Winter Season

Truth or dare

Silent tears rolled down his face. She loved him too. Dear God was it true? They had known each other less than a month. Was it too soon to be spewing the L word? Out of loneliness, he had jumped too quickly before.

Should he tell her the truth? Should he tell her what really happened 10 years ago? He gave up. That’s what happened. He gave up. The beating they were dishing out became too much. He just wanted to die. ‘God, take me home.’ He pleaded night after night. But morning after morning, he woke up. Still feeling lost, alone, hurting (mentally and physically). He was too big of a coward to commit suicide. Didn’t want to pull someone else into a world of misery by stepping out in front of a train. From his friendship with Chet, he knew how finding a dead body made Chet feel. He couldn’t do that to another person.

God had a plan for him. Right? There was a reason he was still getting up every morning? There had to be. The last 50 years of his life wasn’t the pinnacle of his existence?

This was his cross to bear. His lot in life. How do you fight your parent? He was beat down with ‘honor thy parents so your days on this earth will be longer’. Don’t talk back to your elders. Don’t correct your elders, even if you know they are wrong. His mom had back handed him across the face off the porch one day. His Granny was telling one of the smaller grandchildren that God was the reason the sky was blue. While Oscar agreed with her, he started telling them about what his 6th grade science teacher had told the class that week in school about distance and light. Why the sky appears blue. He landed in the yard. In the mud. The adults didn’t even look at him. They just kept on talking. From that point on, he kept his head down and rarely spoke.

Esther hadn’t discovered the scar on his leg. He had gotten cut working with his dad. Probably should have gotten stitches. When he took the bandages off to check it, his mom punched him in the mouth for wasting good bandages. ‘You’re not even bleeding!’

His breathing increased as his stomach seized again. He jerked alerting Esther that he was not okay.

His family was jealous? Maybe Esther was right. Did it not dawn on them how much piss and fecal matter he had cleaned up over the course of his life? He wasn’t complaining. His uncle, aunt and in the end his dad; he couldn’t imagine them being alone in a home. But his aunt giving him the house. That was her choice. She could have sold it to him. She even told him, ‘my boy you earned this’.

“O,” she whispered.

He rolled over, burying his face in her shoulder sobbing.

Winter Season