Already Home (H.S. AU)

Twenty Five.

Being home will always be different now. Even in what is meant to be the most joyous of times–surrounded by everyone I love–my heart will be stricken with something so heavy it almost feels unbearable. The weight so pressing it's impossible to ignore. I'll continue to lug it around with a smile plastered on because everything is okay. Right now, nothing is wrong. Not in the normal sense of the word, anyway.

But that doesn't mean I don't feel it like a cloud hovering around this house ready to pour down on us at any moment. There's only so much water that one cloud can hold. Eventually, white will turn to grey, then to black, and the saturation will win over. It always wins. The dam will break and it will rain down in thick droplets, soaking us in heartache. The thunder will roll and the lightning will strike and all of a sudden, there are flash floods nobody was prepared for even with a warning. The rain will always come.

There's a name for it, I learned. Anticipatory grief; expecting someone's death before it happens, awaiting the inevitable loss. It's disorienting. Tumultuous. Grieving the life of someone while they're still living.

It's the part that no one talks about. They'll tell you to enjoy the time that you're given together. Take in every moment and keep it in your memory. Do everything you can to savor the good while you still have it. Do this, you'll regret it if you don't do that, feel this, make sure you remember that. Except they're all forgetting about the mountain that stands between. The what-ifs. The constant wondering if this will be the last time. A question of which milestones they'll miss.

What if this is the last birthday we'll celebrate together? The last Christmas? The last holiday? What if this is the last time we'll all be in the same room? Will they see me graduate? Fall in love? Get married? Start a family?

What if? What if? What if?

There's an endless barrage of them and they play on a loop now as I survey my childhood home still full of life in front of me. Mum is still in the kitchen, floating around cooking a turkey dinner. Dad still stands by the sink waiting to be given his next task. Vera is still sitting at the dining room table gabbing about her co-workers. Ezra is still slumped on the sofa with his nose in his phone. My niece is still running the halls, burning herself out. And I'm still here analyzing every move.

From the outside, we seem like every other family on Thanksgiving. The house smells of turkey drippings and sweet spices from pies. There's chatter and grins. Fall decor with reds, yellows, and oranges covers the interior. You would never know that something is off unless you searched hard enough. Only then will you uncover the problem.

Mum's hair is thinning now. The fatigue is setting in quicker. Like clockwork, every few minutes she has to take a pause and lean against something to hold her body up. Every ten, she has to sit and recharge. Dad looks worn, older. The stress has made the fine lines in his face sink deeper. Vera's under-eyes are too dark for any makeup to cover due to lack of sleep sufficiently. She lies awake at night after putting her daughter to bed while her mind roams. Ezra hasn't glanced up once, sat alone, being aloof. He lets whatever game he plays or friends he messages be a distraction. The only person who is behaving like usual is Ivy and that's only because at three she is blissfully unaware of the world's evils.