Chapter One
I passed the pictures hanging on the walls on my way into the kitchen. They were of my parents and me. They were taken when my father was alive. He died about four years ago,of cancer. Up until a year ago, I couldn't walk past the pictures without stopping for a moment to reminisce in some memory from when I was younger. Now when I walked by I barely glanced at my father's smiling face. Not because I no longer missed or loved him, but I realized that I couldn't look at them without crying and once I walked away, I couldn't stop.
I turned the corner and into the kitchen and was surprised to see my mother seated at the kitchen table. I hardly ever saw her during the day. "Mom, what are you doing home?"
She did not look up. I had to walk to the other side of the room to see her face, to notice the tears welling in her eyes. "Is everything okay?" I asked feeling strange and unsure of what to do.
She looked at me with a set jaw and whispered "Darren."
My mother was like a social worker. She would help teenagers that were in trouble with the law or had family problems or as she called it "going through a rough patch. "
Darren was the only one of all her troubled children that I liked, although he was troubled.
He was heavy into drugs and alcohol. He came home high or drunk or laying unconscious on the porch that his parents finally kicked him out. But when he was sober, you would never know that he would need my mom to help him out of his "rough patch."
I almost thought of him as my friend after he stopped using the worst of his drugs. Talked things through with his parents. Then about a month later, his dad lost his job and they were going to have to move out of their house. In his desperation, he was found trying to rob an electronic store. It wasnt his first offence and he went to jail. For a year. That was six months ago.
My mother was devastated when Darren was locked away, but I had never seen her cry.
My mother's eyes finally met mine and they were full of sadness. Something was wrong.
"He's dead" She finally said in the same voice.
"What?" For a moment I didn't know what to say. How could he be dead? He was getting out of jail in six months, he wasn't dead.
The seriousness in her face had me rambling.
"What do you mean? How did he- How could he have- What are you talking about, how could that-"
"I don't know the details Katherine!" She said, her voice slightly raised. "But he's dead."
I just stood there in silence. I couldn't ask her to explain about his death but she couldn't expect me not to want to know how it happened.
"He was killed. By some man. That's all I know."
I felt awkward standing so still, so i began to shift my feet but that felt awkward too. My mom rose out of the chair and I thought she was going to walk from the house without an explanation to where she was going. She stuck her head back into the house, "I have a lot to do at the office, see you later." There was only enough time for a quick, "Okay", before she closed the door.
I pulled a serrated knife from the drawer and began to cut up the vegetables. When ever something goes wrong in my family, the other makes dinner, and then we eat together and everything seems better. I would make the only thing I know how to make. Spaghetti with vegetable sauce. I jwasn't a good cook but this was mainly cutting vegetables, who couldn't do that?
We ate late, communicating only with small talk. "How was your day? How was school?," Stuff like that.
When we were finished, we went to bed without cleaning the kitchen. Everything was still left on the counters but I had homework. I'll clean it in the morning.
