Six Feet Under

16.

I went home after school and gone was the excitement during English class. I reach home and a knot forms in my stomach as I grab the door knob. What if Cynthia is in the room with my father and mom is at her book club? What if I go through something traumatic again? What if I see something that is better left unseen? I twist the door knob and enter inside the house. It is silent. I feel my chest heaving with heavy breaths that I am taking. I don't want to hear things that might just leave me more broken than I already am.

I climb the stairs and hope to go deaf for a while. But I don't go deaf. I hear some shuffling coming from mom's room. I gulp. I think whether I should peek inside. Or not. I don't consciously make a decision but my legs start to move towards my mom's room. I stand outside of it and slowly open it by a crack. I peek inside. It's my mom. She is holding some papers in her hands. I hope she surprises me by saying they are divorce papers and she is taking me in her custody. But I guess they are not. They are something else. She shoves them inside her closet and sits on the edge of the bed with her hands on her face bawling her eyes out.

Why is she crying? What happened? Should I go and comfort her? I think about doing something but I don't know how she will react. She has never liked my interference. I quietly make my way to my room and close it without a sound. I wait for her to step outside of her room. So maybe I will be able to do something then but to go inside her room would be too much. I never go inside her room.

I wait for a couple of minutes that I hear her footsteps. I hear her going downstairs and then I hear her going out of the house. From the window of my room, I see her walking on the pavement and after a few minutes, she was not visible. I quickly make my way to her room and open her closet. What was it that made her cry? Maybe I will be able to get right. Maybe. And maybe then she will like me.

I see the papers lying in the closet and I take it out and sit down on the floor. I look at it and the first page is actually a document from a hospital. What the-

It's a pregnancy test. WHAT THE HELL! Is mom pregnant? Wait, no! That's not her name. Who's name is it? Cynthia Miller.

Dad got that skank pregnant.

But wait, how did mom even find this? I feel my brain going all over the place. This cannot be true. There has to be some mistake. But who am I kidding, there are medical reports to prove the fact that she is pregnant. I turn the page. Another page is stapled to this. It is from a bank. What is it? Oh wow! Just....wow. I remembered the time I told my grandmother that my father does not consider us worthy enough to show his emotions to. And I guess I was right because what I am seeing is a completely different side of him. He has already opened an account in the name of the future unborn child. And a savings account. I flip the page as anger makes my body shake.

It is a letter. A letter from my father to my mother.

Carol,

I know that our marriage hasn't been the most exciting one. I wouldn't use the word 'average' for it because we both know it has been a disaster. There was a time when we both loved each other to bits and now we both cannot even tolerate each other's presence for more than a second. I know you think that I am a bad person and not worthy of anything. Well, that's your opinion and there is nothing that I can do to change it. There were times when I gave my hundred percent but you have to meet me halfway. You didn't do that and look where it got us. Unplanned pregnancy is not something we aren't familiar with. Paige is the living and breathing example of that. We both weren't prepare for her but we somehow made it work. And we are still making it work. But I need you to know that this house that we built with so many hopes and dreams has now started suffocating me. It haunts me. I have legally all the rights on every brick of this house but all that I have is a couch. That is where my nights are spent in a blur.