Ideas

Good ideas are heard to come by. At least, that's what they say; but they wouldn't say that if they knew my father. My father comes up with good ideas like a desperate student comes up with ways to cheat. 

Once, when I was eight, my parents and I were walking somewhere when a friend of my father's started talking to him. He gave my mother a look and she covered my ears, because she thinks that actually blocks out sound. I heard everything my father's friend said about having trouble breaking his habit of smoking, and that he smoked several cigarettes a day. My father told him to smoke one less cigarette each day, and offered to help him make sure he stuck to it. I thought that was a pretty good idea, because, contrary to my mother's belief, I knew what smoking was. I had asked my father what those things that people had in their mouth were. When he explained it to me, I was creeped out. I swore to myself from that moment on to never smoke. But my mom never found out.

I never had as close a relationship with my mom as I had with my dad. I could talk to him about anything, and he would give me great advice. Even now, if I think hard, I can remember him, with that same warm smile and bright eyes, taking care of me when I was still a baby. Sometimes, it seemed we could read each other's minds. He could always tell when I was lying, and sometimes, when I had a problem, with just a look he would make me realize what I should do. My mom on the other hand – I love her, and she loves me; but she seems to get really irritated by my father. She won't say why. 

No matter how hard I think, I cannot seem to remember my mother from my baby memories. I remember a blonde woman, but my mother's hair is brown. She couldn't have dyed her hair because she breaks into a rash when she tries, so the blonde woman must be my late grandmother, whom we don't have any pictures of. She died when I was about a year old, before we could afford a camera.

Then once, I found my eleven-year old self in a dark room. It looked empty, but I could hear yelling, back and forth, from multiple voices with no source. Although most of what they were saying was indistinct, I could make out my name among them, "Ryan!" And yet, they never seemed to be yelling at me. They rather seemed to be yelling about me. I was really scared and tried to run, but I was trapped in the room with those voices. On, one particularly loud yell, I woke up, panting. It was the middle of the night, but I couldn't get back to sleep. That was the fourth or fifth time I had had that nightmare. I had tried talking about it with my father. He looked concerned and told me to watch nothing but funny, light-hearted shows on TV, as they might cloud my mind. Although that plan usually worked, it didn't this time.

As usual, I couldn't go back to sleep. I just lay there with my eyes closed, occasionally turning to my other side. In the morning, I wasn't that sleepy, because I laid there with my eyes closed. But I did feel irate. I got ready and went downstairs for breakfast. My mom was at the table with the newspaper clutched in her hand. She looked up at me when I came in, and I saw her eyes were red.

"Ryan" she choked. "Your – your father's plane went down."

I lost my crankiness immediately. It was replaced by a wave of a terrible feeling, one I can't really describe. I looked over the paper, again and again, refusing to believe it; but there was no doubting the text.

My mom offered to let me off school that day, but I refused to stay at home. I needed something to distract me from the depressing thoughts parading through my head. It didn't work. Everyone found out about the tragedy when my teacher announced it in class, and were behaving extra nice to me, and talked carefully around me, as if I had lost my hearing, not my dad. That didn't help distract me at all.

A few days passed. That empty feeling didn't go away. I still waited for the doorbell at seven every night, when my dad would return home. I knew that he wouldn't be coming, but old habits die hard.