I took a breath before dialing my home phone number
into my cellphone. I checked the clock again -10 a.m. as we agreed- and felt
relieved that I was calling on time.
I could hear the other
line buzzing as I grabbed my yellow notebook and pen off Alex’s desk, shuffled
through our bedroom covered in clothes and trash, and sprinted through the
dining room to avoid the demonic cat that lurked under the dining room table.
As I passed Alex
drinking his buttered toffee coffee in the kitchen, I had my phone pressed to
my ear, and he gave me a look. I mouthed “my
dad” to let him know who I was calling. I hated having to explain whom I
was talking to with my boyfriend. I knew I was going to get bombarded by his
questions demanding every detail of my phone conversation with my own father.
Paranoia was Alex’s middle name, so I could sense him freaking out about what I
could be saying about him while on the phone, and I resented his
less-than-trusting nature.
After making my way
through the crammed obstacle of a house I lived in with Alex, his mom, and his
younger sister, my Dad picked up the phone just as I got to the basement, where
I could escape and have some privacy.
“Hello?”
My Dad sounds as though
he answers phones for a living, and picking up a call on a day off exhausts him
immediately. Being an artist , and painting contemporary abstractions, this
isn’t the case, but how he can always sound so tired from answering the phone
amazes me.
“Hey Dad” I answered,
“How are things at home?”
“The same as the last
time we talked. Are you still taking your meds?”
He was referring, of
course, to my medication Adderall, which I take for ADD. It’s a bit of a
Catch-22 since ADD can cause forgetfulness, and the meds help with that, but if
you forget to take the meds, how can you remember without them? Even now that I
am no longer living with a boyfriend in his mother’s neglected house, and in
college, my Dad still asks about my meds. They are necessary for me
accomplishing just about anything.
“Yea, I’m still on top
of them, I just forget the afternoon ones sometimes” I reassured him.
My Dad cut right to the
chase.
“Well, Rachel, you seem
to be calmer and in a better state of mind this morning. Are you ready to talk
to me and not get upset or angry?”
Of course I am that’s why I called! I thought, but I knew
that talking like that would only aggravate him and make him think I was
copping an attitude.
I tried to sigh as
subtly as possible.
“Yea, I’m ready. I guess
I’m just nervous I’m not going to be able to come up with some good reasons
about why you should let me come back home.”
“Well, you’ve had all
week to think about it and come up with some good answers” he said.
This early in the phone
call, and I was tired of it, fidgety, and anxious to hang up. I hadn’t even
brought up any points and I was struggling to pay attention. I just wanted to
go back to bed and sleep away my problems.
I could smell the moldy
dankness of the poorly refinished half of the basement I was in. I loathed this
garbage hole behind Railroad Ave. I despised the neighborhood that looked quaint
during the day, but where people were stabbed at night. I was tired of smelling
like cigarette smoke from Alex’s chain-smoking mother. I missed my younger
sister Claudia, and above all I was scared for my future. Out of high school,
not in college, working at a grocery store…I did not want that future. Staring at my blue bike Alex had shoved
hap-hazard in the corner, I forced my brain to get over it and try to talk to
my dad. I wanted to go home and move
on, and I knew that I had to.
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