Lola is Just Like Me

Chapter 11

The night split open like a gunshot wound. A crash and a yell had broken my dreamland, and I became aware of the fact that the house had erupted into a violent dispute. Something had shattered on the floor of either the kitchen or living room, and my parents were shouting at each other, crying in turns. I pulled my blanket up to my eyes to cover the sick feeling in my stomach. It was finally happening. I had known it would, but it still troubled me to be in its wake. It would be a shared loss.

When daybreak came, the house hadn’t been disturbed since the door slammed at two in the morning. Out of habit, I got out of bed early. When my alarm clock went off, I turned the whole thing off completely. I wouldn’t need it for a week. The door somehow felt safe, what was behind it intimidating. Once again, I had the irrational notion that if I stayed put for a time I could keep things just one way, never knowing anything more but never again being disappointed. It took me some time to work up the gall to leave my room.

It was six in the morning, and the house was quiet as the grave. No lights had been turned on, and a tube of lipstick had rolled away from the front door mat where presumably it had landed after the fall from a suitcase. The air was crisp and cold like winter had slipped in to fill the void. Nothing smelled of toast or coffee or morning tea or after-shave. It was just a house where someone had once lived. Coming down the hallway, I recognized the bits of glass on the living room floor as the clatter I had heard in the night. Oddly, I didn’t remember hearing anyone remark about the body lying at its center.

“Aw, so many feelings we shared.” I knelt down beside the pitiful, lifeless thing. I knew him, Horatio. Suffocation put my short-lived friend to sleep. Gingerly I took the fish in my hands and looked him over. Gradually a kind of mild grief washed over the edges of my consciousness. It had been years since I had felt such a thing for any living organism’s death. The thought did occur to me then to wonder what action had caused the globe to fall in the first place. And in whose passion and with what intentions? I stood with the creature still in my hands, inspecting the rest of my home. Nothing else was disturbed. Just my unlucky friend and the lipstick on the floor. For a moment, I drew my fingers closed over the little goldfish in my hands, then laid him down on the coffee table. That night as my parents fought about my welfare, Yorick and I had shared in the confusion, witnessed the quarrel together. It was nice to be able to feel something and know that someone else felt it, too.

After a moment of recollection, I set about scraping the glass pieces into a safe pile. I remembered the lipstick. Marie’s lipstick. It hadn’t really hit me before how much she cared about me. My father, I knew, was not keen on keeping memories. I considered it a service, pocketing the thing. No sooner than a heartbeat later, my father’s alarm clock went off in his room. I waited, but it was some time before he moved to silence it. His room gradually filled with soft swishing and dull thumpings until a beaten-looking man emerged. It took him a moment to notice me.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, Ty.”

“Work today, Dad?”

“Yup,” he said. His eyes had never looked so lifeless.

“I had better clean the house for you.” I watched as my father gathered his things by the door and stepped into his shoes.

“Nah,” he said, “leave it for Marie.” Oh, help him. He’s lost.

“No coffee this morning? Want me to make some?”

“No, that’s okay. I guess Marie forgot to put it on this morning.” No… He just stood there for a moment, miles away. “I’m sorry about Yorick, sweet pea. We can get you another fish. I bet Marie will take you today if you ask her.” She would have, I knew, but she really wasn’t coming back. Oh, how terribly I wanted to go somewhere with her. Anywhere. I didn’t care about a new pet. I had missed, somehow, the opportunity to tell her all the things I thought of her. The good ones. And Dad couldn’t see that we had not another hour with Marie between the two of us. Fortune had come to collect it in the night. He’s delusional. Although I knew what was going on, something in my father’s sure, hopeful words seemed sad. It filled me with a sort of dismal familiarity. I did know how he felt. Like father, like daughter.