Obstacles

Chapter 19

    The house felt cold and empty compared to before. It was only a week after my mother had tragically passed and dad wasn't taking it well. I of course wasn't much better, but I didn't want to show it.

  Dad began to drink. I had never seen him touch alcohol at all up until this point. He also began to swear more periodically. Both the drinking and sweating mom had told me was something my father left behind when he left the military so many years before. It was as though everything that dad once despised was now his favorite things in the world.

Throughout the week, he began to grow a temper. If I did something wrong he would threaten to take something away. Tell me I was a screw up. That I was a mistake. Send me to my room. But that was only as far as he would go until that point.

I cried of course...I wasn't use to...my "new" and "improved" father. The loss of both my one parent physically, and the loss of my other parent mentally was beginning to take a toll on me in more ways than one. One day however, is when a new era in my life began.

I was in my backyard playing around with my mother's Polaroid. I was taking pictures of different flowers that my mom had previously planted in our backyard. Since she left her camera to me in her will, I thought that I might as well use it. I somehow came up with the idea that maybe if I took a picture for dad he would feel at least a little better. Maybe it would make him smile. Maybe make him happy.

I noticed a mockingbird standing on the one of the bottom branches of the tree that grows near my bedroom window. I slowly inched towards the tree branch clutching my Polaroid. When I felt I was at a safe enough distance that wouldn't make the bird fly away, I began to zoom in on the bird best I could.

I squinted my eye to look through the camera and shut the other just like I watched mom do. I let my finger hover over the capture button as I adjusted the camera to the correct setting.

Just as I had the camera focused, the bird hopped a few times towards the end of the branch out of the camera's shot. Annoyed but determined, I refocused the camera's view once more hoping for a better result. I began to squint my eyes as my mother had once done.

"Come on, stay still..." I whispered to myself. Once I was sure the photo looked good, I quickly snapped the photo as the bird cocked its head to look at me.

"GOTCH YA!" I yelled pumping my fist in the air once. The bird immediately after flew away, startled from me yelling.

I let the photo come out of the camera and walked into the house to let it process. I went upstairs, mom's Polaroid in hand. Placing the camera gently onto my nightstand as though it was made of glass. With the picture in hand, I sat on my bed excited to see how my 'work' came out.

I waited patiently in my room waiting for the picture to develop. The picture faded into sight slowly. When the picture finished developing, I smiled brightly. I thought it looked amazing. I ran downstairs and called for my father. "Dad!!! Dad, where are you? I want to show you something!!!"

"I'm right here, Kora." My father called out from what sounded like the kitchen. He sounded drunk. His words were slurred and he sounded irritable.

I walked into the kitchen and found my father leaning against the counter. His elbow appeared to be supporting himself. A half empty glass of vodka was in his hand. The bottle itself was on the island counter.

"Talk quieter, I've got a headache that could kill." He rubbed his forehead with his free hand and looked at me. I nodded in understanding and looked down at the photo. I smirk twisted it's way onto my lips.