“You’re just…” our mom started, hiccuping as her eyes filled with tears. “You seem happy today.”
“Because I am happy. And,” I grinned, “I actually slept well last night.”
“Headache?” Andrew asked from his spot while I took an apple from the bowl.
“A little bit,” I answered, lying, and bit into the apple, letting the sweet taste float through my mouth. “But nothing major. I wanted to eat something before taking my pills.”
Mom slid off of the stool and walked toward the fridge. “I was thinking of making bacon and eggs. Would you like to have that?”
“Uh, sure.” I didn’t want to tell her that I planned on getting some cereal just to have something in my stomach until lunchtime, but the smile that overtook her face when she looked at me over the door of the fridge made me feel like shit. When was the last time she smiled like that? Two months ago, maybe?
She busied herself at the stove, cracking eggs and humming softly while the oil heated up in the pan. But Andrew looking at me told me that he knew what I was doing.
What?I mouthed at him, but he simply smiled and stood up, bringing his and Mom’s cups to the sink.
“Are you going to the rink today, Soph?” Mom asked, her back turned to me. The sound of sizzling bacon filled the kitchen and as Andy started pulling out three plates, I realized how much I missed this. This normalcy.
“I might,” I answered and threw the half-eaten apple into the trash. I knew if I ate any more of it, I might not be able to eat what she was preparing. I didn’t want to disappoint her. “I’ll text Coach Liudmila on the way to school to let her know I’m feeling better.”
“Mhm,” she mumbled, the unspoken words hanging in the air.
All three of us knew that I might never get better, but we all liked to lie to ourselves. Andrew looked at me while Mom kept flipping over the bacon and then putting it on the plate she placed on the counter next to the stove.
Tapping my fingers on the countertop table, I waited for one of them to say something. But instead of bringing up the topic I didn’t want to talk about, Andrew started talking about college and his practice, while Mom finished preparing an omelet and bacon, putting the pan on the side and turning off the stove top.
One plate filled with more bacon than any of us could eat and one with an omelet was placed on the table. Without preamble, all three of us dug in, putting several pieces of bacon on our plates. Andrew cut the omelet in three pieces, taking the biggest one for himself.
“Hey.” I laughed. “That’s not fair.”
“Sorry, Soph. I’m a growing boy and I need my nutrients.”
“You’re more of a hulk than a boy. What are they feeding you at college? Concentrate for cows?”
He threw a piece of bacon at me, which landed on top of my plate, earning a hefty laugh from me.
“Guys,” Mom warned, but neither one of us listened to her. Between eating and laughing, pieces of bacon flew from me to him and the other way around.
I missed this. I missed laughing with my family. I missed having mornings filled with happiness instead of the dark sadness that filled our lives as of late.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked, chewing the last piece of bacon from my plate.
“He has an early meeting, so he had to leave earlier,” Mom answered without looking at me. I didn’t have to be a genius to know that she was lying.
Dad was, how could I say this, lost? He was here, but he wasn’t here. He avoided looking at me, at Mom, at Andrew, and it wasn’t as if I could really blame him.
I just missed our mornings together, and the late nights when neither of us could sleep and we would sneak downstairs to eat ice cream from the tub. But, step-by-step as my therapist would say, I was positive that this thing wouldn’t be the end for my family, and that we would come back stronger because of it.
“So, Sophie.” Andrew grinned, and I knew that some kind of shit would come out of his mouth. “I saw Noah yesterday.”
Fuck.
“You guys used to be really clo—Ouch!” he suddenly shrieked. “What the hell, Mom?”
I snorted and got up with my plate, taking it to the sink and rinsing off the crumbs. Of course, Mom would hit him. She was there that night when I came back from the carnival, crying my eyes out. I couldn’t exactly tell her that everything was okay, when it was obvious that what he did would never be okay.
“Yeah, we used to be.”
“What happened? Mom, stop hitting me.”
