Look Mom, I Made It

Three years. I’m sitting in my car, staring at the memory of the house I grew up in, surprised it still fits. 

Oh, there were some changes - New wind chimes in the porch, unfamiliar additions to my dad’s dusty, expansive collection that wakes up the whole neighborhood every storm. Fresh paint on the door, the unfaded brown matching the new car filling the garage. A new bicycle, its bubblegum pink a contrast to the old rusted set whose metallic squeal was the soundtrack of my childhood.

And yet somehow, as I stare at my parents' house for the first time in three years so little has changed that, just for one terrifying moment, it feels like those years never happened.

I shake myself “Right,” I say to the empty car “Stop stalling. What’s so scary about seeing your family? No, no, don’t answer that”

--

“Baby brother!” Rose, the eldest, shouts from across the room as soon as my head is through the door. Joseph, her husband, gives a lazy salute beside her before returning his attention to the baby cradled in his arms - Dawn, my infamous nephew.

“Sorry, I’m late. Got caught up in traffic” “Have you seen your nephew yet?” Rose asks “Not yet,” I say, taking off my coat. A large hand grabs my shoulder as I do and my dad pulls me into a quick embrace. “Hey son,” he says, his deep voice filling me with a swarm of emotions “Hi Dad.”

In my memories my dad is a tall man, towering over most people. I can still perfectly recall the moment, somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, when I realized I was of a height with him.

As he embraces me I can see the top of his balding head.

My mother is beside him “Oh, baby, you’ve grown so handsome! I always said long hair suits you” “Makes him look like a damn hippie,” My dad says “Stop, it looks good on him,” She says “Thanks” I manage. My mother hugs me before pulling back, assessing “Oh, but you look so tired! Are you sleeping enough?” “Better,” I say. She nods knowingly “Listen, I’ve found these new sleeping pills, all-natural, made from - hear this - guava! They’ve been doing me so much good, maybe they can help you too. I should have an extra pack for you to take home with you- I’ll give it to you after dinner”

Ah yes, guava, that well-researched, scientifically proven cure for insomnia. “Thanks, Mom, bu-” 

“So, still alive, huh? Finally crawled out from under that rock?” “Nice seeing you too, Micha” My middle sister has a man on her arm, slight and dark, his eyes keen with intelligence. I hold out a hand to him. “Hi, I’m Oren, the little brother” “Oscar. I’m with Micha” He says, pulling me into a warmer embrace than I expected 

“God, man, it’s so funny seeing you. I was starting to think you were made up” “Oscar!” Micha admonishes, slapping his arm, but I find myself laughing. “No, really,” I say in a poor impression of my sister “I do have a brother, he’s just in Canada!”

Laughter bursts from Oscar’s throat. Micha gives us both a killer look before softening into a smile of her own. “So, how’ve you been?” She asks “Well-” “I don’t know about you,” My dad says loudly, speaking to the whole room “But I for one am famished. Now that we’re all here, is everybody ready to start with dinner?” 

The usual hectic scramble follows as the seating order is determined “No, you should sit beside the baby-” “You two should be next to each other-” “We’ll sit by the fridge-” There is no room for me to fit in and I am once again eight-years-old as I wait patiently for my sisters to tell me where to sit.

--

“So, what’s it like being parents?” I ask over the two concurrent conversations “Well, I barely sleep” Rose says “I find myself speaking to people like they don’t know how to talk back yet and I’ve developed a constant migraine” She turns to look at the baby sleeping in the cradle behind her, and smiles “So, you know, incredible.”

“He’s so smart,” Joseph says “Always looking, curious to see what’s going on” I smile, as though no one says that about every baby that’s theirs. 

“And how are you doing?” Rose asks “You kind of disappeared.” “Well, I just published my first book,” I say “Wait, really? What’s it about?” “So, it’s fantasy-” I start “Oh, like the ones you read as a kid?” “Well, yea, but aimed more towards adults” “Wow, so how-”

All conversation at the table stops as Dawn starts crying, wailing like a siren. My ears feel like they’re bleeding as Rose and Joseph rush to his cradle, rocking him and checking his diaper.

“Is he hungry?” My mother asks “Maybe its the noise?” my dad. 

Rose sings a silly song as Joseph puts a bottle of formula in her hands. She shoves it in Dawn’s mouth and just like that the noise stops as he latches on, eating contentedly. He blinks awake big eyes, making this gurgling sound - which of course sends every person in the room into a fit of cooing, all “good mornings” and “hi sunshines.”

--

“So, you were saying you wrote a book?” Rose asks me once Dawn has received his allotted attention and we are all seated once more. Every head in the room turns to look at me. “You wrote a book?” My mother asks “Published one” I correct “Really? Some of that fantasy stuff you used to read?” Micha asks “Yea” “What’s it about?” Oscar asks “Well-” I start “More importantly, how much did it cost?” My dad asks.

Sudden heat pushes sweat through my skin, old banked coals flaring, revealed to the air for the first time in three years. “To the publishers? I honestly have no idea” I say “I got paid to do it. This is my job now” “I thought you wanted to go study computer engineering, back when you moved to the city.” My mother asks “Did that not go anywhere in the end?” 

Anger now, the heat flaring hot white “Well, I realized that’s not what I wanted to do” I say, hearing the fury in my voice, knowing they wouldn’t - they never could. That’s why it surprised them when I left.

“I see,” my dad says. “And does it really make you happy?” I can hear the judgment suffusing the innocent words - but just like that, my anger is done. “Yea,” I say, suddenly weary as I speak in full honesty for the first time that night “Yea, it really does” Tension releases from my muscles as I exhale, an ancient burden I was not aware I carried unsettling from my shoulders. 

When I was younger, just starting the first draft of this monster I have brought upon the world, I imagined this night as a hero’s return. “Look Mom” I’d say “I made it”, and just like that old anger would be set aside, all hurts regretted and forgiven. Just like that, I would become the man I am and not the child I was. Just like that, I would be enough.

But that’s not how it works.

“I see,” My dad says again “well, would a text once a week to let us know you’re alive kill you?” “No, Dad, I guess it wouldn’t.” It would do worse. It would define me.

--

“You know, you really grew up, baby brother,” Micha says, reaching up to rub my hair. I smile at her joke, wondering if she got it as I say its punchline. “Really? Because for me it really feels like everything is just the way it was.”