Falling Stars

3 | breakfast

I wake to the sound of banging pots in the kitchen.

I furrow my brows, certain I'm imagining the noise. I roll onto my side, determined to fall back to sleep, only to be awoken by the clamor once more. I turn onto my back curiously, listening to the commotion going on in the kitchen. If I didn't know any better, I'd think Mom was making breakfast. But Mom never makes breakfast–breakfast was Dad's thing. Every weekend morning, I would wake to the smell of pancakes and bacon wafting around the house. That is, while he still had the energy to make weekend breakfasts.

I sit up groggily, now certain Mom is baking something. Only she could be this loud with simple pots. I toss my blankets to the side and rest one knee-length sock clad foot to the cold floor, padding across my room before peeking my head out into the hallway. Sure enough, Mom is standing at the kitchen island, whipping up something with a whisk and metal bowl.

She seems to be taking this whole We're a happy, perfectly normal mother-daughter duo act to the extreme.

I'm curious to know what it is she's up to, though there's still a part of me that wants to ignore her clamor and crawl back into bed. I would sleep the rest of my life away if I could, but unfortunately I was cursed with an extremely rambunctious mother.

I enter the kitchen, half-awake, surveying Mom's actions with a critical stare.

"What are you doing?" I finally deadpan. She has yet to notice my presence, too immersed in whisking away at some tan chunky liquid that has sloshed from the metal bowl to the counter top and all over Mom's face.

Mom glances up, clearly startled. She composes herself by clearing her throat, returning her attention to the bowl. "Making breakfast," she says simply in a chirpy tone, as if this statement is normal. As if Mom has ever made breakfast at nine on a Saturday morning. As if this is something she just does, and I shouldn't question her because it is perfectly normal for Mom to be awake by now, cooking, even though Dad always did while she slept until noon, until he would wake her up with breakfast in bed, back when we really were a happy, perfectly okay family.

My tongue takes control of my rationality. I nearly snap. I want to argue; I want to question why she is doing this. Why did she move us here and why is she making friends with Beau across the street and why is she making breakfast and why is she acting so okay like these last few months have been anything but the living hell they really were.

How can she possibly be okay, after everything?

I voice none of these thoughts. Instead, I hug my arms to my body and flatly mutter, "Oh."

Mom shrugs. Without bothering to glace up from the task at hand, she says, "I don't know, I just thought it would be nice. I ran to the grocery store and picked up a few things."

"Oh," I repeat, because what else is there to say?

"I'm making pancakes," Mom continues. "And bacon." She gestures to the pan on the stove, bubbling with grease. I eye the slight smoke wafting into the air from the pan, pretty certain that having something smoke while cooking isn't supposed to happen.