Chapter Eight
Taylor

“Where we used to laugh, there’s a shouting match.”
-Third Eye Blind, “How’s it Going to Be?”

My eyes opened later than usual the next morning. It surprised me that I had fallen asleep at all. I certainly hadn’t expected to be able to go back to sleep and didn’t have any memory of doing so. I brushed the fact that I had gone back to sleep aside as a good thing and sat up, stretching and yawning, moving my feet around in my sleeping back and hearing the noise of what sounded like little metal things clinking onto the floor. I opened my eyes again to see the gamepieces to Monopoly strewn about at the end of the sleeping bag. Recognition came to my mind and I nodded to myself, remembering what had happened after my parents had left the room. The struggle to find something to say to each other was given up and an old Monopoly board had been dug out of the closet instead.

I nodded to myself with satisfaction as memory came back to me. We had argued good-naturedly for a few minutes over who got what gamepiece (what game of Monopoly is complete without arguing over which gamepiece you get?). The game had gone as all Monopoly games between me and my brothers usually go: Zac seemed to win everything. And of course Zac was not the gracious winner in any way, shape, or form. He laughed evilly every time someone landed on one of his especially expensive properties.

Finally, after about two hours of playing, Zac’s eyelids drooped and he decided to quit for the night, so Isaac and I started over. There was an obvious lack of discussion between us, but somehow it wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as before. I decided to assume that it was because Zac was asleep and snoring loudly on the bottom bunk nearby and neither of us especially wanted to wake him up again for fear that he’d want to re-join the game.

Somewhere along the line, I must have fallen asleep and apparently we had never gotten around to cleaning up our mess.

Deciding to leave it until later, I carefully slid out of my sleeping bag and quietly padded out of the room, not wanting to wake my brothers since I had already done that--quite rudely--only a few hours before.

I headed downstairs, aware of the distinct smell of something cooking, letting my nose lead me to the kitchen. It seemed like a long time since I had smelled anything cooking so early in the morning. Annie was a good person, but she was no cook. Lawrence did most of the cooking and he left early enough in the morning that neither of us ever saw him. After a while of trying to impress me with her...creations, she gave up and bought a couple of boxes of cereal instead. I had no problem with it, but I missed the mornings when I would wake up to the smell of something cooking in the kitchen.

Once in there, I found that my father was not only the one cooking, but he was also the only one in there period. I paused for a moment, unsure of whether or not I wanted to walk into something like this with my eyes wide open. That is to say that he had been no friendlier to me than Isaac had the day before, but this unfriendliness between us had gone on longer than my decision to stay with Annie. Ever since the scene in the hospital room after she had announced her presence, we hadn’t been on good terms at all and my decision to go with Annie had only made things much worse. What if the concern he had showed earlier was only a momentary lapse? What if he still didn’t want to talk to me? What if we still couldn’t get along with each other?

Deciding to risk it anyway since I knew it would be hours before the heavy sleepers of the family made their appearance and too drawn in by the smell of whatever it was he was making, I walked into the kitchen and cleared my throat to announce my presence.

He looked up from what he was doing and smiled a little bit.

“‘Morning, Tay,” he said.

“‘Morning,” I answered back. “What are you making?”

“I have no idea,” he said, holding up the cookbook he had in front of him that I had failed to notice before. “Gina gave this to your mother, saying that she never used it. So far no one’s really done anything with it and I needed something to occupy my mind this morning so...,” he gestured vaguely, indicating the various items on the stove before him.

“I know what that feels like,” I said, nodding.

“What?” he asked, turning back to what he was doing.

“Needing something to occupy your mind,” I said.

“Speaking of which,” he said, turning back to me, “would you mind setting the table for me?”

“No problem,” I replied, walking over to where I knew everything was kept, glad to have something to do. Something to relieve me of uncomfortable conversation.

I quickly set the table and sat down, watching him for a while. I looked at the clock on the microwave and was surprised to see what time it was.

“Is the clock on the microwave off again?” I asked.

He looked at it and then at his watch. “Only by a minute or two,” he said. “At least it’s not blinking twelve o’clock like the VCR is,” he added in a mumble a moment later. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Just wondering where everybody is,” I said.

He nodded. “Well, you gave the little ones quite a scare last night,” he said. “It took us a while to get them all to calm down enough to go back to sleep.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’d just like to know what that nightmare you had was about.”

He gave me a look that told me clearly that he knew I had been lying before when I had said that I couldn’t remember anything from it. I shifted uncomfortably in the chair I was sitting in.

“Me, too,” I finally answered.

“Are you sure you can’t remember anything?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’m sure.”

There was a pause and he turned his eyes to what was on top of the stove, watching it without really seeming to see it. The next thing he said was said without looking at me for good reason.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with Annie, does it?” he asked.

I let a moment of silence go by before I answered. Before I could answer. The implication of the question was like a punch in the stomach.

I kenw things had been going too well.

“Why would it?” I asked, aware that the temperature in my voice was dipping. The fact that he could even think something like that--that he so obviously wanted to think something like that--made it impossible not to.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Just asking, I guess.”

“I don’t understand...,” I started, then trailed off.

“What don’t you understand?” he asked, looking at me, his own voice getting the slightest bit colder. I didn’t answer, only looked away. “Really, Taylor, I want to know. What is it that you don’t understand?” In his voice I could hear that he didn’t think there was anything to not understand.

“I don’t want to get into this,” I said after a minute.

“Neither do I, but it looks like we can’t exactly avoid it,” he said. “What don’t you understand?” There was no friendly coaxing, only an angry dare.

“I don’t understand...I don’t understand why you think everything that’s wrong with me has something to do with Annie,” I said.

“When did I ever say that?” he asked.

“You didn’t have to,” I said. “It just seems like everything that’s wrong me lately--since I ended up in the hospital, I mean--you think has something to do with Annie or something that Annie’s done to me. Why is that?”

He turned back to what he was doing, an angry frown on his face.

“I guess because everything that’s wrong with me lately has something to do with Annie,” he replied finally.

His answer surprised me momentarily.

“And everything that’s wrong with your mother. And everything that’s wrong with your brothers and your sisters,” he added. “And if you don’t understand that, then I don’t know what to tell you.”

“If you don’t understand that Annie is not the demon you think of her as being, then I don’t know what to tell you,” I replied.

He looked at me for a moment.

“You know, Taylor, you really don’t understand,” he said.

I sighed. “Neither do you,” I mumbled before walking out of the room. I wasn’t hungry anymore.

Silence speaks a thousand words. :)
Chapter Seven
Chapter Nine