Eden

My Pa always told me that cars were always more loyal to him than his own wife. It didn’t help them both that she went off with his ‘loyal’ car and never came back. She wanted to hurt my Pa with the only way that she knew how, through his car. 

It also didn’t help that the chief found it at the bottom of Lake Carmine. I think my pa was more concerned about the useless junk and tried every day to fix the damn wreck. He wasn’t interested in fixing the wreck of a daughter that they left behind. 

He died the way he lived and I sometimes think that is really the way he wanted to go.  Dead at the bottom of the Lake Carmine in the same wrecked junk, the same officers, the same chief, the same dents, the familiar accident all looping together again around like a hamster wheel out of control. 

The only thing he left for me in his will was the damn car. The one that had caused so much trouble. 

Kind of ironic, right? 

 The house was rented in my father’s name, so when he died, I had to say goodbye to the house that I grew up in. All those memories while harsh and unfair at times,  at least they still reminded me that I used to have a childhood.

The only other relative was Aunt May on my father's side (once removed). She worked in banking and had little knowledge of raising a child. Let alone a snotty, crying child dumped on her doorstep. 

She had taught me the most important lesson of all: Never to trust anyone. Either it was the childhood stupidity or the grief of becoming an orphan at 10 that made me trust that message. 

The only other child on the street was called Gruber. 

Gruber had it all. 

The loving grandparents who would visit at holidays, bringing him piles of gifts, hugs and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The mother who would insist on cleanliness and patience as she gave him all the kisses in the world. The father who was wise and strong and who had taught him how to fish properly on their daily Sunday routines. 

It was easy to say that I was jealous of him. That I wanted a family like his. That I wanted his family to be mine. For them to adopt me. 

I never knew that Gruber wanted the independence that I had. To be able to not be bogged down with spending time with his family, to be able to not be doted on by them. To not be pressured into being something that he was not. 

He hated the love that resided inside of that house.

That’s where Eden came into being. Our own little world made up from our ten-year-old minds. 

A world without adults, no authority, and a world where there absolutely was no growing up while we each had our own parts to play. 

The forests behind our houses became Eden and Eden became our real-life fantasy. If something happened in the real world, Eden would be affected, or so we thought. 

We stole paper whenever we could, where ever we could. From between our houses to our school, we cut, glued and painted our little cutouts for our fictionalized world. 

Within a couple of days, our world had become real, the deluxe shopping mall where everything inside was free for us. The cinema with animated films running daily, an ice cream parlor that had every flavor we imagined in our minds. A ferry linked our little islands to the mainland, Eden held our mainland and we added to it every so often and in any way we could. Our city got bigger and bigger over that summer until it got too large for us to remember what went where and who owned what buildings. 

We split up the main island into halves, into my part of the island and his, separate but not entirely gone. 

When we turned eleven that summer, we both decided to let Eden go. That Eden had become too childish for us. A wasteland. 

We broke and ripped the places apart, as we imagined watching ourselves from the inside seeing all of this destruction going on and being helpless to stop it. 

We ripped up the ice cream parlor, the cinema, and the shopping mall. We stomped on the trees and mountains till they became craters in the earth. We held up the ferry and let it sink into the small muddy puddle, imagining it slowly submerging into the frozen water. 

Our castles were the last thing to be destroyed. 

“Rip mine.” 

He holds out his palm to me, there on his sweaty palm is his castle, his home in Eden, I take his house and exchange it for mine. My home in Eden in the palm of my hand, we exchange the castles, his feels just right in my palm. Like it should have been mine all along. 

He tries to rip mine into little pieces, the sweat on his hands making it difficult for him, but it is finally done. He lets them fall to the ground like little snowflakes on a cold winter’s morning. 

He looks at me. 

“Do it!” he huffs as he folds his arm across his chest. 

I had never seen him that angry before. 

Before I can think about anything else rationally, my feet move by themselves, they move away from him before he can call my name, I am already running. 

Stinging nettles struck my legs, the pain of the prickles shooting through my legs doesn’t make me stop. Branches scratch at my arms, they mark my flesh, it will probably leave a large bruise tomorrow. 

I can still hear his voice in the far distance, like a beacon, trying to draw me back to my ‘normal life’. Part of me wants to go back to him, wants to demolish the rest of our childish little world. 

His home is now in the palm of my hand, I can almost smell the chocolate chip cookies from inside, the warmth of fire flicker across my face as my grandmother soothes the pain from my legs. 

I let the pain take over me as my feet stumble forwards. 

I close my eyes thinking it wouldn’t be for the last time. 

I grip his home in my sweaty palm, all of the colors have run off the paper, which has smudged it past recognition at this point.

I open my eyes again. 

I’m inside his house. 

Grandmother tightly wraps a blanket around me, she pecks my head and soothes me with a lullaby. 

Mother gives me a fresh chocolate chip cookie and strokes my hair lovingly, while my father sits reading his newspaper, he tells me of the positive stories, the ones that he thinks I may like to hear. 

The only other child on the street was called Elena. 

Elena had it all. 

The loving grandparents who would visit at holidays, bringing her piles of gifts, hugs and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The mother who would insist on cleanliness and patience as she gave her all the kisses in the world. The father who was wise and strong as he taught her how to type words on their typewriter during foggy Sunday mornings. 

It was easy to say that I was jealous of her. That I wanted a family like hers. I wanted her family to be mine. For them to adopt me. 

I never knew, after all these years, that Elena wanted the independence that I had. To be able to not be bogged down with spending time with her family, to be able to not be doted on by them. To not be pressured into being something that she was not. 

She hated the love that resided inside of that house. 

That’s where Eden came into being. Our own little world made up from our ten-year-old minds. 

But now Eden is all mine and Elena has disappeared.