The Artist

2.

When I get to up the next morning, I immediately get to work on my new room. My father must have known I wouldn't like this color at all so he's put out paint outside my door. 

After hours of hard work, putting my clothes away and cleaning to where every surface glimmers, I sit back on my bed and look at my finished piece. The walls have been painted a creamy white color, the floorboards that encases the walls has been painted charcoal black. I've cleaned the french doors so they're spotless and I can see that there's a good sized courtyard in the front. I've put a black bed spread and comforter down on my bed so the whole room looks a bit more complete. I've added a poster of my dad's newest book cover. It's called The Songbird That Lives in my Closet, it's about my mother's passing and its' affect on us as a family. It has a picture of songbird clutching on a single lightbulb in what's supposed to be the closet. It's not out on shelves yet because he hasn't had the nerve to actually go out and ask a publisher to put it together but we never press him about it. He'll do it when he's ready. 

I snuggle into my bed even though it's minutes after 3pm and let my thoughts wonder. It's a great thing that dad isn't forcing us into a public school, instead we're going to attend a private school where there's a large class of American students. It's a half hour into the small town we live by, and by small- I mean that it's probably three times bigger than my big city back home. But compared to everywhere else, it's pretty small. I imagine a perfect scenario but am forced to stop when a knock sounds from my door. 

"Come in." I say, waiting for the someone to come in. 

He does, it's my brother. His face is solemn and tear streaks are visible down his cheeks; he's been thinking about mother. I return the frown and sit straight up. "You okay?" I ask. You'd think that we were like other siblings in the terms of completely hating each other, and we were. Before mom died. But after that, we just started to take care of each other and it formed a simple but somehow beyond bond. 

Alexander doesn't answer, he just stiffly trudges over to the poster and skims his fingertips across the surface. His pointer and middle finger linger around the songbirds figure before he turned back around. "I miss her, Jack, I can't take it anymore. I'd give anything just to hug her again or hear her voice." His voice cracks and a sob wracks through his body. 

I get up from my warm bed and cross the room to wrap my arms around his waist and hug him. It only takes a minute for him to register as he embraces me as well tightly. His fist have grabbed a hold of the sweatshirt and he hugs me as if I am actually her. 

"It's okay, Alex. She's still with us; you just can't see her." I mumble into his ribcage. "Where's dad?" 

He pulls back after a few long moments and wipes the wetness from his face. "He's in his new study up in the attic. He's working on the story but he's been in there since five this morning. The story's finished, Jack, what could he possibly be doing in there?" 

His question is met with silence and we share a look knowingly. He used to lock himself in his room and cry. We never knew what to do but when Alex had once gone in, the room was completely mangled. Our father had completely destroyed the room, papers everywhere, his computer in pieces on the ground. We'd found him passed out in the bathroom with an empty liquor bottle next to him. We never went in after that. After that incident, we could barely talk to dad for three weeks. Dad isn't a drunk. He has never had one or two glasses of champagne so it was utterly puzzling for us to think he was drunken. We got the answer one night when Alexander couldn't take it anymore. He had broken the door down in dads' room, forced the bottle out of dads' fist and almost choked him out. His anger flooded into the room like a wildfire spreading over dead logs. Dad had confessed it was his only way to keep enthusiastic around us. Of course, he didn't remember telling us that the next morning but from then on, we never bothered him and just went on with the act.