Lost and Found

Chapter Four

When I was younger, Mom and Dad, would fight a lot. Always over money, or us. Harper and I, would sit at the top of the staircase. We would listen to them argue. My dad, a surgeon, and my mother a physiatrist, were both in medical school when Harper and I were born. It wasn't, until we were thirteen or so, they began to make money. So with two young children they both worked, to support their daughters. They had both, started medical school at eighteen, two twenty year olds, providing for two babies, was hard. Once, I had asked Harper how they'd bought us such nice things, and had no loans to pay off.

"Nana and Papa, and Grandma and Grandad paid." She had told me.

Nowadays, their fights were kept behind closed doors. In hushed voices, that always ended with my mother knocking back to much Chardonnay. I didn't know what they were about, and perhaps it wasn't my business. But when I came home from Will's, prepared with an excuse as to why I'd missed my afternoon classes, and cheer practice, the house was silent. Harper, was sitting at the kitchen table, her normally impeccable ponytail had slipped through, and her tangled hair hung about her face in disarray. I'm sure, I looked similar.

"What's wrong?" I asked. I'd been at Will's for three hours, it was only four-o'clock. Why was Harper here?
"Tired" She said. I nodded. This was an excuse. Then Harper turned to me, a look of curiosity in her eyes.

"Don't you have practice?" She asked me. I shrugged.

"Headache." Also an excuse.

Both my mother and father had work off that day, for as long as I could remember. Tuesday, was there day of togetherness. It took me a minute, to realize why she was sitting at the table, why she looked so concerned. From my parent's bedroom, I heard shouting, and what sounded like crying. Muffled by the door, so it sounded like they were calling out from a well.

"How could you do this to me Theo?" My mother's voice asked. I raised an eyebrow, turning to Harper.

"How long has this been going on?" I asked Harper. She shrugged.

"It was happening when I got home, an hour ago." She told me, her voice cracking. We would talk about it later.

"Fuck." I muttered, pulling out a chair, to listen with her.

My father's voice sounded high, and shrill.

"I am practically invisible to you Charmaine. I have been, ever since the girl's were born. We became colleagues, instead of lovers. For the past seventeen years. Divorce papers were coming, you knew that." He snapped. I heard something fall, and break. This sounded, a lot like how their fights sounded years ago.

"We said, eighteen years Theodore. We would stay together, eighteen years. For the sake, of our daughters." My mother retorted.

I exhaled a breath I didn't know I was holding. I didn't want to hear this. But I remained rooted to my seat.

"We said eighteen years ago, twenty years ago. Not for Harper, not for Aaliyah, we said eighteen years ago for Noah." My father's voice.

"What about us?"

"WHAT ABOUT US? Charmaine, you think I don't know? You think I'm dumb, to think I didn't know about those other men, is to call me an idiot."

Harper and I, locked eyes. Both of our eyebrows, practically crawling onto our heads. Who the fuck, was Noah? There is a long silence, that seems to drag on forever. A heavy haze over all four of us, separated only by walls.

"So what are you going to do Theodore? Walk away? Leave? Act like you don't love me? Don't love our daughters?" Again, my mothers voice.. Again, another long silence. Then The door of their room opens.

"I'm done, Charmaine." My father says flatly. He sees Harper and I, staring at him. My mother, standing behind him, her cheeks tear stained. All four of us, stand in unbreakable silence. Until my father breaks it, by moving swiftly to the door, and walking out of it, forever. I don't know what to say, I don't know what is happening? I am watching my life through a video game.

"Who's Noah?" I asked, and my mother broke, tears streaming out of her eyes.

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We are all three, sitting at the kitchen table, mom's third glass of wine in her hand, Harper's second cup of coffee, and my first cup of chai tea. I look at them both, we are sitting in another unbreakable silence. There is a photo album between us, opened to the first page. A photo, of my mother and father, they were only eighteen years old. They are standing in a living room, and my mother is holding up a baby blue onesie, for a baby. My mother takes a breath.

"Your father and I loved each other in high school. So much so, we decided to have premarital sex at seventeen. We were just kids....." She says, her face sullen. Harper and I, say nothing.

"I got pregnant. But we didn't tell anyone. Instead, on my eighteenth birthday, we got married......." She added, again Harper and I said nothing.

"We had a baby boy, Noah. We were so in love with him, our beautiful firstborn. But then, when he was two months old, I woke up to check on him in his crib, and his tiny body, wasn't breathing......" She said, taking a sip of her wine, her hands shaking.

"So, we leaned on each other, trying to go on. We both threw ourselves into school, two years later. On the anniversary of Noah's death, we found out we were pregnant, with you girls." She finished.

Again, silence followed. Long minutes passed. I wasn't mad. Confused, maybe. My mother, had raised her daughters to never have premarital sex, to never do drugs, to stay on the straight and narrow. To be the perfect girls. I often thought, that my mother had been the perfect girl. All this did, was prove that I had been wrong. Maybe, once upon a time, my mother, had been a little bit to much like me. I wanted to ask her, wanted to know if she knew what I was going through. This, was the first time I had seen my mother so discombobulated. She looked tired, and rung out. It was then, I realized I missed my mother. Obviously, she was sitting in front of me. But I missed the idea that I could've had a mother like my friends, instead of being raised by my grandmother and grandfather. Instead of nannies, and daycare. I missed, the idea of being able to tell my mother anything. I pushed the thought out of my head, this wasn't about me, and I wasn't going to make it that way either.