when you were my father

thinking

"Why did you grab me?" Isla yells once we're outside. Cars rush past, no one pays attention to us as they're in their own hurry with other problems. Micah sets her down on a bus-stop bench and she crosses her arm in anger.

"Isla. This isn't you. You never yell. And in there, it wasn't normal. Are you okay?"

"No." She turns away from us and pulls a drawing out of her pocket. She places it on her knee and reaches for a different pocket, which seems to be full of hidden pencils. With her items she bends over to work on the drawing.

"She's not okay," Micah tells me, while catching his breath. I've got to give it to him, he ran all the way here while carrying another human.

"Ummm... duh?" I roll my eyes, "She literally just told us that. But she won't tell us what's wrong. There's obviously something we don't know."

"Right. Well, it's been a long day. What do you say we go home?"

"Go home? Wait, that actually sounds great." I say. I thought we should try and figure something out like a plan of action, but since darkness is creeping around us maybe it's not the best idea. Who knows what sort of creepy thing might happen in the dark."Isla, we're going home."

Without replying, Isla stands up and begins to walk towards our house. Her small body moves quickly, her dress swaying in the wind. Micah and I quickly follow her.

*********

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Reaching over, I turn the timer and the stove off. My mac 'n cheese is ready. My siblings have spread out around the house, hopefully they'll be hungry because I'm definitely not.

"Isla!" I call, my voice echoing around the house, loud enough for her to hear. Right as we got home, she was gone to her room to draw. "Mom?" I ask, looking at our still passed out mother on the couch. "Hey, Mom? Are you hungry?"

She doesn't reply, but her breathing remains steady as ever.

"Micah!" I call. "Dinner's ready." I wait a minute, until neither him or Isla appeared. "Seriously?" I whisper to myself.

Annoyed, I head towards the hallway where both of their rooms are. I turn into Isla's room and she's sitting at her drawing table, this time fully conscious though. "Come on. Dinner's ready. You can keep drawing after. Please?"

She looks up at me, blinks and goes back to staring at her paper. "No."

"C'mon. Please? You can even bring your drawing with you, and draw while you eat. Just please come eat."

I wait a minute, until she stands up and walks out the bedroom door with her drawing.

"Great, now I just need the actual normal one to come." I said again to myself, walking down the hall and into my brother's room. I say again to myself, walking down the hall and finding my brother's room.

It's been a hot minute since I've actually gone into his bedroom, the door's changed even. A large 'keep out' sign hangs in the center, covering the corner of a 'Spiderman' movie poster. I knock to the side of it, opening the door.

"Hello." I announce as I enter. He sits, leg's crossed, on his bed, leaning over his laptop. "Hello?"

"Oh, hi Bia. How are you?"

"I'm fine. Please, come to dinner. I've been calling for the past few minutes."

"Hmm? Oh, right. Sorry."

"What are you even doing?" I ask him, walking around his bed and peeking at his laptop's screen. Open he has all sorts of windows with varying searches. All mainly about memories and reoccurring moments. It catches me off guard. "Why did you search that?" I ask, not seeing how they have anything to do with anything.

"See, these things that keep happening. It's somewhat like when they happen we go back in time. The decorations look like their from a different decade or even century...and at the hospital, Brian thought it was 1985."

"So?"

"So, I think that what we keep seeing is someone or something's memories coming back to life."

"Wait a minute. That doesn't actually sound super stupid. But who's memories could they be?"

"Brian's maybe?"

I think about it for a minute. Brian was at both of the places, but only after the memory or moment was over. It still doesn't really make much sense to me.

"Maybe. Anyways, come eat before Isla heads back to her room. It took me long enough to get her out." I tell him, walking out of his blue walled bedroom.

Isla sits at the counter, heavily coloring and drawing on a piece of paper. Our mom still lays out the couch. I walk behind the kitchen island and spoon mac 'n cheese into four plastic bowls. I hand a bowl to both Micah and Isla, place one on the counter for myself and take the other one to our motionless mom. After slowly sitting her up straight, I feed her the cheesy macaroni. She eats about half of the bowl before I get tired of the silent motions. Thinking I've given her enough for now, I walk back over to the counter and eat my own food. My siblings stick around while I eat, even though they're completely done with their own.

"It's going to be okay." Micah says, right as I finish eating the only three spoonful's I can take. "Whatever's going on, we can figure it out." He pulls me and Isla in for a hug, which we accept and hug back. I smile, while Isla keeps her stone cold face. But her eyes tell me that she's at least just a little bit happy too.