A Spark of Love

Gone

A door slamming, somewhere in the house, wakes me up. Another night of crappy sleep.  The lack of sleep isn't helping my mood and my mood is affecting my sleep.  Something needs to change.

I look at my alarm clock.  The glaring red letters show thirty past five.  I close my eyes and try to fall back asleep.  There's something telling me to get up, but I don't listen to myself.

The next time I open my eyes, it's almost six.  I finally get up. I put on some shorts and head downstairs.  Before I reach the bottom of the stairs, the smell of coffee reaches me. Mom doesn't drink coffee and Dad only drinks it when he has to work. But it's Sunday, his only day off. I head into the kitchen, but he isn't around.

"Dad?"

There's no response. I open the front door, to go check if his car is in the driveway, and I see him, sitting on the front steps.  His head is in his hands and his back is heaving, quickly, as if he is crying.

"Dad?"

His body becomes stiff, but he doesn't turn around.

"Yeah?"

"What's going on?"

He doesn't answer.  I look toward the driveway and notice that Mom's car is gone.  Where could she have possibly gone at six o'clock on a Sunday?

"Is everything OK?"

He stands up, turns around and wipes the remaining tears from his eyes.

"It's your mom... she left."

"What do you mean?  Where did she go?"

He shakes his head and looks away from me.  He looks like he was about to cry again.  There isn't a single time in my entire life that I remember seeing him cry.  He has always been emotionally strong. I start to panic.  If he's this upset, something must have really been wrong.

"What happened?  Did someone die or something?"

I hope that he can't sense the panic in my voice.  The last thing he needs is for me to be stressed out, and I know that.

He lifts his head and I can see the pain in his eyes.  He looks as if his will to live has been crushed under the weight of the world.  He quickly looks away and walks past me, into the house.  I don't go inside right away.  I want him to be able to settle down, to figure out exactly what happened with Mom.  It's selfish, but I hope he doesn't take too long because I feel like I'm about to start freaking out.

When I do finally go inside, I don't find him downstairs. Just as I get ready to call out to him, I hear my parents' bedroom door closing. I need to get out of here. I'm not sure what he needs right now, but he clearly wants to be alone. I decide to go for a walk, maybe into town, which could help me clear my head, too. I grab my sunglasses and purse out of my room, slip on some sneakers and head out.

Word Count: 510