Moving on

Jennifer was swimming through the air. Her mom and dad were moving Jennifer up and down through the air as if she was a fish swimming in the ocean. Her arms were spread out waving around. She was laughing at how her mom and dad were calling her a little fish. She looked up and remembered both of them happily taking turns moving her up and down through the air.

---

The blanket was covering part of her head. She was lying down on her stomach on the carpet playing with her stuffed animals. Her mom always opened the blinds just after waking up. Jennifer was playing with a shark toy that she called Sharkey in her parent’s bedroom. Her toy was swimming through the air as the long summer rays shone through the trees just outside the window. Even though it was only mid-morning the summer sun was getting hotter as the day went on.

“Did you brush your teeth?” said her mom from another room.

“Yes,” replied Jennifer as she waved Sharkey through the air. “I already did.” Sharkey was chasing Goldy: a goldfish who was actually good friends with Sharkey but always swam away from him. Goldy would always swim into places that Sharkey couldn’t because he was too big. “How come you always hide from me? Let’s play!” said Jennifer lowering her voice while holding Sharkey. “You always bite me!” said Jennifer excitedly raising her voice while hiding Goldy from under the bed.  She then lowered her voice again as Sharkey poked his head underneath the bed, “Okay, I promise I won’t fight with you anymore, let’s play!” Jennifer then pulled both Goldy and Sharkey out from under the bed. Jennifer was under the warm summer sea with her friends when a voice from above the water pulled her back to her parent’s bedroom.

“I thought we weren’t moving this year?” said mom.

“No, we’re moving. This house is in a better location, it’s bigger, and the realtor said the owners were willing to negotiate. We need to move or we’re going to lose it to someone else,” said Jennifer’s dad. 

“You know we don’t have everything in order,” replied mom.

“How many times are we going to talk about this? We’re buying it,” shot back dad, raising his voice a little louder.

“So you think we can afford everything now? You stopped working,” replied mom.

Dad’s frown turned deeper and raised his voice even louder. “That’s all you ever think about, huh?”

Jennifer fully covered her head with the blanket even though it was getting warmer in her parent’s bedroom. Sharkey and Goldy were swimming around each other as Jennifer waved both of them in the air. She tried to distract herself with her friends, but the argument in the kitchen dragged on and her parent’s voices got louder, drowning out Jennifer’s conversation. It was now turning into a regular occurrence.

“Don’t you raise your finger at me!” yelled mom.

“Don’t raise your voice at me!” yelled dad.  

It was too distracting. Jennifer wrapped the blanket over her head, covering her ears, and dropped Sharkey and Goldy to the ground. She sat up and opened the window slightly. A breeze blew through the screen with the sweet smell of cottonwood. The summer sun streamed through the leaves as they flowed and rustled along with the wind. Jennifer gazed out the bedroom window into that summer green and that long sky blue.

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Jennifer was walking through the aisles trying to find her items on her grocery list. She picked up some vegetables and some spices. She already had chicken at home, but she also needed both dark and light soy sauce because she wanted to make braised chicken. She often had it when she was younger. She found her ingredients and made her way down a different aisle towards the checkout. She overheard a conversation with a mom and her son behind her as Jennifer was now standing in line for the cashier.

“Can I have this?” said the little boy.             

“No, put it back,” replied the mom.

“Can I have this?” said the boy as he was picking up a different candy from the impulse shelf.

“No. We’re not getting any,” said the mom. The young boy got upset over how he couldn’t get what he wanted. He started to complain and cry. The mom was having an increasingly harder time trying to shop with her son. Jennifer let out a deep breath as she couldn’t help but listen to the conversation behind her.

“Hello. How are you today?” said the cashier to Jennifer.

“Good, thanks. How are you?” The cashier ran Jennifer’s items and rung up her purchase.

Jennifer paid and walked out of the grocery store and down the street with her items in her paper bag. She went through a park and sat down on the bench to eat the egg salad sandwich she picked up for a snack. The day was warm and there were a number of families enjoying the summer day in the park underneath the shadows of all the trees. As she was finishing her sandwich Jennifer’s phone vibrated. It was her mom calling. Jennifer picked up.

“Jennifer. It’s me. Did you get my last email? Did you decide where you’re going to move to?” said mom.

“Hi mom. I got your email already but I didn’t reply yet. We’re going to move soon. The last house we saw was really nice. It’s the one I already told you about. It’s only two hours away.”

“Okay. Make sure you look at all your choices and take your time. You don’t want to get cheated.”

“I know. We looked at everything already and we talked about it for the past month.” Jennifer looked up and a boy and woman walked past her. It was the same little boy and mom from the grocery store. The boy’s mom was holding her son’s hand and had groceries in her other hand. The boy looked like he was crying and was still upset.

“Stop crying. We’ll be home soon,” the mom scolded her son.

Jennifer was listening to her mom telling her about making sure she was making the right choice since buying a house was the biggest choice she could make in her life. Her mom emphasized how she needed to be sure it was the house she wanted, it was in a good neighborhood, and that it matched with her work and personal life. “Are you listening? Huh?” said Jennifer’s mom.

“Yeah,” replied Jennifer. Her mom went on about the specifics in buying a home, but Jennifer was distracted by the little boy and his mom. Her focus was on the two until they disappeared down the park pathway. Jennifer then returned her attention to her mom who was still talking. “Hey mom. Why did we always have to move?”

“What?” asked her mom.

“When I was 10 we kept on moving. Why did we keep on moving from one house to another?”

“We were trying to find the right home. And the market was in a better time back then.”

“Hmm,” Jennifer's thoughts ran back to her childhood. “Why couldn’t you have settled with just the first house. You two wouldn’t even have fought.”

“…what? Why are you talking about that now?”

“And you two kept on fighting. Why didn’t you just divorce him?”

Her mom let out a sigh. “You don’t have to worry about that now. Why are you even asking? You’re going to have your own home.”

Jennifer’s breathing and voice slowed down. She looked towards where the little boy and his mom were. “What was the point of all those years of moving? You were so unhappy. Everyone was.”

A second of silence followed, which felt like a minute to Jennifer. “What…it’s not that simple. What were we going to do? Just leave because we had a fight? We had to keep everything together,” replied Jennifer’s mom.

“You two were always fighting. What was the point of all that?”

“We can’t just get up and leave. It’s family.” Her mom’s voice started to waver just slightly, but there was also a calm reassurance as she tried to comfort Jennifer. “You don’t have to worry about that. That’s just in the past now.”

“And you still have to put up with all of that even now.”

Another second of silence followed then her mom replied, “He’s always like that. I just ignore him. What do you want me to do?”

Jennifer looked down at the ground. “Yeah, you could have just started everything new again. What’s so wrong with that?”

Her mom paused again then snapped back. “You can’t just leave after all those years. Don’t be silly. Why are you asking about all of this?”

Jennifer sighed. “Okay. Whatever.”

“You know it’s not that easy...” Her mom trailed off, then paused, and continued. “But sometimes it doesn’t work. Everyone gets mad at some point and someone’s going to get hurt. We tried to make things work. Everyone tries their best.” Jennifer’s mom paused for a second. “You know he always asks about you, but I just tell him that you’re doing okay. You haven’t talked to him in such a long time. I know you don’t want to talk to him, but you can just ignore his calls you know... are you listening?”

Jennifer sat and listened in silence with her feet firmly on the ground. But she was thinking of all the things she wanted to say, and all the things she could have said, and all of the fights between mom and dad while growing up. She thought about how things were the way they were. Jennifer just sat there looking at the ground in silence not saying much. “Yeah. I just ignore that. I don’t want to get involved.”

Her mom continued. “It’s all in the past now. There’s nothing you can do when it’s like this. Not everyone can be happy all the time. Families don’t work like that-- families are perfect on TV. Everything can’t have a happy ending, you know. Everything is harder in real life. You’re not young anymore so I always tell you now-- you can see how he used to talk to me. It doesn’t work out all the time you know. Sometimes it’s better to let go.”

Jennifer was listening but she was also playing with her paper bag. She still needed to carry her groceries back home, but she was tearing at the paper bag on one corner. It was now torn and rough at the edges. She tried to smooth out the edges but the edges still stood up both rough and wrinkled. Jennifer and her mom continued to talk, but after a while they both said goodbye and that Jennifer would let her mom know about the new house she was thinking about.

She continued sitting on the bench, and let out a big sigh. Having those kinds of conversations were hard for her, and of course for her mom, Jennifer thought. She was focused on the shadows of the trees and its leaves on the ground moving all around with the wind. Every now and then the shadows would match up perfectly and cover up her bench entirely. She thought about what her mom said to her. Maybe her parents were trying their best all along, but perhaps neither of them was right. And perhaps there was nothing more any of them could actually do.

The summer sun was dipping now. The light was golden, low, and soft. And the shadows were long and perfectly set on the ground. A summer breeze picked up and blew the leaves on the ground around her. All of the leaves in the trees around her were gently swimming in the air high above her. Jennifer stood up and picked up her bag, but her groceries fell out onto the ground. She ripped too much of her paper bag and the weight of the items tore the bag wide open.  She picked up the ripped paper bag, crumpled it into a ball, and stuffed it in her bag along with the vegetables and spices. She picked up the light and dark soy sauce from the ground and carried both in her hands. Jennifer looked down the park pathway and made her way home.