Senior Stories: Gillian Lombart

2. Just Another Day, Right?

The sound of the alarm clock jolts Gillian from a tear-soaked slumber. Last night felt like a fog, her head was pounding. Gillian shuffled toward the bathroom and was shocked by the state of her eyes, they were red and puffy, she recalled at some point last night thinking that she would run out of tears but they kept coming.

Turning off the light and feeling her way into the kitchen through the pale blue light of the sunrise Gillian starts a pot of coffee and heads to her little sister’s room and turns on the light and heads back into the kitchen to check on the pot of coffee.

A routine now for almost a year Gillian stands in the off-white kitchen sipping coffee out of an oversized mug that reads World’s Best Dad, start her day wondering how this had become her life. A senior in high school and living the life of a 40-year-old single mom; this is not right. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” it’s a thought that consumes most mornings until her little sister comes in, but then the day starts and the depressing thoughts are shoved deep down only to resurface the next morning.

Today the feeling of sadness has her head swimming.

“He got in.” she says softly to the empty room.

A toddler shuffles in the room dragging a stuffed bunny and rubbing her eyes, Gillian refocuses her attention and looks down at the child.  

“Hey there little bear, want some cereal? We have to hustle if we are to get you guys to Emma’s.”

After getting her littlest sibling into a seat with a scattering of Cherrios Gillian heads back into her sister’s room. Andie is lying on the floor with a pillow pulled over her head and an old Hannah Montana blanket wrapped around her torso. Andie’s sparkly pink toes peak out begging to be tickled. Bending down Gillian grabs a big toe and starts to pull.  

“Hey suckwad! Get up!”

Andie moans, grabbing the pillow off her head, “Christ Gilly, what time is it?”

“It’s seven, and you shouldn’t swear, not until your are in 8th grade missy!”

“Whatever, you curse all the time. And mom’s not here to bust me.”

Andie grabs the blanket and shuffles into the kitchen. Before Gillain’s mom left for a marketing job in Colorado she could have just jumped into the shower and headed off to school, while her dad took care of the rest. But most days he won’t even come out of his room until nine, so she began to take care of the morning routines.

“Andie, don’t forget I need to you to pick up milk on your way home, and you have to make sure you pick up posterboard for your science fair project.”

“Don’t worry I won’t forget,” Andie says in between slurps of Lucky Charms. “Do you have 10 bucks I can have?”

Gillian reaches into her backpack and fishes out her wallet and hands Andie a $20 dollar bill.

“Bring back change. I might need to get gas and don’t tell dad I gave you it. If he asks, you don’t have an money okay?”

“Okay.”

Swooping up the baby in her arms Gillian fills a cup of coffee in a to-go mug and heads out the door to drop her little brother off at the neighbor’s house before heading off to school. Most days she drops him off only to turn back home to squeeze in a shower before heading off to school, but for the past month that has resulted in a fight with her dad about not waking him when the baby got up and a tardy slip in her 2nd period class, she was two tardy slips away from failing Spanish and a shower wasn’t worth an F.

The morning rush of getting her siblings out the door had given Gillian respite from the worries of Matthew’s impeding departure, but now alone in her car on the way to class the emotions began to once again tighten their grip upon any strands of happiness in Gillian’s life.