Just Chill

I pulled the last of the suitcases out of the trunk and tapped it lightly for it to close. It would be a long weekend in more ways than one. God knows I love my wife, but as much as I recognize that He gave her to me to love, I knew just as much that He gave her to me to challenge me. Shanice, my dutiful wife, always found a way to make sure that I could never rest on my laurels. In the distance, I could hear her shepherding my two reluctant teenagers into the cabin that she rented for the weekend. She finally settled on this one after conducting searches for the “most rural cabins” every night for the past two weeks.

             “It’s gonna be great,” she told me the night before as we got ready for bed.

             I trudged up the snowy path to front door where she danced back and forth anxiously, eager to get out from the cold, “Conner, if you don’t hurry up!”

             I would take my time. My healthy, able-bodied teenagers could have cut my efforts in half had they decided to help. It’s like I didn’t even know who they were anymore. I could barely understand what they did, let alone what they said. Everything about them was me, me, me. Someone once told me that the teenage years are remarkedly similar to the toddler years except instead of learning where to shit they told you to eat shit instead.

             Shanice helped me with the last of the suitcases as I finally cleared the doorway and slammed the heavy door behind me, “There,” she said, “the cold is out.”

             I unwrapped my scarf from my neck and hung it on the hand-made coat hanger that sat adjacent to a surrealist painting that hung slightly askew on the wall. A piece that captivated and at the same time disturbed me. The scattered arrangement of objects in the art was in stark contrast to the cozy stylishness of the cabin. I hitched my tongue firmly to the top of the roof of my mouth. I wouldn’t say anything, at least for now.

             Raven and Jalen, my sixteen- year old daughter and fourteen-year old son, both took up residence on the couches, their faces illuminated by the bluish screen of their devices. I sat across from them on a high-backed armchair.

             “Children,” I greeted as I proceeded to pull out my own phone.

             “Aht-Aht,” Shanice scolded as she grabbed my phone and placed it into a tiny basket, “Put it in here.” She walked over to the children and collected their phones as well, “Both of yours too.”

             “What the heck am I supposed to do without my phone?” Raven asked.

             A question to which my wife responded with the enthusiasm of a circus director. She wasn’t pleased with the lack of cohesiveness within our family unit and decided that we needed some time away to restore those bonds. So, she looked the nicest cabin in the most desolate area that she could find.

             “And,” she said with a smile, “this cabin is even better than what I expected! It has no electricity. None! Isn’t that neat? We will have to live by the natural order of the day- up when the sun is out and knocked out when it is not.”

             “How long are we here for?” Jalen asked, his usual apathetic facial expression replaced by a look of genuine concern.

             “Four days.”

             “Are you crazy? My boyfriend is going to think I’m dead! Who does this?” Raven folded her arms against her chest, exposing a distinct red marking near her collarbone.

A scar perhaps, but more likely a tattoo that she got without permission. I wondered for a few moments how long she had it, but my concerns were quickly washed away as the tidal wave of realization washed over me that I would not be able to escape the tyranny of uncomfortableness that was the family dynamic.

“Shanice?” I asked, finally giving my tongue permission to wander, “Maybe we should reconsider.”

She held her hand up. “ Nope, don’t want to hear it. Thank you for getting us here safely. Raven, wash up and get ready to help me with dinner and Jalen, please take a thorough shower, not a military one.” She turned sharply on her heels with the determination of an army general and made her way to the kitchen.

As my children skulked off to their respective places, I looked a little bit longer at the painting hoping that my mind wouldn’t become as fragmented as the piece.

                                                                 ***

             The first day was just as terrible as I expected it to be, filled with forced smiles and stiff games of charades all of them. I was forced to recognize how often I reached in the pocket for my phone only to realize it wasn’t there. I learned govern myself without my phone and instead by whatever natural element ruled the day, sun or moon, rain or snow. My normal routine of checking emails and phone calls was upended by newfound appreciation of my solitary morning walks while Shanice and the children were still asleep.

             “Morning Dad,” Raven greeted me as I prepared to leave the house.

 I didn’t see her sitting on the armchair as I descended the stairs. I wondered how long she had been there and how long she had been there and what she had been thinking about. I invited her along with me, cognizant that she must have gotten weary of the chartreuse green walls in her room. Together, we stepped outside into the cold. The wind blew in our faces, smothering us as we made our way up the street.

“Mom wants to punish us,” she said as we stepped over a fallen tree limb.

I smiled to myself. It did seem that way. The sun had made a full emergence from the clouds, illuminating the white wonderland around us. It was a shame that we couldn’t feel the heat. Our strides, long and stately, a symptom of our long legs. Between her and Jalen, she took after me the most. Her long fingers with her shallow nail beds, her button nose that turned red when she was cold, and the way her mouth twitched when she was nervous. It was a shame that there wasn’t much of a relationship between us. But maybe, we could change things.

“I think your Mom has an interesting way of doing things, I always have.”

“Like, we are totally in the middle of the forest, Dad. The for-est.”

I shrugged my shoulders, “Too much?”

“Way too much.” She stated. She stopped to pick up a pinecone and cast it up ahead where it became lost in a sea of others just like it.

I followed suit and picked up a pinecone to toss ahead. I wondered if it would feel misplaced even though its new destination was amongst others that looked like it.

“I never knew you had so many opinions. It’s nice to hear you say something other than ‘leave me alone’ or ‘shut up’.”

She tucked a strand of her curly hair behind her ear and used her boots to grind a few tiny pebbles into the ground. Her teeth grazed her bottom lip as she carefully considered what to say next.

“Well, I would talk to you guys more if you were like my friends,” she said after a couple of moments.

“And what’s that?”

“Just chill.”

“Hmmph,” I responded as if I were taking it into consideration.

 We didn’t say much more to each other as we continued our walk back to the cabin. Even though she looked like me, I was coming to the realization that I may never understand her. That the wonderful and familiar pieces that made up myself and my wife had morphed together to create the enigmas that were our children. And that just like the painting by the entrance of the cabin, we may be nothing more than just an assortment of seemingly discordant pieces that just happened to fit perfectly together.