My dad has been around for most of my life, while my mom.. I don't really get to know her often, I heard crazy stories about her from my dad and in the past. He said she climbed up walls, tore up the walls, she thought there was noises in the walls, voices were in her head, that she saw shadows. My dad didn't talk so much about my mother because he gets a little sad so I don't talk about my mom much. It was a hot summer day and I was wearing my favorite black shorts and gray tank top. My dad and I both got out of the car that smells like new leather.
"Ready to help me with my garden Emily?" he yells at me from the other side of the car.
"Sure," I replied quietly. Me and my dad were going to plant pink flowers, "Mom's favorite color," I said as I smelled the flowers.
"Yep! Sure is dear," Dad says trying to smile but I didn't, he couldn't. His eyes were tearing up a little. "I'm going to get some water, do you want some?" he says while wiping the sweat off of his forehead.
"Yeah sure." I nodded. I look back at the dirt and my mind drifts back to my mom, how she's is in a mental institution, at least that's what I heard from my dad. I'm 15 years old and I live with my dad only because I'm scared that he'll die because of his health choices. He drinks a lot at night, it makes me worry about him, but he only started drinking when mom left, she cared and loved us. I look back up when I hear my dad, walking towards me with 2 water bottles in his hand. He sits down beside me and we guzzle our water. After working in the garden for another half an hour my dad says with a smile, "Done and done."
"Yep, you know I'm proud of what we did!" I say with a big smile, feeling fake.
"You know we should go out to eat."
"I can pay dad."
"No honey it's fine, I got it," he says, looking a bit light headed. He yells from behind for me to get in the car as he runs inside to go get the money. He gets in the car with his gray shirt and blue jeans. I know we are a weird family, he wears jeans in the summer. As we are heading to get food, I look out the window and see the sky. It's so beautiful that I just starting in the direction of the sunset. What if I could lay in the clouds forever, living a good life and find that perfect someone. Sometimes when I think of crazy things like that, I think to myself that I get that from my mom. I don't know if it's a good thing or not. I occasionally have dreams and nightmares about halls that are red with fire and I can't breathe. Often, I can't see when I wake up. I know that my mom saw weird things, like cats and shadows and fire in strange places. I and my mom have a rare combination because we both have red hair and blue eyes like the sky. My dad, on the other hand, has light brown hair and blue eyes.
