SUMMER SALUTATIONS

It was my last day at home and I was beginning to grow sad. This bed I laid in was soon to be a cheap twin in a cramped closet of a college campus. I stared up at the ceiling, the ceiling of my childhood. Those zig zag cracks in the paint were forever embedded in my memory. The parts that were chipped from when me and Dad tried to hang glow-in-the-dark stars up there. That didn’t go so well, they were cheap and didn’t glow. Dad took them down after a week and bought me a planetarium projector. He used to do a lot of nice things like that, back then before the fights with mom started. Ever since I was accepted into the University of Texas they have been at each other’s throats though I’m not sure why. It was all so bittersweet.

Dad still shows his love to me, mostly in the form of gifts. He usually got me what I wanted, even if I didn’t ask . Mom was the same, I even got to try a sip of her wine when I was fourteen, it was sour and burned my throat. That was my first taste of alcohol and I haven’t lost my taste for it since. I wasn’t overly popular in high school, but I did make some life long friends, I hope. I didn’t go out often, but occasionally I went to a party, usually sipping drinks in a corner with my best friend, making jokes of how dumb everyone was. Looking back we were pretty dumb too.

The summers were absolutely terrible, we were blasted by scorching hot heat and thick with humidity. I usually avoided going outside, unless it was to swim or spend time with Dad while he barbecued, having a popsicle by the pool. That was always a treat, I went downstairs, snatched a blue one from the freezer and stepped outside with my flip flops. Dad went cheap with the ground saying, “Why pay more for smooth rocks? They will wear down with time.” But they never did and I could hardly bear to walk over them, even with the thick cushion of my flop. I laid back on a warm lounge chair and kicked my feet up. The sizzling sun was already making work out of my popsicle, tears of blue raspberry dripped down my fingers. I shook it off and then held it sideways to let it fall down on the grass, giving it a lick every now and then. I tried to get comfortable but the sun was so white hot, shining brightly through my eyelids. I grabbed the sunglasses from the drink holder and put them on. I started to drift into sleep, the heart making me tired. That would be my last afternoon nap by the pool for a while. 

I woke up, not much later to the sun still shining high. The popsicle was gone, the only evidence left over was a pile of blue goo in the grass, I couldn’t find the stick. Mom would be coming home soon, she was usually off a couple of hours before Dad and talked with me about her day at work. I remembered yesterday’s juicy bit about one of the married office ladies and how she was having an affair with her husband. She had me hooked. I swung open the metal back door into the living room and stepped inside the cool, air conditioned house.

Two people were there, directly in front of me, bare naked. Mom was laid over the couch, backside in the air and a man I had never seen was standing behind her, thrusting. I froze, I didn’t want to see it but I couldn’t pull my eyes away. Their heads swiveled towards the open door and their eyes flew open when they saw it was me. 

“Oh no, oh no, oh god,” my mom said, pushing the man away from her and holding her clothes up to cover her shame. “Honey! I didn’t know you were home! I thought you were out with your friends! Oh god...”   

The man was already halfway out the door, guilty sprinting. His jeans loosely hung from his hips and he pulled a white shirt over his head. I had to snap myself from my shocked state. I heard my mom's voice but I couldn’t process the words.

“Oh god no… let me explain,” she said.

“What the hell mom?!! What are you doing?? In our house with this… this stranger! What about dad?” I screamed. Then it hit me, she was the cheating wife she told me about yesterday. “And that story… the one you told me about work… that’s you! Why would you tell me that?! Do you get some sort of rush from these games?” I was flushed red with anger.

“Honey, please…” she said, “please let me explain. It was…”

I cut her off, “...and on my last day? I’m about to leave for college, why do it today?! I can’t…” I threw my arms up and stomped upstairs to my bedroom, slamming the door behind me. I fell down lifeless onto my bed and screamed, loud, into my pillow. 

A couple of hours later there was a knock at the door and my mom let herself in. She came over and sat on the edge of my bed, where I had been laying and holding my body pillow tight. She couldn’t face me, staring at the wall, probably looking for the words to calm me down, the words to make it right. But there were none and I’m sure she knew nothing she said would make it right. 

“Listen honey…” she began, me staring at her long blonde hair. “I’m so sorry you saw that… I know I shouldn’t have brought him home. I was just… just caught up in the moment.” She turned to me with sad eyes, tears started polling in mine. I couldn’t say anything, I felt like I was suffocating. I couldn’t even look her in the eyes without seeing the image of her bare skin, illuminated by a ray of sunshine, pressed up against our shiny leather couch. I tore away from her gaze and looked down at my lumpy body pillow, still clutching it tight. 

She paused before talking again, “...sometimes people fall out of love. No matter how much they try to make it work.” She took a shaky breath, “and sometimes… married couples stay together for their children. I tried for years with your father, to rebuild the love we once had. But we…”

“So you don’t love him anymore?”

Mom picked her words carefully, “We don’t see eye to eye… not like we used to.”

“So… you and dad are... divorcing?” I asked weakly. I tried to hold it together, tried to be mature but that child deep inside me broke and I fell into tears. It was too much to handle at once. She embraced me and patted my back, shushing me like she used to do when I was a little girl. I cried, I don’t know how long, but it all came out. I sniffled and wiped my stuffy red nose. 

“I really am so sorry honey… I didn’t want to hurt you or your father. And I’m sorry you had to find out this way… your father and I have been talking about it for awhile now, divorce, and we are already separated, in a way. We were trying to wait until you left for college before making it official.” She wiped her now red nose too and gave me a weak smile. “We are so proud of you honey, of everything you’ve done and everything you will do. We only want what’s best for you, for everyone… and we all deserve to be happy.”

A car door slammed outside and we both looked to my window. Mom sighed and gathered herself, holding her head high. 

“Okay sweetie, that’s your father. I have to go talk to him about… well about today.”

She got up and kissed me on the forehead, caressing my hair. “I just want you to know how much your father and I love you. You mean more than anything to us. Remember that.” 

And after another defeated smile, she was gone, walking out of my bedroom. She shut the door gently behind her and I sunk back in bed.

What followed after was yelling, lots of it, more than there had been in months. Most of it was Dad, which I understood, but the anger in his voice scared me a little. I wanted to cry again, but I didn’t. Their voices faded and I only heard soft mumbles. Then Dad was knocking at my door shortly after, he didn’t let himself in. He opened the door and talked calmly from the hall. 

“Hey honey… want to sit with me outside while I barbecue?” It was a simple question and I was more than happy to avoid another “talk.”

“Sure,” I told him and we walked outside together. 

I sat near the grill in a folding lawn chair, sipping on a sweet iced tea with lemon. Dad held a beer can in one hand and his metal tongs in the other, attentively cooking thick cut steaks and flipping them over every couple minutes. I looked over at the blue gloop still stuck in the grass. I walked over to the pool and splashed it away with some water.

“So mom told you? About us?” Dad said suddenly, still watching the steaks.

“Yeah she did…” I said mirroring his bluntness.

“And are you okay… about earlier?”

“Yeah,” I scratched my arm nervously, “And you?”

He took a sip of his beer and looked at me with dark brown eyes, “Honestly, I’m not sure. She moved on… pretty quick. Quicker than I expected.” Another sip.

“So you aren’t..?”

“Seeing anyone? God no, I…” he stuttered “I’m not ready.”

“I see… I’m not either,” I said. 

He gave me a look of sympathy, then he was back to the steaks. 

“We were separated though, technically…” he said, flipping and sipping. “But to bring that in our house...”

“Yeah… I’m sorry dad.” 

He smiled at me, “I’ll be okay honey, don’t worry about me. I’m sorry too… sometimes you just… just…” he struggled.

“Don’t see eye to eye?” I said.

“Exactly,” he pressed on the steaks with two fingers and took them off the grill to rest. “Could you go and help your mother set the table please, the steaks are almost done.”

“Alright, I’ll let her know.” And I was face to face with the back door again. I didn’t want to open it. 

Dad noticed and gave me a minute before some words of encouragement, “Go on honey, it’s fine.” And so I gathered what courage I had left to reach out and give the knob a quick twist. 

Mom was in the dining room, setting down the last few dishes and I gingerly walked over to the bar counter.

“Dad said the steaks are almost done,” I told her. “Do you need any help?”

“Okay honey… Oh no, thank you I’ve got it. The table is set. I’m just finishing up the mashed potatoes.” She smiled at me,”oh well actually, you can help me serve the sides… if you want. We have green beans, mashed potatoes, and buttered bread.

“Okay, of course” with a fake smile. The table was set and the sides served when Dad walked in with the steaks and cut them up in the kitchen for us, easier to eat. Mom’s pieces were a little too big and sloppy. It was an awkward dinner to say the least, most of the time we stared down at our plates, focused on the seared meat and the dull sides. Everything seemed dull now.

“I’m sorry, this isn’t exactly the sending off dinner we wanted for you,” Dad said to me.

“It’s okay… the food is good thank you. I'm actually getting excited to leave for college too.”

“That’s good honey,” Mom said. She tried to look to Dad, who was ignoring her, and she went back to her meal.

“...have you ever thought of staying in a cabin?” Mom asked suddenly, “I hear they have some very nice ones, all over.”

“Uhhh…sure,” not knowing what to say, “that could be fun… why though?”

“I was thinking we could do that when you are back home for the holidays, a cabin during Christmas could be really nice, hot coco by a fireplace…” 

“Or a vacation with your boyfriend,” Dad sneered, not looking up. Mom ignored the comment but I could see the corner of her lip twitch. 

“Have you said goodbye to all your friends?” she asked me, in an attempt to change the conversation. 

“No, I don’t really want to.”

“Oh… maybe you should, won’t you miss any of them?”

“She said she doesn’t want to,” Dad said. And then we were quiet again, finishing up the last bits of our food. 

“Are you and Henry going to stay together? Long distance?” Mom said.

“Who’s Henry?” I asked, confused.

“I like that boy,” Dad said, “...he needs to pop the question already and propose, maybe your marriage will be better than ours.” 

“Maybe he could come to the cottage with us, I’m sure he needs a vacation just as much as us.” Mom said.

“What?” I said, but nobody was listening to me. Suddenly, Dad grabbed his steak knife and jumped out of his chair, racing at me with it.

“Mom!” I screamed, but she only sat there with a blank face.

“Attention! If you or a loved one was diagnosed with mesothelioma, you may be entitled to financial compensation… mesothelioma is a rare cancer…”

I snapped awake with one foot still in dreamland and one out. A late night commercial was flashing from an old tube TV that hung from the ceiling. “Mesothelioma” was scrawled across the top with a phone number below. It cut out to another commercial for fast food. A giant burger sat on the screen, perfect and juicy, with melty cheese running down the side. My stomach growled and I clutched it, sitting up from a bed. A hospital bed of light blue linens and starchy parchment paper. A cord tugged at my arm and I saw that I was hooked up to a IV bag, hanging high above me. My heart started racing and the monitor beeped frantically. 

“Honey!” I heard from a corner, it was my mother and she leapt from a chair. She rushed over and gave me a huge, soothing hug. She caressed my hair like she had done many times before and I felt at home. My heart rate slowed. 

“Honey! Oh my god… you’re okay!” She started crying and I did too. 

“Mom? What’s going on?” 

When she looked up at me, I saw her smile and I knew that those tears were tears of joy. 

“My baby!” Then one more big hug, “you don’t remember anything?” 

I looked around the small room, foreign to me. I knew it was a hospital, I had been to the hospital before, but never as a patient. 

“No… Where am I?” 

“The hospital,” she said, “...the one down the road from our house. You fell asleep outside baby… me and your father came home late, we were getting a big sending-away party ready for you. But then when we came home, you were outside. You were bright red and not sweating at all. We didn’t know how long you had been out there but you wouldn’t wake up… you wouldn’t…” she cried again, “we couldn’t wake you so we called an ambulance. We were so scared. They said you had heatstroke, that you were severely dehydrated, and that you had gone into a coma.” She blew her nose into a tissue from a box that was nearly empty. 

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Almost a day…” she smiled, “me and your father were here the whole time.”

“Honey!” My dad said entering the room with a handful of moms favorite snacks. “You’re awake!” He dumped the snacks on a table by the door and ran over to me and gave me more hugs. I was starting to feel much better.

“Are you okay?” he asked, holding my face in his hands.

   “Yes.... I think,” I said, “just a headache… and I’m pretty hungry.”

   “I’ve got just the thing for that,” and he tossed me a beef jerky, cheese combo with a small bag of potato chips. The nurse came in then and I hid the snacks under the sheets, she checked my vitals and said I would be okay before leaving and giving us time alone. Mom and Dad gave each other a quick peck and smiled at me.

“We are so happy you are okay,” said mom. 

   “We love you…” Dad said.

   “I love you too,” and I hugged them one more time before we all sat back with our snacks, Mom with her candies and Dad with his cup of coffee. They looked exhausted, so was I, and we were all happy to relax and watch TV.

The commercials ended and the show started again, it was at the end of the episode but we didn't care much. The wife had run away with a young, handsome guy and was vacationing alone with him at a luxury cottage, she wasn’t wearing her ring. The husband was at home in their huge mansion, grilling burgers by the pool and drinking beers with his friends, ringless too. The last scene showed the daughter, away at college with her boyfriend. They were sitting at the patio of a small cafe, eating small sandwiches and sipping coffee, laughing. It zoomed in on her smiling face, and it was me.