Cookie Jar Secrets

Crumpled in the corner of the kitchen like a dead spider, blood dripped down my father’s temple and onto the hexagon-shaped tiles. His eyes remained fixed on his feet with the absence of any life behind them. I still had a white knuckle hold around the neck of the broken whiskey bottle. I tried to wrangle my thoughts together but it seemed pointless as my head spun wildly. I dropped to the floor, with my fingers deep in the crevices of the tile, holding on for dear life. I stared at the floor and waited for the air to become thin enough to breathe again. Anger flooded to the surface because now I was changed in a way I never deserved, in a way that could never be undone.  My soul has been permanently tainted. Now, I was a killer and I was no better than my miserable father. I was so angry that due to the actions of someone I loathed my innocence was stained beyond restoration. My mind was so overwhelmingly loud with the buzz of silence that it seemed like there was a deafening and constant ringing in my ears. So many thoughts raced around my head and I couldn’t hear any of them. I knew that I had struck my father purely out of self-defense but it didn’t change the fact that with a single fear-induced swing of a John Moon’s Whiskey bottle, I had erased life from this world. I looked down at the whiskey bottle, covered in my father’s blood, and threw it into the wall with a rage-filled scream. Glass rained down on the floor, pelting the side of my face and scattering across the floor like diamonds. What surprised me was the level of guilt I felt. My father was not a person I would think to mourn for yet tears drenched my eyesight as I gasped for air. He was a violent soul, tortured with alcohol-drenched demons he never acknowledged. Maybe it wasn’t him I mourned for. Maybe it was me. My essence felt changed somehow like the person I was five minutes ago is not the person I am now. Sobs shook my entire body, taking over me like seizures of the soul attacking the body. 

The open fridge door doused the Italian bistro-themed kitchen in a yellowish light that gave the illusion of comfort. I looked around the kitchen and for the first time saw what it was. I noticed the pizza boy cookie jar sitting on the counter, and thought about how it never contained sweet treats anymore. Since my mother died, it has filled with pub matchbooks and empty Vicodin bottles. I hated that chubby pizza boy cookie jar, it reminded me of things lost in the past, like security and hope. I stood up bracing myself on the metal diner chair as my legs shook weakly beneath me. I stumbled down the hallway, sliding down the walls to my room. Family pictures from when I was a baby fell from the wall, shattering behind me. Everything was an illusion here, it was all fake. My father wasn’t the loving man with his arms wrapped around my mother in front of the empire state building. He was the weakling that slapped her across the face when she said he needed help. He was the one that showed up to her funeral, with a mostly empty vodka bottle in hand, stumbling over the flower arrangements. I resented him for the embarrassment he put on her name and blamed him for her sickness. No one had to tell me life wasn’t fair because I learned that the day she died and he lived.

I picked my phone up off of my bed and dialed 911. I’m not sure what inside me made me hesitate, but my thumb hovered over the green phone button. School had always drilled into my head to call 911 when you needed help, so why did it feel wrong somehow? Maybe because although it was an accident, I couldn’t say I hadn’t wished for it before. There were plenty of times my father would return from the bar in a fist-throwing, drunken rage. I couldn’t help but wish he would’ve run his car into a tree on the way home. Not only that, but I was also afraid of the endless questions from cops definitely resulting in me spending the night in a foster home. I’m fifteen which gives me at least 3 years in the system, or worse in a foster home with a parent just like my dad. 

I could just run away. 

The thought floated through my mind like a fresh breeze as I pondered for a moment about what my life could be with either choice. My body must have decided without consulting me because the next thing I knew I was stuffing clothes into my school backpack. It felt as though my room was rushing around me as my judgment took a backseat to my fear. My fingers struggled to zip my backpack up from both their shaking. I grabbed my sweatshirt that hung from my bedroom doorknob and pulled it on as I tried to steady my mind enough to leave. I took a deep breath and stalled as I adjusted the hood of my sweatshirt around my backpack. I turned and looked at my room for what I knew was the last time. I looked at all the posters of bands I plastered on my walls and wished I could take them with me. My model ship sat at the edge of my desk, half glued together, never to be finished. My eyes drifted to the small macaroni framed picture of my mother and me on a white carousel horse in the park. She had given it to me a few days after my tenth birthday, complaining that it wasn’t fair parents couldn’t give their kids terrible macaroni art.  I smiled and picked it up for the picture was of my fondest memory of her. 

She had woken me up early on my tenth birthday to eat breakfast at my favorite diner. It's a cozy place that overlooks the oceanside cliffs called May’s Table, on the edge of town. I loved watching the seagulls swoop back and forth from the ocean to the cliffs. I remember sitting in the booth with her laughing as we thumped sugar packet footballs through each other’s fingers. She charmed the cook into making me a special birthday pancake tower, it stood at least five pancakes high with chocolate chips and peanut butter as the mortar. After breakfast, we raced down to the pier and rode the carousel as many times as I wanted. I stared at the photo with watery eyes as I looked at her face. I was looking at the camera with a smile that covered half of my face and she was simply looking at me, smiling. A smile that rivaled a ten-year-olds on an endless carousel ride in genuine happiness, except she was looking at me. I turned the photo over and pushed the clips down, removing the back from the frame. Before I could get to the picture, an envelope slide-out falling onto my foot. I bent down and picked it up and immediately recognized my mother’s handwriting. I opened the envelope and pulled out nine one hundred dollar bills and a note that said, 

“You were my peace so now go and find yours wherever it may be. With all my love, Mom.”

I put the picture in the envelope and pushed it deep into my pocket as I walked down the hall, through the kitchen, and out the front door, never to return and never looking back.