In Between by DM Siciliano

Author:DM Siciliano
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark Diva Press
Published: 2021-10-20T16:00:00+00:00

“YOU SAW YOUR MOTHER'S wake?” My father found his voice, covered in gravel.

“I did. I didn't know at the time. How could I?”

“You never mentioned that.”

“That was one more piece of the 'crazy' Lainey helped hide from you. I guess in the end, with everything else she told you, I wasn't sure if this was one of those things. I'm sorry you're hearing this now, this way.”

My father didn't say anything else. He closed the recliner to an upright sitting position and guided himself to a standing position, slowly. He regarded me cautiously, with a sense of something akin to fear. His hair looked thinner, grayer. His shirt was a deep green.

“What color is your shirt?” I asked.

“What color should it be?” His eyebrows scrunched up in confusion, one eye squinted tight. He didn't wait for the answer, either. He left the room.

I immediately wished that hadn't been the question I'd asked. I was truly insensitive for having just shared my knowledge of Mom's death, and then getting distracted by the shifting In Between. I hurried to catch up with him, but he was nowhere. Rather, I was nowhere.

I'd sworn we were in the living room, but now I found myself at the top of the stairs, headed towards my old bedroom. A stressful tug wrenched my gut, like that I'd get the night before a huge test in school. Those figurative butterflies wobbled in my stomach, and a translucent sky-blue butterfly skirted the outside of my periphery and danced around the corner into my old room.

My dad was suddenly beside me. His shirt was the same sky-blue the butterfly had been and not the green he'd just been wearing. “This is your memory, I'm just along for the ride. Why did you bring me up here, Amy? What do you need to see?” His tone and posture suggested that he'd moved on from my callous remarks earlier.

I turned to the side and told my father, “You know, I'd seen Farrah's mother before. I mean, I never gave it much thought as to who she was, but now I'm certain. Sad to think that she and Farrah roamed the halls of this house for so long. So often, I'd wondered if they realized that we walked in different worlds.”

Dad stroked at his stubble and looked away from me. “A wonder, yes,” he mumbled.

I stepped out of the hallway and around the corner to my room. I didn't have to look to see Dad follow. His footsteps betrayed him on the creaky floor behind me.

In my room, I began, “I fell asleep with the windows open. Such a hot and sticky night. Right in the middle of an Indian summer. I don't think the temperature dropped under 90 degrees that night, humidity about the same. The air wafted through with a lazy push, but it was heavy and damp, and provided little relief.” With the retelling of this memory, the air around me grew hotter and damper. The sweat began to bead above my lip and brow.

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