Unsuspecting Blessing.

xii

xii

The Spring season blessed Brian with the ability to traverse between important places by foot, his most favorite means of travel, and allowed him to keep touch with his legs instead of being some sort of couch potato. On his way home, nothing significant happened besides the fact that he had a longing sensation in his chest that felt like something specific was missing. Someone specific. He missed Julia after being more or less cooped up with her for a week straight and fulfilling his desire to become acquainted; though he surpassed the acquaintance category faster than he thought and considered himself a friend. Whether she thought the same, he had no idea.

The outside of his house was blue, and blended in like camouflage with the other houses on the street like a line of soldiers. It made him laugh how clone-like all of the families were on the street where he lived. All the families except his. His Mom and him are poor, but thankfully due to the way custody settled and how frugal—or cheap some people might say—his Mother learned to be, they managed to own their house completely. Not making payments on a home changes the course of life drastically. In Brian's younger years he felt a disconnection between himself and his Father, like a frayed rope that if it had any more stress it would snap in two. But the recoil, Brian thought, would not be as bad as a real rope snapping, because no tension had really been placed on the rope. His Father, when Brian was younger, treated him like a second-class citizen used strictly as a tax write off. To no surprise, his parents had Brian before marriage, and married due to the fact of his existence—however the reason they divorced became like a mirror of the initial convergence of their lives. They divorced because Brian's Father, who does not deserve his name being mentioned, created a second family on the side. At the time Brian could not understand his Mother's pain because he, deep down, hated his Father but had not quite managed to escape his children's emotions into a more mature comprehension of what he felt. He witnessed years of lines being drawn on his Mother's face, lines that still stood as he entered the house, that caused long-lasting untamed stress and pressure even after their splitting up.

Brian did not knock when he entered the house, because he did not expect his Mother to be home; he expected to wait until she got off of work, but she stood at the kitchen counter cutting cucumbers that she salted thinly.

"Nice to see you," she said, smiling with a laugh under her words.

Brain imagined that she would have had a face of stress, or worry, or some sort of undetermined anger. But completely the opposite, she seemed cheerful and almost thrilled.

"I'm not kidding kiddo, it's nice to see you."

Brian had not realized the semi-stunned face he wore. "It's nice to be back, Mom. Smells good in here too, do you have some sort of candle burning?"

"Only if you mean the cucumbers I'm chopping up for a snack. Maybe your nose is being unclogged from all the hospital smells." She still wore the same smile as when he first walked in the kitchen.

Brian's Mom, Grace Peterson—she made her son have her last name—is a tall, blonde woman. Much like a lot of the college girls he sees in his day-to-day escapades, his Mother looked fit and active, her eyes youthful but with a known maturity behind them. Her wrinkles turned into full blown crows feet, which gave her the finest sparkle of true Motherhood despite being once since she was twenty years old—her hair surrounded her face on both sides in a boxy shape, revealing the crows feet on either side of her green eyes minimally and dawning the twilight between her life then and now. As a teenager, Brian had heard that his Mom was quite the concert and live music junkie, seeing every show she possibly could with money saved up from her after-school job; now she worked with the homeless and provided them support.

A year after she had Brian, Grace Peterson stopped going to college. She got a two year degree at the local community college, and did not care for education as much on paper as much as she did empathy for others and goodwill. Mrs. Peterson believed intellect came from your emotional intelligence rather than information known—even though she graduated high-school with honors.

Mrs. Peterson ate her cucumbers while staring wordlessly at Brian for a while. The munch and crunching of the vegetables filled the room with a constant noise like the ticking of the clock. After a few more seconds had passed, she spoke: "Brian why don't you sit in the living room, I think we should talk about what has been going on lately."

His Mother always had a way of putting a positive spin on things, but the way she spoke gave tremors of anxiety rushing into his chest. "Okay," he said. Brian sat on the living room couch, which had a copycat loveseat on the opposite side where his Mom sat.

"I am," she started slowly, "not in disagreement with the situation." though the words sat unevenly on her face. "How is she?"

The question felt sudden and unexpected, and caused Brian to recoil back onto the couch. "She is doing better than day one," he said, not trying to force his Mom into the circumstance, "why do you ask?"

"I just want to know." she said, with a little crescendo at the beginning, "I like that you're helping her out, and that you're balancing college with this, but—"

Brian leaned forward, and this caused Grace to pause. She looked as if she was reevaluating her next words.

"But I'm afraid that it will take an unnecessary toll on your mental health taking care of another human being like that."

Brian wondered if his Mom worried about him being trapped; or feeling trapped.

"How long will you be staying?"

This question seemed to be more difficult than the one Brian had conjured. "I don't know," he said, "until I'm not as needed I suppose." Brian wondered if his Mom thought he had romantic intentions with Julia, despite just meeting her a week prior. He then wondered how he would answer that question.

"WIll you be coming home in the meantime?"

"Yes," Brian said, unsure if that was really true. "Hopefully by next week I shouldn't have to stay with Julia. It's more just the initial learning process of living with an unusable limb."

"You're not planning on doing anything you'll regret later on?"

"Like what?"

"Like falling in love." The word from his Mother's mouth felt protective and echoed with past experience throughout the living room which had no noise besides the crunch of the ticking cucumbers.

"Did you ever regret it?"

Grace smirked, "No. Not once." She got up and hugged Brian, pressing his head against her torso, before leaving back to the kitchen.

He followed.

"What are you waiting for?" She asked, "Go get ready for your stay."

Through the kitchen, on the other side of where it starts, was his bedroom. On the inside it felt familiar, and comforting. Tailored to his liking. Blue, with posters all around of music he loved. The climate kissed his skin tenderly and his body shivered with excitement at the thought of sleeping in his own bed. "Not yet," he said, talking to both himself and the sheeted mattress. He grabbed clean clothes, and a few hygienic products that he was running low on, also some entertainment items like a book he had been itching to read by Dean Koontz.

On his way through the kitchen, his Mom offered him one of her last cucumbers, and he ate it whole. They embraced in a warm hug that is only felt between Mother and son, and Brian left the house, carrying everything he took with him in his backpack for college. He turned over the conversation he had with his Mom in his head, and considered what might become of him staying with Julia, but dismissed the thoughts as he came to a crosswalk.