but I couldn’t finish the thought because grandmother appeared and asks, “Do you realize that it is sun set at this moment and you are just here in the garden napping, after you know that you are to come before sunset?!” She was absolutely furious, her nostrils were flaring and she seemed to be bound to start yelling some more.  I then stated that I was simply at Jacob’s bakery to try the new frosting he had created, she then calmed down some and let me in the house to eat.

It wasn’t a conversating dinner, might as well, it was more of a sit down. All silence and agony in the antique walls full with memories of pure happiness that were from so long ago. Grandmother began to distance herself from me and I felt right then that i had lost the one person in my world. She claimed that she was not distancing myself, rather that it was I that was becoming clandestine. I decided to not argue any longer for she seemed to dislike me and seemed to be ready to throw me out of the house, in which, was actually MY house. The dinner went by without a single word shared with the other, grandmother finished first and left the room and myself. I began to think of what were to happen next at any given moment, and at that exact moment grandmother comes into the room with her arms full of bags and takes her time to speak to me quite shaken from her moment. “Adeline,” she whispered, “You are to leave this house right this moment! I cannot bear you any longer! You ungrateful child, your parents leave for ever and you do not shed a tear! You have had no reaction to them leaving you, and yet you calmly sit there and perceive me as a mad old woman! But behold! For you shall now know that your mother has died in the institute a day after your dear father died!” I took in the deep and shocking moment, and realised that I was the reason for grandmother distancing herself from me, I was the reason for the coolness that took over from our usually warm and happy relationship, it was  that caused her to drive me away from the place I called home.

I forced my eyes to see grandmother’s face. Saw that she had no tears in her eyes, she was enraged but yet finally released from her binding chains. Then an unimaginable anger surfaced from me and I contested, “You would banish me from my own home? The home that my father and mother had? Your dear daughter wouldn’t have wanted that at all, she would forever hate you for what you have done to me today. Listen well, Grandmother, I will leave this home by today and I will be gone forever. You will never see of me again, and I will not bother to pass by, Father has given me all the strength I need for this horrid world!” As I said those words, I felt a tiny twinge of feelings, something that I had not felt in a long time, a strange feeling, and an overwhelming emotion.

I did not bother to say goodbye to grandmother at all, I finished my last dinner in the home and went for my things in my room. Grandmother stayed rooted to her spot and watched me leave the room and saw when I took my items down out of the house. I took a deep breath and looked at grandmother for the last time, she looked away with such fierceness that I knew that she ultimately resented me. I took one step out the door, millions of little voices came from nowhere and surprisingly made me feel released with no fear of leaving my safe home. I had nowhere else to go to, and I decided to not think of where I was to stay the night, Jacob could look for me later the next day or not at all, I did not mind because I needn’t rely on anyone. Grandmother, forever deserted me, and I bade her no wishes. I whispered to the voices, “I will soon be there, soon enough I will find a better life, then I can free myself from this numbness and detachment I have endured for years…”
Then...I walked away from father’s earthly heaven and went into the grotesque square to take one last look at the rising moon, and say goodbye to the resentment and poison left behind. To welcome the peace and empathy in the new world...