Things are Complicated

Chapter 20: A Bitter Pill

Everything appeared different shades of grey. Not the smutty kind, but grimy and foreboding.

The front door to my house appeared in front of me and swung open. Hinges screamed in protest and only ended by slamming against the wall. Heavy footfalls echoed off the bare walls and into the ceiling. Silence swallows any noise, even the tiniest of movements.

I felt myself getting smaller as the stairs grew taller and the halls widened. The tinier I became the harder it was to breathe. My body felt stretched and everything twisted, morphing into blobs, blurs or swirls.

Crawling to the office I slide open the double doors and feel everything snap back into place. Sucking in air, I feel my feet beneath me as I pull myself upright.

As if he never left, I find my father sitting behind his desk, typing away on his laptop. His laptop contained any and every case file, project, journal and evidence he ever needed for his work. There were three back-up hard drives he hid just in case anything ever happened. My dad documented everything he could, not just with his patients but with us kids as well.

The glare of his screen bounced off his glasses, which are always perched on the end of his crooked nose. I feel the corner of my mouth tug upward as I note his dark head of hair is greying and moving in three separate directions: left, out and up.

The sound of a low, steady heartbeat pulsates through the room feeding life and color into the air and our surroundings.

“Can’t sleep?” He barely glances up, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

Lub-dub. Lub-dub.

A lump of insurmountable guilt forms in my throat and I felt my heart squeeze. His voice. Oh, how I’ve missed that low, brassy voice.

“Dad.” I sucked in a quick, hollow breath and swallowed back the vile rising in the back of my throat.

“Hmm?” He lifts his head and gives me a bearded smile.

Lub-dub. Lub-dub.

How do you even begin? This wasn’t real, none of it. But I haven’t felt this alive over in two years.

“What tis’ it me wee lil nutcracker?” He used that horrible Scottish accent that fools no one and a nickname he gave me after I kicked a boy in the balls my third grade Christmas play.

 “I miss you.” One of the million statements I sobbed continuously at his grave stone.

“Where did I go?” He takes off his glasses, folds them neatly and sets them aside.

Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub…dub…

Lub-… The room flickered to grey and fear gripped my heart.

This couldn’t end.

Not yet.

A whoosh of breath filled the room and a shudder of relief went through me as my father reappeared.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted. I had to get it out before he disappeared again.

“For what?” Instead of glaring like mother he waits patiently with a neutral expression and a small glimmer of humor in his eyes.

One blink and the room stretched grey, thinning out around the edges and blurring in the middle. I feel the air become thick, weighing me down with each gulp of air. My head began to ache. I hear a wailing noise, high and strained.

A heart beat passes and everything returns to color. This time my father sits against the front of his desk no more than a two feet away from me. His ragged brown sweater is torn and tattered but well-worn not tacky and just the way I remembered.