All the Other Days. Jack Hartley

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СКАЧАТЬ me sadder than I was when I left to go to the park earlier.

      I walk through the front door into the dining room and sit down to watch the six o’clock news. Mom yells out from the kitchen through the breakfast bar, ‘How was your day, sweetie?’

      ‘It was good, same old. How was yours?’

      ‘It was okay. They’ve let off another two ladies at work though.’

      I walk over to her and hug her ’cause I know she’s worried about her job. It seems like every day they’re having to cut costs and get rid of workers. She’s already stressed enough as it is with everything going on between her and Dad, so I hate her having to worry about even more things. I go and set the table as we wait for Dad to come home, and then he walks through the door in his dirty work gear.

      ‘How’s my wife?’ he asks.

      I don’t see her smile like this often; he hardly ever asks how she is. The timing couldn’t be any more perfect though because even though he’s a dick, it just takes one nice thing from him for Mom to forget weeks and weeks of him treating her like shit.

      ‘She’s good, cooking your favourite. How was your day, darling?’

      ‘It was good. Got some new work coming up. The boss just signed a big contract with a new company that is setting up at the docks, so we’ve got a lot of work for the next eighteen months lined up.’

      I’m glad he’s happier today, but I know this won’t last long and soon he’ll snap out of this niceness and it’ll be the usual come home and escape into his own world sitting on the sofa. But for Mom’s sake, I’m glad she’ll be happier today than she was yesterday.

      I go to bed early tonight, drained from a heavy day of thinking. Some days I just lose my energy when I’m feeling depressed, and it’s like my thoughts push down from my brain onto my eyelids and shut them. I get out a Coldplay album and change to track four, Sparks, and put my headphones on as I sink back into my bed. I start to think of the girl at the beach as my eyes become heavier and force me to sleep. I dream of her walking down the beach and looking at me smiling. The wind blows on her face again making her hair trail behind her like a model in a music video. In my dream, she notices me and we lock eyes. This moment plays on loop in my head and I don’t want the dream to stop. I hear the waves crashing and see her run away from me into the water in a long white dress. She walks further and further into the water and this makes my heart beats harder and harder. I want to see her, but she’s disappearing from me until she’s completely gone. I feel sad in the dream and this forces me to wake up. I’m covered in sweat and I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. It takes me a while to get back to sleep after that.

      Judd

      Day 1

      It’s a Sunday morning and my father is working overtime so it’s just me and Mom. These days are my favourite because the house is ours and for a few hours everything just seems right. Most Sundays we make pancakes together before we go to church so I get out the ingredients before Mom comes downstairs from having a shower. Together, we make them and sing as loud as we can to music. I put a Kings of Leon CD into the stereo and change the track to The Bucket. As the chorus comes on, I hit the mixing bowl with the whisk pretending to drum and Mom plays guitar on the fry pan, and we probably look like the Learning Disabilities Association of America should be paying us a visit.

      As we leave the house for church, leaves blow in through the front door. I love fall, the way all the trees change colour into their orange and yellow hues – and, how everything comes falling down and leaves the branches bare. We get into the car and start driving into town towards the church. We’re not really religious or anything. I just like going to be part of something and sitting in the beautiful old church. I like to think there’s a heaven or something after this life. Maybe it’s not at all like we’re told in the books or here at church. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll even know when we’re dead. Like we somehow live on after death and we are never told by a man waiting at the gates that it’s our time, or the light won’t turn into brightness and we won’t hover in the clouds watching all of those in our lives. We’ll just live on like before, like nothing has happened.

      As we’re driving down a straight road, a car pulls out turning left onto the road. My Mom slams on the breaks to stop the collision and we just miss getting hit by a few seconds.

      ‘Fuck you! Watch out you stupid asshole!’ my Mom screams with all the anger in the world inside her.

      My heart beats heavily in my chest and my Mom’s face is starting to burn red as the veins on her forehead swell with anger. The car was so close to hitting to us and driving straight into my door. If she hadn’t see him so quick, I’d be dead for sure. Mom lights a cigarette to calm down and opens the window to air out the fumes.

      As we drive up the road, I see the girl from the beach in the distance. She’s wearing the same white dress that was trailing behind her, just like it did in my dream. I lean my face against the window as we drive past her, and my mind becomes filled with images of her. I don’t know how I dreamt of her wearing that dress even though I’d never seen it before. I want to get out of the car and run after her, stop and hear her voice for the first time. Listen as the words roll off her tongue and bring life to this beautiful girl I’m obsessing over. I said I get hung up on moments and now I know this was a significant moment. It must mean something for me to see her again. It has to. Or at least, I want it to because I want to see her again.

      We pull up next to the sidewalk and I check my phone for the time, its 9:58 am.

      ‘Mom! We’re running late! Let’s go!’ I say.

      We run to the church and make it through the big wooden doors just as the bell dings for 10 am. We hurry to the seats at the back of the church where we usually sit. The altar boys start singing Allegri's Miserere Mei, and we just sit there in awe of the harmonies. I don’t have a clue what the Latin words are, but I just love the way the words flow and become sounds rather than words. Every time I come here, I see a new part of the stained glass windows that surround the church. It really is an amazing place, and I don’t really think of it as being a religious place, more like a room created to see and feel beauty in this life with lots of people that are searching for something missing. At the end of the service, we take Holy Communion and then leave through the big wooden doors that tower over us.

      After the service, we always go and get a coffee at the shop across the road from the church. My mother orders a long black and I get a cappuccino. I sit at the table fidgeting with the sugar sachets, ripping apart the paper. I’ve always been a fidgety person and am constantly finding myself ripping apart whatever comes into contact with my fingers. After the waiter gives us our coffees, Mom looks serious, like she’s about to say something important. Or at least there’s something serious on her mind that she wants out.

      ‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this for … with your father, Judd.’

      I quickly reply, ‘Then, why do you? It’s not good for you to be like this all the time.’

      ‘I know. It’s just … it’s just so hard.’ She looks down at her coffee and moves her eyes away from me.

      ‘I hate seeing you like this. It’s not right.’

      ‘I’m sorry, sweetie. I hate always dumping this onto you. You’re my son. You shouldn’t have to hear this stuff. You’re just the only one I can really talk to who listens.’

      I smile over at her. ‘You know I don’t mind. I’m always here.’

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