Genesis

CHAPTER 1 It's the End of the World as We Know It

Are you kidding me? When was this decided? Don't I have any say in this? So many thoughts were going through my head at the moment, but I couldn't deal with her right now. She was so good at ruining her own life, now she wanted to start on mine.

I stomped up the stairs of our crowded little house, kicking some of the items left on either side of them. Apparently, the stairs are an extra storage unit, I thought caustically. Nobody ever bothered to actually pick up the stuff that my mother put there to be taken upstairs. Thankfully, my brother and sisters weren't home at the moment. I went into the small bedroom that I shared with my sister, Jennie, who was only one year younger than me, and slammed the door. I threw myself on to my bed and screamed into my pillow.

It was the first week of the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I had earned the coveted position of editor of the school newspaper. I was a straight A student. I had three best friends and a decent car that my dad had given me, probably out of guilt for not being around more, but I digress. Life was good. I didn't want to start over. Not now.

What could she possibly be thinking? Ugh!

My mother, Caroline, was the younger of two daughters born to my grandmother, Muriel, a trendsetter of sorts back in her generation. Twice divorced with two girls from two dads, the apple didn't fall far from that tree. From the little my mother had shared about her childhood, I was aware that Grammy wasn't the best mother, although she was always great with me. Before she died, I'd slept over at her apartment on a regular basis. It'd been five long years since she passed away, but I could still picture myself brushing her hair — fifty-six years old and it was still mostly brown. Hopefully, I'd inherited that gene. She loved pea soup, and she'd let me make it for her. I never told her that it made me gag just looking at it. I was just so proud that she trusted me with that task. She always treated me like a grown-up. In the midst of my current anguish, those memories still made me smile.

Caroline always treated me like a grown-up as well. She depended on me for advice on any number of topics. Many nights, we'd sit at the kitchen table drinking coffee after the younger kids had gone to bed — her, sharing; me, secretly wishing she had another confidant. Today, however, she didn't wait for our evening chat to tell me of our impending move.

Compose yourself, I chided. I sat up, pulled my knees into my chest, wrapped my arms around my shins and looked pensively around the bedroom that I had painted a dark cranberry more than a year ago. Jennie and I had twin beds separated by a shared nightstand that was cluttered with my laptop, cell phone and a picture of me, Jane, Peggie and Annie. A silver "Best Friends" ornament was attached to the bottom of the black frame. Great! Just great! I could feel the tears that wanted to escape, but I wasn't about to give in to that reaction. No, crying didn't help anything.

I decided to suppress my anger in my usual way so I grabbed my secret stash of Whoppers, then my phone, pressed the music icon, and hit play. "Love is All Around" was queued, just what I needed to feel empowered in my currently powerless state. I turned up the volume and let the music pulse in my brain, took a deep breath and, once again, studied the room. Under my current scrutiny, it looked as if an imaginary line had been drawn down the middle. A good part of the wall on Jennie's side was covered with a huge collage in the shape of a butterfly that was comprised of photos of friends and family, pictures and words cut out from magazines, even a few greeting cards. By comparison, my half looked rather austere, with only two prints ― The Storm and Springtime by P.A. Cot ― that I had purchased during my last trip to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, tacked up on the ceiling over my bed.

Jennie was outgoing and easy to get to know. I guess it's easy when there's not that much to know, I thought, and immediately regretted the hurtful reflection. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with her; it's just that there wasn't much to her, nothing much below what you saw on the surface. We were polar opposites, especially when it came to unnecessary drama.