Blood Storm

I woke up with jolt as the car ran over a bump in the road. I wasn’t sure how long I had been asleep; but judging by the complete and utter darkness outside of the car windshield, broken up only by one set of tail lights in front of us and the occasional flickering street light, I assumed an hour or two. I blinked away the sleep in my eyes, trying to read the reflective green sign hanging above the highway. It wizzed by me in a flash, but from what I could tell, we were only about 30 miles from Rockport. My mom was quiet and didn’t acknowledge the fact that I was now awake; I assumed she didn’t want to speak to me, considering the explosive argument we had gotten into at the start of the fourteen hour drive from Asheville, North Carolina to Rockport, Massachusetts. I had on more than one occasion expressed my disdain for the move we were making. I actually was probably being a bit of a brat, considering everything my mom and I had been through.. but all I could think about is how much I didn’t want to leave my comfortable family home by the French Broad River to come live in a dusty old cabin in a fisherman’s town. My mom had always spoken very fondly of Rockport— what it was like to grow up there, the beaches, the quietness of living in a small town. I had known for a very long time that she missed it. She had missed her mother most of all— my Nona, who had passed away three years ago. Nona had left the small family cottage to my mother, who until recently had only basically boarded it up and let it sit there. She had never thought we’d ever have any reason to use the tiny two bedroom house by the beach. Until recently, anyways. My face twisted as an uncontrollable wave of grief washed over me and threatened to consume me as my dad’s classically handsome face came to a front and center place in my mind. My dad— who had been my best friend and entire universe for seventeen years— who was now a pile of ashes in an urn in the backseat of my mother’s suv. It had been only three months since my father had died. It had been an ordinary evening. Me and my mom were watching the newest season of some show we were binge-watching. We had jokingly told Dad that we wanted ice cream. And my kind father, always so willing to give us whatever we wanted, had thrown on his coat and gone to the convenience store down the street to get us two pints of our favorite ice cream. It was at this convenience store that my dad was shot in the back four times for the Rolex on his wrist and the few hundred dollars worth of cash in his wallet. By the time we noticed he had been gone too long, he was already being taken back to the hospital so he could formally be pronounced as dead. They’d never caught the mugger— conveniently, the store’s cameras didn’t catch anything due to the ice and snow in November. All they had was one eye witness— a tiny old lady who had been getting gas and had changed her description of the attacker a hundred times. I shook my head, trying to shake out the thoughts of my father. Now was not the time for me to have a mental break down. We had only a few miles left to go, and then I could collapse onto whatever dusty comforter set my Nona had left on one of the two beds in her home. “Colette, look,” my mom pointed. Her voice told me she was excited, and since it was the first time she’d spoken to me in nearly fifteen hours, I decided to try to be excited with her. It didn’t work. I looked toward where her thin white finger was pointing as we neared what appeared to be a strip by a beach. Dozens of red barn-like structures sat nestled into the edges of docks, a scattering of old rusted boats that had definitely been well-used floating in the nearby water. The street lights casted a dim yellow glow across the water. The dilapidated tin roofs of the buildings seemed to screem how old everything really was. The docks were scattered with fishing nets and broken lobster traps. I noticed the lack of people instantly— it was late-ish, probably ten or so at night. I couldn’t help but notice the difference between ten at night here and ten at night in Asheville. Downtown Asheville would have been bustling, the tiny tourist town bustling with excited chatter as people exited local restaurants and small gift shops. People would have been clapping excitedly as a street performer beautifully sang their favorite songs. They would have been standing in awe at the beautiful murals of graffiti on the walls and underpasses, where quiet artists had expressed a private part of themselves. Here, everything seemed very quiet. Everyone had settled into their homes, and most were sleeping— as we continued past the fishing docks into a more suburban area, not one single light was on in any of the tiny houses we passed. My window was cracked enough to feel a freezing cold, moist breeze flutter through the window— somehow it made the dark silence seem even more deafening. I looked over at my mom, and her eyes were wistful and excited. “You may not remember Nona’s house,” she told me, squinting into the dark. “You haven’t been since you were a tiny little thing. It needs some work, but it’s one of the most charming little houses you’ll ever see.” I examined the brightness in her face when she talked about her childhood home, her grey eyes that were exactly like mine crinkling up around the corners. “I’m sure it’s great, Mom.” I tried to sound as excited as she did— but I actually sounded sort of like someone was plucking out one of my eyes. I watched as my mom took a left turn onto a gravel road. The street lights behind us disappeared into the darkness, giant pine trees lining either side of the dusty drive. Leaning my head carefully against the window, I gazed up— the fading street lights had allowed the stars to shine brightly out here. The long gravel road was bumpy. Our belongings jumped and clattered in the back of the suv. I grabbed my phone off of the center console before it could clatter against the floorboard. “I don’t remember Nona’s house being out here,” I told her honestly. I didn’t. I had a vague memory of a small cobblestone house with a bright porch light and dozens of beautiful flowerbeds, but that was as far as my memory went. “You’ll be able to see it coming up in just a minute,” she smiled. “My father always loved the seclusion out here. It’s like another world.” And it was. As soon as the little stone house came into view, I couldn’t deny that it looked like something out of a fairy tale— albeit overgrown and abandoned. I could tell that the company my mom had hired to come and clear out the overgrowth had done their job well, but the flower beds that I remembered teeming with butterflies and honey bees were now full of dead leaves and sticks. Dead vines climbed up the broken lattice that covered the entire right side of the house. The once charming little porch on that side of the house was rotten and caving in, making it impossible to use the beautiful French doors that once opened up to the living room. “We’ll get it back to what it used to be.” My mom sounded dead-set on this. No lights were on— the only lighting we had was from the car headlights— so my mom reached in the backseat and grabbed her heavy coat and pulled it over her shoulders, leaving the headlights on as she exited the car. “I’m going to go turn on the porch lights, if they still work. Wait here.” I waited for a few minutes, growing increasingly irritated as my mom fumbled with the front door and searched half-blind for a light switch just inside. The living room light roared to life, and shortly after, a very, very dim light on the small front stoop. She came back to the car smiling exuberantly. “I knew they would still work. Come on in.” I begrudgingly opened the car door and slammed it, going to the trunk to grab my two suitcases. “Yeah. Great.” I snapped. I angrily trudged up and into the house, dropping my suitcases as soon as I walked in. I glanced around in disdain. It was freezing cold inside the little cottage— the heat obviously wasn’t on yet, and the freezing cold February temperatures weren’t being kind. All of my grandma’s old furniture was still here— the floral sofa and loveseat with a homemade quilt hanging over the back, my grandpa’s raggedy old brown leather recliner was settled curiously in front of the fireplace, across from an ancient tube tv. Old paintings and dark wood framed photos covered the walls. An old painting of a boat hung over the mantle. Sitting on the mantle in haphazardly placed different sized frames were photos of my mother growing up, my uncle Ben, and then baby photos of me. I wasn’t charmed by it. I wasn’t charmed by the old, sea blue wallpaper. I wasn’t charmed by the antique floral sofas or the beautiful, cozy fireplace. I wasn’t charmed by the old, scratched wooden floors. All I could think about was my home in Asheville, and how starkly different this was in contrast. My mother came in next, her hands full of bags. She dropped them on the living room floor with an exasperated sigh. “Home sweet home.” It wasn’t home, though. Not for me. All I saw was my mother running away from everything she built with my father, trying to blur him out, to make him a fading memory so that she could cope. I saw her pretending he never existed, running back to whatever she was before him. It made me angry. Which was nothing new, really. I was angry all the time. If I wasn’t angry, I was depressed and grieving— and anger was definitely the easier emotion to feel. “This isn’t my home.” I responded, my voice quiet and cold. I absentmindedly went over to examine the dusty picture frames on the mantle. “Home is whatever we make it, Colette. It’ll feel like home before you know it.” I tried not to react, I really did. I tried to bite my tongue and keep the scorching hot words from flying out of my mouth like knives at my mother. But I just couldn’t help myself. “This is your home. You ripped me out of mine because you can’t stand to be reminded of dad. Did it ever occur to you that I don’t want to forget about dad? Or is what you want the only thing that matters?” I spat. Hurt flashed across my mother’s beautiful face, soon followed by anger. “Go find your room and collect yourself. It’s okay to be angry, Colette, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you direct it at me. I didn’t kill your father.” Pain seized my chest as her last sentence rang out, and tears stung in my eyes. It was worse, because I knew she was right— she didn’t kill my father. And my anger was because I didn’t know who did, and probably never would. I would have given my own life to get justice for my dad. She knew that. Sometimes my mother knew me too well. I grabbed my suitcases off the floor and stomped off down the hallway, picking the door next to the hallway bathroom, assuming it wasn’t the master. I yanked it open and flipped on the light, slamming it shut right behind me. A small full sized bed with a wrought iron frame sat in the middle of the barren room, a lavender and blue quilt spread out over it. It was obvious my mother had someone come over and at least wash all of linens— probably my uncle Ben, who still lived in Rockport. I didn’t bother to even open my suitcase. I just collapsed on top of the rickety bed, curling into a fetal position on my side. I was being mean. I knew I was. It wasn’t my place to judge how my mother chose to heal from this. But I felt like I should be able to choose how I heal. I didn’t know if healing was ever even going to be possible for me, but I knew I wasn’t going to do it in Rockport. I laid there for a long, long time, letting my grief consume me.