Page 9 of Vows In Corruption
It’s not my father’s birthday.
Or the anniversary of their death.
There is nothing significant about today’s date, so why did the memories decided to hit me like a truck filled with a ton of bricks?
Because no matter how much time has passed, the death of my parents still haunts me to this very day and there is no amount of therapy that will change that. Not even the most expensive kind.
A soft snoring sounds from somewhere next to me and I instantly jerk towards it.
I sleep alone, so the only snoring that should be sounding through the room is mine, and well, I’m wide awake.
My eyes squint through the darkness, and focus on a lump a few inches away from me, covered in all the blankets that I’m sure are in the house.
I don’t need to move the covers off the lump to know that the ten year old made it to my bed sometime between putting him to bed and now.
A sigh escapes me.
It has also been months since he has snuck in here in the middle of the night and I can’t help but to wonder if the same thing that triggered my nightmare, triggered his.
Not moving to wake the kid, I shift instead and reach for my phone on the night stand.
Five in the morning. Might as well get up because there is no chance I’m falling back asleep now. Especially when the nightmare is still haunting me and I know that a snorlax is sleeping next me.
We should really make a doctor’s appointment to get his snoring checked out. There’s no way that the noises coming out of his small body are normal.
I’ll have Henry call later today to make an appointment.
As I get out of bed, the lump tosses and thrashes, and I take a minute to calm him down and get him settled again before standing up and heading downstairs to start the fucking day.
If someone has asked me ten years ago if I was willingly going to get out of bed at five in the morning to start my day, instead of ending it at the time, I would have laughed in their face, but here I am.
As I make my way down to the kitchen, the house has this quietness to it that is sort of comforting and creepy at the same time.
Before ten years ago, the house being silent was a normal thing, since it was only Henry and me here the majority of the time and other times it was empty, but when the kids arrived, it became a space of never ending noice. To some it would have been a nuance, but to me, it was like fucking music.
It was what the place needed, after it being silent for nearly fourteen years, and I wasn’t going to keep it from happening. Part of me wishes that I could bring all that sound back right about now.
But times are different, no matter how much I wish they weren’t.
With the kids on my mind, I quickly wake my phone screen one as I reach the stairs to the first floor and do the one thing that I’ve been doing for the last ten years.
Quickly search for my brother.
When nothing new comes up, same thing as yesterday, and the day before and the day, week, month, year and year before that, I slide the device into the pocket of my pajama pants pocket.
Disappointment runs through my body, just like it always does when I look for Robert and nothing comes up, but when I get to the kitchen, I try to bury it as best as I can. Since I’m not the only occupant of this house that is awake this early in the morning, something that I’m not surprised to see
Henry, the house caretaker and the man that raised me after the death of my parents, my pseudo father, sits at the kitchen island, with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“You’re up earlier than usual,” I voice walking over to the coffee pot that smells like it has been brewing for a bit now.
Henry doesn’t even jump at the sound of my voice. He just lifts up his coffee cup at me in a way of a greeting.
“I have a feeling today is going to be a bit chaotic, so I figured I’d get an early start. Get things settled just in case they go off the wire.”
His words stop me mid pour and make me think for a second as to why today of all days would be a chaotic one.
Then I remember.