Letters to Angie

Part 3: Home

In all the time they'd known each other, Henry had never once seen or been to Tegan's house. Apparently, she lived across town from him in the suburbs by the local elementary school. Her house was just one copy amongst rows and rows of refracted imitations. Same exterior designs, same yard layout, same everything save for the metal address numbers on the doorway. That, and some of the more intricate yard designs the neighbors erected. Her house was barren of personality.

"Home sweet home," she said as they snuck in through the sliding backdoor.

The inside wasn't much different from the outside. There was far more embellishment on the inside, but everything lacked authenticity. Meaningless messages in black cursive lettering spread across the walls.

Only you can do it!

Home is where family lies.

Look up instead of down!

Never stop dancing!

The dinner table, which looked as if it had never been touched, held a vase of plastic flowers at its center. The furniture in the living room was wrapped in layers of plastic. The fireplace, crackling over a speaker, was more like a TV than an actual fireplace. It projected an image of burning logs that ran on a loop.

"Nice place," Henry said, not sure if he actually meant it.

"It's alright. If you ask me, we should paint the walls a dark black color and remove all the light fixtures so that at night, it's impossible to navigate."

"Right..."

She veered into the kitchen and started raiding the cupboards like a wild raccoon. Henry allowed himself to drift through the house, inspecting it closer than before. He stopped at the refrigerator to read the wall of magnets, newspaper clippings, photos, and holiday cards. There were numerous humorous sayings about wine and beer, moms and dads. Old fashioned, faded snippets from the comic section of the daily newspaper. A cartoon featuring a woman in an apron trying to cook, clean, care for a baby, and iron a shirt while a man in a black suit sat at the dinner table reading a newspaper. In the next frame, he glanced over at her and asked her to keep the racket down. In the frame after that, she chucked a frying pan at his head and stormed out of the room. The cartoon ended with the man looking at the audience and shrugging his shoulders while a little speech bubble reading: What'd I do?

While he perused a few more of the comics, Tegan removed everything from the cupboards into a chaotic jumble at the center of the kitchen. She groaned and hastily threw everything back inside, struggling to close a number of the cabinets by the time she was finished.

"What the hell are you looking for?" Henry asked, his skin crawling at the sight of such disorganization.

"A snack." She opened a new cabinet filled with pots and pans. "I know it's around here somewhere. I can practically smell it."

"Why would there be—" Before he could finish the thought, she was pulling out a package of crackers filled with peanut butter.

"Mom tries to hide this stuff from me so I won't get fat," she explained. "She's kind of a health freak."

"Doesn't seem like she hides it very well."

"Oh, these are the snacks she wants me to find. The good stuff is locked away somewhere...probably the attic."

"The good stuff?"

"Chips, candy bars, soda. You know, the stuff that really fills your blood with sugar."

Henry tried to recall a time when his father had done anything so strict for the sake of his health. But he couldn't. In fact, his father often went out of his way to supply junk food because in almost five years, he still hadn't learned how to cook a proper meal. It was always carryout pizza or burgers or tacos or wings. The closest they ever came to vegetables were potatoes—usually in the form of french fries. Sometimes, the burgers came with a slab of wet lettuce on them, but he usually picked it off before eating.