No One Asked

When I got home from school on a Tuesday, all the pictures and mirrors had been taken off of the walls. The furniture - hall tables, coffee tables, side tables, were all bare - dusty with the outline of the knickknacks that once stood on them. I ran straight upstairs to my bedroom - my sanctuary. Not even my personal space was considered sacred. My stuffed animals from my childhood were already stuffed un-lovingly in a black trash bag. My bed had been stripped bare down to the mattress. I opened the closet and found all my clothes were gone. I swallowed hard; a lump in my throat forming. I did not know whether to scream or cry. 

“Good, you’re finally home,” I heard my father say. I turned around and saw him standing in the doorway. 

“What’s going on?” I protested.

“We have to leave. Tonight!”

“But—” I began. It didn’t matter. He had already left. I sat down on the bed and looked around. There was nothing that was personal that remained in the room. Even the drawers with my undergarments had been evacuated. 

I picked up the backpack I had dropped to the ground and swung it over my shoulder and headed back downstairs. I could hear a bustle of movement throughout the main level of the house, but I did not bother go and see what was happening. I clearly was just an accessory to be packed up eventually when the move would take place. I walked out the door and sat down on the front lawn. 

“Hi Amy,” called a neighbor. He was walking his dog and waved at me. After twelve years of living here he still could not get my name right. My name was ‘Abby’ not ‘Amy’. There was no point of correcting him now. I would never see him again after tonight. 

I flopped onto my back and looked up at the sky; an indistinguishable mass of gray. It allowed a few droplets of water to fall on my cheeks. I indulged in the same. What was the point of working hard at school to get good grades and friends when it could all be ripped out from under me? Where were we going? Would I be able to stay at the same school with the same friends, or were we really moving far away where I would have to start over? I was too weary to consider how I would achieve any of this. 

“Abby! Get inside and help,” I heard my father yell. 

I sat up and saw a mounting pile of trash bags at the curb. It would not surprise me if my stuffed animals were among them. 

“Are you throwing those things out?” I asked. 

“We can’t take everything,” my father said. “Now get inside and help!”

I got up and stormed inside, leaving my backpack on the lawn. What was I even to help with? Why didn’t we just leave everything, and save ourselves the effort?

“Here, take this to the curb,” my father instructed. 

It was a box of books. I obeyed and walked with slow cautious steps, making sure to not trip on the step that led to the walkway. Upon reaching the curb, I squatted, remembering the warnings given at gym class about heavy objects. I let go of the box and a plume of dust erupted from beneath. I clapped my hands together and turned around. 

“Amy, are you guys moving?” asked the neighbor on his return loop from walking the dog. 

I shrugged. “I guess,” I told him. 

“You guess?”

“Abby, get back inside,” yelled my father. I did not know which was worse. Talking to our nosey neighbor or dealing with my father. Still it did not matter. I walked back inside, stopping in the doorway. 

“Don’t just stand there,” again my father snapped. “Go help in the kitchen.”

I followed him into the kitchen where my mother stood weeping. My father was tearing through the cupboards. 

“We have too much stuff!” he said. “All of this will have to stay behind.”

“No!” wailed my mother. “Not the china!”

“Where are we going to put it?”

“But it’s my great-grandmother’s.”

“She’s dead.”

I frowned. This was the last place I wanted to be. While my father was in another room, I backed away and went back outside. Instead of sitting on the front lawn, I walked down to the end of the street and made a left so that I was out of sight, and sat down cross legged on an electrical box. I did no thinking. Just sat enjoying the silence. A car would pass occasionally and the passengers would gawk at me. I stuck my tongue out a one of them and that made my audience turn away instantly. The rain began to fall in a steady drizzle. I looked up and let the cool water fall all over my face. Beads of water trickled down my forehead back into my scalp. It felt like a soothing shower after a hard workout. When the rain began to fall harder, I got up and ran back to the house, snatching my backpack in the process. 

“What’s wrong with you?” asked my father when we nearly collided at the door. “We’re nearly done. Get in the car.”

“What about dinner?”

“We’ll grab something on the road.”

“Where are we going?”

“Must you ask so many questions?” said my father as he walked away. 

I frowned and went to the bathroom. I caught my reflection in the mirror and chuckled. I was soaking wet. I rang my hair out in the sink and washed my hands. There was nothing on which to dry my hands, so I used what remained of the toilet paper. 

“Abby! We’re leaving! Where are you?

“Coming,” I called. 

I opened the door and ran to the back of the house where the door to the garage was. The sliding door to the van was open. There was just enough space for me to sit next to a mountain of black bags. I buckled up and tried to make peace with the plastic that pressed against my damp skin. Hopefully one of these bags contained my belongings. I needed a change of clothes badly.

We pulled out of the driveway and turned down the street. I did not even get a last chance to look at my childhood home one more time. My father drove the overloaded vehicle as quickly as it could move with all the weight. We turned out of the neighborhood and out onto the main road, passing strip mall after strip mall. 

I stopped looking out the window and reached down to grab my journal from my backpack until I realized it was still by the front door. 

“My backpack!” I shouted. “I forgot it. Can we turn back?” I asked. 

“No,” my father said. “We’ll get you a new one.”

“But all my homework and things are in there.”

“Abby, it will be fine,” my mother said in her too calm voice. “We’re moving to another state. You’ll probably have different assignments.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Abby! I’m not turning around the car,” my father said. 

I sat my head against the black plastic bags, but did not cry. I did not want my father to see me cry. But the thought of my journal which had all my sketches, my notes, my hopes, was just lying in the house for me to never see again.