For the Kids
Lit Up — May’s Prompt: Nostalgia
In 1986, heaven is a homemade Coke slush from the freezer, buttery microwave popcorn, and sitting on the shaggy green living room carpet watching Teen Wolf for the hundredth time. Summertime rain patters on the patio outside, having chased us away from the neighborhood pool. The chlorine smell still clings to my damp hair even after a bath.
I’m a sensitive kid. I can feel the tension in the air, manifested in a constant silence so loud my ears ache. Like any eight-year-old, I ignore it and immerse myself in the teenage angst of Michael J. Fox. The inexplicable hatred my parents harbor for one another is something I don’t have the capacity to understand or explore. It fills me with the heavy, sickening knowledge that there is no end in sight.
She hates him, and he hates her. Whatever. I have a movie to watch, while Mom reads her thousandth romance novel in her easy chair and Dad hides in the den with the door closed.
Months roll by, then years, then decades. I’ve cleaned out the house, uncovered the damning letters among the hoards, found myself drowning in the grief of her loss. Their union ended long ago, but the feeling of swimming in a bottomless pool remains hardwired in me.
