The skies aren’t clear. The air is heavy. The crickets are singing. The road ahead seems far, purposeless, unfurnished, incomprehensible. Cedar Lane is dark and deluded, as if a shadow has casted over the houses and the “For Sale” signs.
I slow down as I get closer to the driveway, though I feel like driving still.
Maman is tired. She doesn’t want to go for a walk. She is too tired to think. She is not Maman. Sometimes I feel that I am losing her too, that we are moving apart, that there are too many spaces between us. Fatigue is keeping her away, keeping her down. As if we no longer are. Not like before. Not like old times. Not like when we needed each other more. Do we not need each other now? I wonder.
The house feels heavy when no one talks, when no one is ready to start another day. When we think of who is missing from us, who is miles away, whose place is still empty.
We’ve done it for years, the missing, the anger over the mistakes we’ve made, the guilt we’ve felt- Maman and Baba for moving, for leaving him. We’ve left and moved on and still hurt and think back. We haven’t changed.
A new house changes the mood, the atmosphere, the sources of pleasure, but it doesn’t change who we are, it doesn’t make us forget, it doesn’t make us guiltless. At the end of the day, Baba is still the man who quietly agrees or shakes his head and Maman is still not forgiving herself for leaving her youngest son.
At the end of the day, I wonder how I fit into their troubles and guilts, how I can be of any help, how I can be better for them and take their pain away. But every night that I go to bed, I feel that I have done nothing. And it’s disappointing, this futile existence.
Maybe I wanted this house to change us. Maybe I hoped it would be a better existence for Maman and Baba. Maybe I wanted to believe that Maman can move on and forgive herself and not have nightmares. Maybe I thought we would all be happier.
And I still believe that. I still believe we can change, when we are ready, when…
Perhaps my disappointed soul can revive too.