Mourning Memories

Phoebe Simpson

“It’s too high!” I scream down to my brother Jack, who’s sat in the fresh fluffy snow below me. He had just jumped off the massive metal storage unit planted in our front lawn and was trying his hardest to coax me to do the same. “It’s lower than it looks. I promise!” he hollers back. I was skeptical, I creep closer to the edge “On the count of three you jump! Ok?” he shouts and without waiting for an answer begins to count.

“One…” I close my eyes 

“Two…” I bend my legs

“Three!” I soar, it feels like I’m falling for an eternity, until. THUMP! I landed in the fresh powder. When I open my eyes, my brother is smiling eagerly. “See, that was fun wasn’t it!” I smile back “You were right it wasn’t as high as I thought. Let’s do it again!

I hold my dad’s chunky iPhone aiming the camera at my bedroom door. A scratchy drumroll plays from outside the room right before Jack bursts in holding my pink plastic guitar, the source of the drumroll. An upbeat tune begins to stream from its speakers as my brother dances along. I can’t control the chorus of giggles that fall from my mouth. He’s too funny.

I sit with Jack in the back seat of our mom’s grey Audi on our way to visit grandma in New York. I share headphones with him as he scrolls through the bright blue iPod he just got for his birthday. He switches the songs between Eminem, Kanye West, and a variety of other artists I don’t recognize. He recites all sorts of knowledge about the music, he’s so smart. Eventually, Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne plays, and I fall in love with it. Jack lets me play the song for the last three hours of the drive.

Jack just finished his freshman year of high school, and my parents decided our local public school hadn’t given him the support he needed. He got accepted into a boarding school called Eagle Hill on the condition that he attend a few weeks of summer school to make up for his lacking grades. After three weeks my mom gets a call, it’s Jack. She doesn’t look happy; I’m asked to leave the room. That weekend my brother came home and never returned to Eagle Hill. Everything changed after that call.

Everyone’s screaming. I don’t even know what they’re fighting about. The same thing happened that morning, and yesterday, and the day before that. Eventually my mom throws Jack out of the house. A couple hours later he returns his knuckles are shredded, when I went into our barn the next day there’s a big hole in the dry wall speckled with splattered blood. He was scary.

My parents and I return from dinner, my brother didn’t want to come. The kitchens a mess. There are little white air soft pellets covering the floor. When I look out the window our back patio is piled with smashed furniture, I think it looks like its set up for a bonfire. I walk in the living room, trash and pillow stuffing is scattered across the floor. My brother comes out of his room yelling. 

It’s thanksgiving. I wake up to screaming in the kitchen, its my dad and brother, something about this fight is different. I listen trying to figure out what the argument’s about this time. I think my brother stole some money. Something shatters and the door slams, couple minutes later I walk into the kitchen, my mom’s picking up broken mirror shards and my dads on the phone with the police. Jack is hiding in the woods when the police get here, they stay for an hour or so but can’t really do anything. Once they leave, he returns and begins yelling “The next time you call the cops on me I’ll kill myself and take all of you with me!”

My mom, dad, and I sit on the couch. We just found some old tapes of when I was little, my dad used to film everything. We watch old Christmas mornings, birthday parties, and visits with my cousins. We watch a video of the first time I met my brother. In the hospital Jack sits on a chair that’s way to big for him, he’s four. My dad places me on his lap.

“Give her a kiss, Jack.” My mom calls 

He’s so nervous that he’s gonna hurt me that he kisses the air. Everyone laughs. I turn away from the TV and look at my mom. She’s crying. We all are mourning the loss of someone who’s not dead. 

Love is cruel.

Image: Harry Rajchgot (2013)