The bond

She was smiling. “I promise I won’t do it ever again, “ Phil said feeling this kind-hearted, yet since some time oddly heart shattering... kindheartshattering... look on him and pretty much nothing else. 

“I promise right here and right now, Maddie, I will never call you fat. Never again”. 

For a split second he considered trying to go back to writing his essay that was never going to finish its third thesis and the conclusion by itself, but this scary emptiness was distracting. The lamp that buzzed as if it came from 13th century, although it quite certainly arrived yesterday from Amazon, was distracting. The heavy clouds mercilessly vommiting their contents onto unsheltered cats and dogs were meeting the toilet water flushing several multiple and several times in Phil’s ears and the sudden hit of thunder matched the foreseeable yet still unexpected knock onto bathroom’s door. 

“What do they need from me?”, his first thought. But Phil wasn’t in the bathroom, he was sitting in his own room. “Right. It’s Maddie again…” he sighed, and looked at the photo one more time. Whose dumb idea was that to put family pictures onto his work desk just to feel more like some especially important and significant office boss that either gets killed in the very beginning of a movie or is cheating on his wife all throughout and never gets caught? At first it felt extremely fancy and elegant and even created that professional, working, I-need-to-concentrate and I-can-do-it-dramatic pause-for-them atmosphere, but now Phil sooner pressured himself to rearrange his values so that he doesn’t have to admit how much rather he would just remove it and avoid any questions about the family picture disappearing all of a sudden, each time he looked at that framed nightmare. Oh since when did it turn into a nightmare?

Their family trip to Czech Republic. Two weeks of hiking in the forest hugged mountains. Boating down the river. Sightseeing and picking souvenirs. Dad drinking beer and Phil pleading to take just one sip each time he saw that golden bubbling liquid in a screaming “draw on me with your finger” cold honeycomb krug. Two weeks of peaceful early morning breakfasts at their 3-star-hotel with Czech melted cheese triangles, absolutely delicious yogurt, and white fresh bread with two kinds of jams- peach and strawberry, or was it raspberry, actually, it was three kinds: strawberry, peach and cherry. Sausages weren’t bad either. What would Phil do now just to have one such breakfast…He wasn’t starving, he was actually fed up. With fights each time they had a meal. Fights so pointless, what, however, didn’t stop them from being extremely intense. Fights, one of which was happening right now.

It was so different back then, even though it was just over a year ago. Just over a year ago his life now could only be compared to a bad dream, a nightmare, after that he would wake up all covered in cold sweat. But at least he would wake up and carry on with his carefree life. And all of that would be left to disappear under his pillow, to sink in white soft goose feathers. Phil knew he had nothing to do with that. He couldn’t help. He couldn’t have an opinion. The best thing to do was to let it be, to concentrate on his own things, to have his priorities straight. Friends, school, getting into college next year, Linda…but they broke up last month. Nevermind the reason, it had nothing to do with Phil anyway. 

“It’s working,” happily screamed the boy from the top of his lungs as if he just scored a winning goal in the UCL final and was sliding on his knees towards the raging fans, all of that in his head. “I’ve managed to get to the “to sum up…” part”. Unfortunately linking words were never Phil’s strength, so he had to reach for his phone to type “essay linking words” in google search window yet again. He could have gone with his almost signature “in conclusion I want to say”, or he could have googled it right on the PC, he could do anything just to avoid stumbling upon that photo with his eyes, yet he didn’t. And the inevitable happened. 

“ I will never call you fat again”, for some reason Phil heard his voice say it aloud. “Firstly, because you are not” the voice continued slightly trembling on the last three words. It was true, Maddie was severely underweight for 4 months now. “ And even if you get fat, I won’t call you that. Nobody will,” the voice started to sound a little tearful, almost apologizing, almost realizing its helplessness. But Madison didn’t hear that promise, of course. She was in full fighting with the mom mode. 

“Are you crazy? Did you just seriously try to give me Fettuccine Alfredo? Carbs and fat? Is this all I deserve now? Why would you hate your own daughter so much?! I will never eat that!”, the voice of his little sweet sister sent grainy chills down the Phil’s spine. The boy felt sweat coming out on his forehead like melting mozzarella. 

Fettuccine Alfredo. Her favorite dish. The last time they ordered it was in a fancy Italian restaurant where they celebrated mother’s birthday.

 “All in all, the main reason for the 2008 year crisis is yet to be detected…”, Phil mumbled in his final attempt to concentrate and finish that essay, but with no success. Look at the family photo. Mother happy. Father laughing. Madison jumping up into the air. Not too high of course, and with her belly showing as a result of the HardRock café T-shirt being pulled up from the clumsy attempt to throw her legs into the air and wave her arms. Rain getting even louder, stronger, more painful for the windows and road bricks. “What would you expect?! I’m not eating cheese and white wheat in one meal!”, that scream cut the invisible ribbon holding a whole basketball net of invisible colorful plastic balls that started collapsing onto Phil’s shoulders, head and back, with some of them falling to the ground and jumping back up countless times. The kind of balls they fill the playground areas with. The kind of balls they used to play with as toddlers. The kind of balls Phil secretly wanted to throw again someday. Possibly the only reason he would sign up for the idea of having kids. Orange, yellow, green, blue, red and purple balls of memories. “Fat. Obese. A whale. A cow. A pig. Fat. Don’t even try to squeeze into those jeans. Ask Santa for a gym membership. Do you really need that donut, you already look like one? Count your calories. You’re a proof that limit doesn’t exist. The limit of food. Fat.” What were those?! Where did they come from? Not him. Not his mouth. At least not his heart. But the haunting memories were bumping against Phil’s hands trying to cover his eyes, ears and face all at once, his spine curled into a trembling helpless fennec fox in front of a lion in the middle of a desert, they hit the floor, his desk, pressed random letters on his keyboard into the unfinished essay, smashed tiny lego figures from the shelves nearby and chaotically swirled around in the air, doing their job- each hit even louder than the previous. Phil wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. Not because of shock, but because he didn’t want to cause the parents extra trouble. Only God knows what might visit their minds these days after all. And maybe just partly because his throat was paralysed as if veiny greenish damp hands wined around his neck like a snake, preparing to bite into soft, white, so delicate, dove moistured and Hugo Boss perfumed skin with their long moldy fingernails. He couldn't possibly have known what kind of a tsunami will develop out of these harmless soundwaves. The natural disasters that will swallow all he ever had. First his sister, but also his social life, his family their peace... The world started turning around in all possible horizontal, vertical and diagonal directions, always accelerating, and ready to shatter into pieces any second. He closed his eyes.

Countryside. Probably somewhere in Dallas. Endless field. A hurricane just passed by. That’s why the crops are broken and the roof of a barn screams moos, neighs and baas with the hole in the straw roof. “It’s ok, it’s ok”, a deep, calm, even soothing brandy voice of a middle aged farmer says. “Some holes here and there, some damages to the field, some broken windows. But we’re all alive and safe. This fall we gonna harvest a lil less, but we’ll jump back into the game right after. Right, Wilhelm?” And after some time: “ oh, ya know mate, a bark would be alright”. A bark. And then complete silence.

Silence. Silence and darkness. Quiet whipping sounds in Maddie’s room. Suddenly Phil knew just what to do. He stood up, checked time. 7:49. Eleven minutes till they close, but auntie Jen will let him in, for sure. If not, he’ll have to remind her about what he was up to half of his summer break. Ok, a third of his summer break. No time to change clothes, no time to find his swag necklace, no time to comb his hair, ok, a few glances into the mirror should be ok. He’ll just have to run faster. When the door shut, Phill suddenly remembered that he’d forgotten it was pouring outside. 7:56. Perfectly in time. 

“Good evening, auntie Jen. You’re still open, right?”

“Oh, Philippe, my, dear, what are you doing here, so late at night, when it’s engulfing outside?”, a scrunchy high-pitched voice could be heard somewhere at the cashier’s desk.

“Engulfing”, laughed the boy to himself.

“ I actually decided to buy a surprise for my sister, Madison, there’s a necklace she wanted to buy long ago, but I managed to talk her out of it for some reason”,

“Ahh, Maddie, my sweet girl. It’s been long since I last saw her. I once thought I’d caught a glimpse of her on my way to the shop, but it was so misty and foggy outside, so I couldn’t be sure. Besides, she didn’t seem to recognize me. And also, that girl was a loooot skinnier. Not like our Maddie at all,” a greyish onion bun started floating up and down, left and right in the air as the old lady spat out raisins of laughter. But Phil had no time to waste.

“Yeah, she’s doing just fine” he lied, “may I ask you to wrap this dragonfly necklace?”. Phil’s finger pointed to a beautiful sparkly, silverish necklace with a fragile dragonfly shaped pendant, lying in-between numerous other shiny accessories.

“Oh, but are you sure Maddie’s gonna like that flying adder? Maybe a clover, or say, a swan will suit her better? Also look at this newly made rings, with Renaissance style framed amber! Or maybe you would like to order a custom bracelet with her name on it? We could manage to do it by next month…”

“Auntie Jen, I am pretty sure Maddie would be happy about this particular necklace, “ he politely answered hoping that his eyerolls weren’t that obvious.

“Oh, dear, my apologies,” so something in the way Phil replied must have given a note of utter annoyance, “it’s a professional thing, darling, sometimes I keep forgetting that it’s you”. She wrapped the necklace with much less of fake customer-orientated smile and much more genuine sparkle in her eyes.

“Thank you so much. Say hello to uncle Aaron from me”.

He entered the house. It was already quiet. Just like after a storm. For the second time today Phil knew exactly what to do.

“Maddie, may I come in”, a knock on the room not even close as loud as his heart pounding in his chest. Pounding with hope and even excitement. A sound of thin jewelry store paper bag being crumpled almost spoiled the whole surprise. 

“I got something for you,” Phil said as his sister opened the door and slightly smiled for the first time in ages. Brother's amber eyes must have let sparkles of hope shine through.

“There’s something I want to talk to you about”.

They talked for hours. For the first time in years. Not just about a topic Phil has researched regarding mental health. About school, and friendships and relationships. Not just with food, but also with people. Not just about her, but about him as well.

“I get you”. A long trustworthy hug. There was a long road ahead. But the first brick has been paved. 

He returned to his room. 20 minutes and the essay has been done and assigned. He looked at the family photo once again. She was smiling. She’s probably smiling right now, in her room. She will be smiling, she will be smiling more. He vowed to get her smile back. “I will never let you lose it again”.