Skipping Stones - COMPLETE

Chapter 14

AS WE APPROACH our street, I feel knots forming in my stomach, bricks pressing down on my chest, and I feel tears welling up in my eyes. I wasn't supposed to be returning without them. The familiar house no longer feels like home. It's a structure. What made it a home was the fact that it was filled with the people I loved.

My dad always did the yard before we left to go on a trip. I expected that the lawn would be a mess when we got here, but it's not. It's freshly mowed. I suppose the neighbors have been maintaining our yard. That thought makes my heart warm slightly.

A few moments later, the van is parked and we are walking up the steps and into the house. Everything is just as we left it. It's only been weeks, yet it feels like it's been an eternity. My mom was always obsessed with making sure that we left the house clean. She always said the last thing she wanted to come home to after a vacation was a dirty house. It would be bad enough with all the laundry.

I can hear my heart racing. Boom ba boom. Boom ba boom. It speeds up with each step I take into the foyer. Pictures line the table beside the staircase. Pictures of me with my parents. The way I remember them, us. Dad was usually telling a joke. With each picture, there's a memory.

For a moment, I feel like it's not real. For a moment, I feel like they are just on vacation. I can hear their voices, their laughter filling the other room. It draws me in, but the closer I think I get to it, the more it fades. I don't want their voices to fade. I don't want their memories to go away.

Papa places his hand on my shoulder. "Alex."

When I try to speak, nothing comes out. I clear my throat. "Mmm..."

"You okay?" He asks softly.

I nod. The bass in my ear that is my heart tells me I'm alive. The aching in my chest makes me wish I wasn't. Am I okay? Am I really okay? I'm not sure because nothing about this is right. Strumming my fingers on the handrail to the stairs, I reply, "I'm gonna go to my room for a minute." The sound of feet pattering behind me makes me glance over my shoulder. Memaw is right behind me. "I need to be alone for a few minutes."

Her brows are furrowed, her lips pursed, and tears are filling her eyes. She opens her mouth like she's about to speak, but Papa puts his hand on her arm. "Elizabeth, let's give her space."

She gives a nod of affirmation.

With each step climbed, it's like one more shovelful of sand is being thrown on me, burying me alive. When my foot touches the top one, my breathing is fast. It's as if I've been sprinting in gym. Except I've barely done anything. My room is directly in front of the stairs. The door is open. Everything is just the way it was left a few weeks ago. Bulletin boards with pictures of my best friends. Those make me sad. My friends. My heart aches from missing them.

What makes me the most upset is seeing the quilt that Mom and I made together. The memories of easily making the curtains, but the headache of hanging them. The old joke about how many people does it take to change a light bulb? For us, it was more like 'How many Harts does it take to hang curtains?'

There's a smile hidden somewhere in me, a small laugh, but neither is able to escape. Instead my chin is quivering and my throat's closing up. It takes everything in me to fight back the impending flood gates that are inevitably about to break. Taking a few more steps and picking up one of the photo albums on my bookshelf, I clench it to my chest.

My friends never understood how my mom and I could be such good friends. We did so much together. We both loved to craft. She taught me everything she knew. Well, except how to hang curtains. But that doesn't count since she wasn't very good at that either.