Inside the house, we gather in the kitchen. My dad sits at the head of the table and my brother sits across from me. My mom�s chair at the end of the table seems so empty. Dad is sniffling and his face is a wet mess of tears and snot.
�I just had to ask her to get me some more patches.� He says, his words broken by sobs.
�It�s not you�re fault.� I tell him, �You didn�t know that would happen, you�re not God and you�re not a psychic.� Dad still shakes his head. His chest rises in jerks as he breathes, up, up, up, down, down, down. Maybe my brother and I are both dissociating but neither of us is in tears, we both have the same calm and composed expression.
�How are we going to tell you�re sister?� Dad�s referring to Sophie, my older sister who left to Mexico. No one in our family knows where she is or if she�s still alive.
�I doubt she cares.� My brother says.
I give him a look as if to say, �Why did you say that?� then tell my dad, �Of course she cares, she�s our sister.� Dad�s looking at the table. I get up and walk over to the counter, taking the box of tissues and then walking back to the table and handing them to my dad. He looks up and me and mumbles a thank you.
�Listen,� I tell him, �I�m going to take the car back to my apartment, gather up my stuff, take Bastet, and we�ll stay here for a few days.� My dad nods.
�I�m going stop at the McDonald�s to pick up breakfast.� I say, �What does everyone want.� I write down everyone�s order on a notepad. My memory has been fading quickly lately.
At home, I throw my clothes into a suitcase. I get a zip lock bag and put my toothbrush, razor, hairbrush, and my various pills into it. I take those things down to the car then come back to get Bastet and her food and litter. I drive down to the McDonald�s down the street and order my family�s food. A girl with braces and acne smiles at me and blushes as our hands touch when she hands me my change and tells me to pull ahead to the second window. At the second window a man with blue hair and two lip piercings, a bullring nose piecing, and a barbell in his eyebrow hands me my bag of food and says in a bored monotone, �thanks come again.�
I carry Bastet inside with me when I come to my parent�s house. When I put her onto the soft, carpeted floor, she runs straight into the kitchen and jumps onto my dad�s lap. She loves my dad. I throw my brother his egg and cheese sandwich to him and toss my Dad�s sandwich onto the table in front of him.
�Don�t worry about cooking or anything,� I tell my Dad as I take a bite of a sausage biscuit, �I can take care of it, I cook for myself all the time. Bastet and I will sleep in the guest room so don�t worry about that. Matt�ll help me with cleaning and stuff. You can just veg-out in front of the T.V., read, or lie around in bed or whatever. We�ve got everything taken care of.� Dad shakes his head and says thank you. He feels guilty though, I can see it in the lines of his face. He tells me that he should be taking care of me and my brother, we actually have something wrong.
Later I go back out to the car and take in the rest of my things. I make my bed in the guest room and set Bastet up with a little area with her bed and food in the corner next to the heater vent.
A few weeks later, we have my mom�s funeral. She was cremated and we threw some of her ashes into the wind and sprinkled some into a stream because she loved the water. No one cried at her funeral, everything was completely silent. My brother and I were in the back and away from the crowd, we don�t like big groups of people, my brother especially. People always have to act extra nice to him because he�s in a wheelchair. After the service, everyone collected at my Dad�s house.
It was a warm day with a light overcast that smelt like it just may rain. My cousin comes out onto the patio with me and lights a cigarette. Her hair is died fiery red but it hasn�t been died in a long time and her blonde roots are showing. Her eyes are heavily lined in black eyeliner and she�s wearing contacts that make her eyes a bright violet color. Her black nails press against her face as she takes a drag from her cigarette.
�I�m really sorry, man,� She says, looking off.
�Yeah,� I say. I look over and see her new tattoo on her neck of two droplets of blood like she�s been bit by a vampire.
�If you need anything...� She takes another drag.
�Yeah.� I say again. I start to feel angry looking at her. She�s wearing a short black skirt and large black boots. I think, couldn�t you have just tried to look normal for my mother�s funeral? Is looking cool so important that you can�t look normal in front of your family at a funeral? Couldn�t you have worn normal makeup, taken out your contacts, and worn a nice skirt with nice shoes just this one time for my mother�s funeral?
I turn around and go back inside. My brother is being forced to talk to my uncle who is smiling and being extra nice.
My uncle pats Mathew on the back and says, �If you ever need to talk about anything, I�m always there.�
Matt looks up at me for a second then turns back to my uncle and says, �thanks.� My dad is going around the room with a coke in his hands, giving people hugs and talking lightly. They tried to remember the good times with Susan. When they were kids, they used to sneak into the neighbor�s yard and steal strawberries from the garden. Dad first met her in high school, she was in his Spanish class, and she was madly in love with him. She would flirt with him and finally she asked him to a movie. Soon they fell in love and got married and had three children.
I wonder if my sister does care or if she�s so wrapped up in her new life that we�ve become forgotten. I wish everyone would leave, all these people I making me feel anxiety. They are making me pretend to be sad in a happy, she�s-in-a-better-place-now, way. I hate playing pretend especially when it�s with people I barely know but am supposed to know so well. My brother finally manages to escape my uncle and wheels over to me.
�Are you alright?� he asks.
�I�m fine,� I say softly but my brother knows me too well and can tell exactly what I�m thinking. He nods and tells me I can go lay down in his room if I want to, it�s pretty quite in there. I take his offer and walk out to garage.
A few days later Dad and I are sitting on the couch watching the television though neither of us are really watching it. Dad takes a sip of coke. Coke was his replacement drink, Dr. Smith said it would help him because then he could still �crack open a cold one� and have that feeling of winding down after work. Of course, I�ve told Dad he won�t be doing much winding down with the caffeine in coke but that doesn�t matter to him.
�You need to start getting to bed earlier.� Dad says to me, �You�re getting these awful rings around your eyes and you�ve been acting more and more absent mindedly lately. Even if that�s your head I still think that if you get more sleep it will help.�
�I�m not tired.� I tell him.
He shakes his head. �I don�t understand how you young people do it. You go to bed long after me and wake up long before me. You can�t be getting more than four hours of sleep each night.�
I shrug and repeat myself, �I�m not tired.�
If Dr. Smith were here he�d be frowning. I need to be honest with my family, now especially because I might not have as long as I thought with them. Even tiny lies are still lies.
�Actually I don�t sleep at all.� I say abruptly before I really knew I had said it, �I keep on having these awful nightmares, unspeakable ones that are so real and sick I can�t believe my mind could have made them. I haven�t slept for more than three hours for weeks.�
My dad says, �hmmm....� and takes a sip of coke, �well it can�t be good for you.� After saying it, I don�t know why I kept my dreams a secret from my family for so long. My mom wouldn�t have taken it as lightly as Dad. She�d of probably sent me to the hospital for some kind of examination or given me a dream psychologist.