Looking For Hopi

One/ Hopi Leaves Home

"I think I'm going away again"
We sat on the roof watching the wind steal the autumn leaves from the trees below

"Where?"

Hopi shrugged
"I don't know"

"Well, how long will you be gone?"

"I don't know"
He looked at me with something in his eyes I'd never seen there before, this sad, apologetic look and I just knew he wasn't coming back this time.

My brother loved to disappear every once and a while, he thought it made him interesting and he hated our parents with a raging fire. At first he had always gone "missing" to spite them but by now he'd come to enjoy it. He'd take a new name, dye his hair and disappear completely for a couple months. The only person he'd keep in touch with on these excursions was me. See, I was his best friend, he knew he could tell me anything.
Or I guess I thought he knew that.

"I'm going to miss you, you know. You're my baby brother"

He nudged me gently with his shoulder
"By barely a year Jan"
I tried not to let my smile dim but he knew me too well
"Come with me!"

I tilted my head,
"You know I can't. Everything I know is here"

Hopi sighed with guilt.
" I'll call you. Okay?" He offered as if this would make losing him any better. I wanted to ask him why, I wanted to scream at him, yell, hit him, cry, beg him to stay, ask him why having me around wasn't enough. Instead I just uttered a simple meaningless word

"Okay"

And the next morning he was gone. I always liked to imagine him in the most magical places. On a yacht in Zanzibar, a plane to Japan, having a picnic with some beautiful stranger underneath a willow tree. And he always brought me back a souvenir and yet he never told me what he did while he was gone.
I watched him leave a trail of dust from the white pickup and I just sat on the roof for awhile, thinking about how much I'd miss him.

"January! Breakfast!" I looked over at the window and there was my mother. Her hair unkempt, her face plain. Beckoning me inside for our daily somber breakfasts. The ones where my parents pretended they loved each other and we just went along with it, fully knowing that Dad had another family in Florida that Mom knew about but pretended she didn't. I took one more lingering glance down the winding dirt road and crammed myself back through the kitchen window.
Dad fluffed out his newspaper once, greeted me with a swift 'Ah, Jan' accompanied by a nod and two more shakes of the paper before he flipped the page. I used to love my Dad with all my heart but once Hopi had followed him on a business trip and found the other woman, I hated him with every fibre of my being. When we told Mom, she pretended to ignore us completely, later she sat on the deck sobbing with Dad blissfully unaware any of us knew. The next morning my Mother pretended nothing had happened. Hopi and I had to reassure each other that Dad was indeed a bastard and we were not hating him in vain. I looked at my Mother each morning and to see what his promiscuity had done to her broke my heart.

But to the outside world we're that 'perfect' family you see across your street in your quiet suburban neighbour hood. In that big yellow house where the shutters are never drawn and we're always volunteering with things. We're involved, we're a loving and hardworking husband, a gentle and nurturing mother and two absolutely perfect grade A kids and guess what? We aren't perfect at all motherfucker.

I didn't sit down and that made my mother extremely nervous. She stretched her arms across the table and hummed
'Jan darling, sit'

I shook my head, picking a biscuit off the plate in the middle of the table
"Aren't you even going to ask where he is?"

My mother widened her eyes and smiled
"Who dear?"

My Dad answered with a cough, not even looking up from the newspaper
"No, no. We know where he is. he's out again on some silly adventure pretending he's free from his 'oh so horrible life'"
He coughed once more turning the page again as my mother stared down at her plate. I knew my Dad was like that, stubborn, prideful, bitter. But I guess I never knew how bad it was

"Don't you care?"

Finally he slammed his newspaper on the table and wagged a finger at me
"I'll care about that foolish boy when he learns to accept his responsibilities as a man and gets a job to make his own damn MONEY!"

"Harold" Mom scolded in her delicate fashion and I knew that day that she wasn't mom anymore, she was this lifeless house wife and I swore I could hear my heart break.

We were fifteen then mind you. All Hopi ever wanted was to truly live a story worth telling and I want to say he did.

I threw my half eaten biscuit back on the plate and turned to my mom, only my mom.
"You need to make a choice alright? He isn't going to leave her for you, but you, you can leave him for yourself. Mom, choose you for once in your life"

"JANUARY! TO. YOUR. ROOM"
And just like I always had, I pretended my dad didn't exist.

"Mom, if you aren't getting out, then I will. I can't watch you die like this"
Her eyes were wide and for the first time in a while, I saw something in them, I saw fear. She was afraid of growing old in this abuse, afraid of never really being known and still, she would not leave him.

"Hopi will come home and it'll be okay again Jan. He always comes home."

I shook my head and placed my hands on her face
"No, no you don't get it. Hopi's not coming home this time, it's different. Without him I'll die."

Dad kicked me out that day. Mom wouldn't even say goodbye. She ran off to her room and cried. I was leaving anyhow and for some reason it still hurt to not be wanted. No one asked me to stay but in a way, I was free. I was free to start something new. Something good.