I knew that I had to go before the plate even smashed into the floor.
It sent fragile-but-sharp shards of pride across the stained linoleum tiles in all directions.
The ceramic missile forced Lightning - who had three years hence given up any pretense of being in a hurry to do anything quickly - to reach proper running speed and sprint-limp pathetically away from the dingy shag carpet by the dining table to the relative safety of the stairwell. Rheumy, panicked canine eyes the size of saucers peeked around the corner and searched desperately for someone to reassure him that he wasn't a bad dog. That - even with hip dysplasia, progressive blindness, and incontinence - they still loved him. Unfortunately, as often seemed to be theme in my family, the poor old German Shepard Dog would have to wait.
Waiting is the fetus of stagnation.
'Tomorrow, that's when I'll leave' or 'how about when Marie turns fifteen, at least they'll have a chance,' but right now I'm twenty-eight, they are ten and eight - respectively - and none of us look to be going anywhere. Each second that passed, grew - swelled with importance and became a kaleidoscope of possibility - and was squandered with my lingering for the right time to make something of myself. Wasted with my endless scrolling of social media as I watched friends and acquaintances make a life worth living for themselves; or reading wikipedia pages of the countless well-known somebodies who never got their feet beneath them until they were forty or worked in meaningless, thankless drudgery until their big break; all starting from nothing-and-nobody to become something greater.
As I heard the fragments of long-abandoned yet often-dreamt-about family dinners and traditions settle, I knew that time was running out. Without much thought, I gave Lightning a scratch on his elderly head, murmured a too-common incoherent apology, and rushed upstairs.
"What was that?" Johnathan asked from his bedroom door, which was cracked open just far enough for him to poke his head out. A bedraggled mop of loosely curled brown hair hid his eyes, but even without seeing them, I knew that they would be wary.
He had grown up surrounded by our arguments, the childhood he should have had eaten at and corroded away by a toxic atmosphere he could no more avoid than I could death or taxes. Too many meals and trips and memories were poisoned for him to ask anything other than a rhetorical question. He was a bright boy with an intelligence paid for with innocence. I was distantly surprised he even bothered to open his door.
He knew how these things went.
"Nothing," I replied over my shoulder as I picked up a messenger bag before leaning to grab whatever clean clothes of mine I could find from the cold, unfolded pile of laundry on the master bed. A mass I said I would fold hours ago. Matching was not an issue, nor had it ever been. Outfit coordination was one of my critical weaknesses and I always had to rely on my wife to do it for me. To do everything, really. I was more often than not waiting to finish this chapter, reach the next commercial, or to reach a later point of anything.
"Seems like something to me," Johnathan challenged dispassionately. No longer in view, I could hear his voice from the door of the master bedroom. He had begun to grow somewhat surly months ago, though neither my wife nor I were sure if it was because of understanding or hormones - the smart money was on a bit of both.
"Are you going somewhere?" Marie asked softly. I hadn't heard her join her brother at the door, but she was as quiet as her brother was insightful. Johnathan did the best he could to keep her innocence intact where his had long since died, but they were both just children and she had already begun to see.
With both sets of attentive and curious eyes on me, I began panicking. They need me, I told myself - as I had innumerable times before. I contemplated simply tossing the bag to the floor and retreating to the bathroom. I didn't reply and continued to pick up mixed argyle socks and underwear, instead, not even bothering to check the state of cleanliness anymore.
"Seems like he is," Johnathan took the liberty of replying for me.
"You'll be fine," I reassured, though mostly for my own sake.
Both of them shrug and return to what they were doing before I came up. I turn, and for a moment, I watch them go as I tried to remember all of the good times we'd shared; thinking that maybe I shouldn't leave. Then I saw the closet and remember the countless times my wife has ushered them inside when I got exceptionally bad. Or the times when it wasn't a cheap plate that got broken. I went slowly down the hallway and stair, through the kitchen and to the door. Just as my hand touched the knob - its beautiful golden shine chipped to reveal the honest dull black beneath the decorative paint - my wife finally spoke.
"Where are you going?!" She tearfully demanded from the floor where she had knelt and was carefully cleaning up wasted food and broken shards of ceramic from where I had thrown the plate. In days gone by she would have told me to leave, asked me why I lashed out. She would have fought with or yelled at me, but such things had long fallen by the wayside.
I paused for a long moment, as an ad nauseum string of What-Ifs, Maybe-Thens, and Should-Is paraded through my mind.
"Nowhere," I replied, releasing the knob for what felt like the thousandth time. Even drowning in my self-loathing and shame and anger and pride, maybe I could be different next time.
I could only wait and see.
- - -
(( Image above found at http://blog.synchrosecrets.com/?p=25021 ))
