I wanted to call George and tell him I was ready to accept anything he had to say to me but I knew it was not wise to try to make contact with him at such a sensitive and circumstantial moment.
My thought process whenever I am drawing made me realize that if I must relate with people, I have to accept them altogether with their shortcomings.
Alicia was not a very patient person. She liked to do things in the heat of the moment and pay the price later. I thought it was not a very smart way to live but there was nothing I could do about it. I had to accept her the way she was.
Trying to change her was going to take out her personality and what made her unique. When I thought of her, I drew a beach. The waves were raging and the only time they stopped was when someone drowned.
That was the perfect description for Alicia. She did not mean any harm with her actions and sometimes, things were better off done her way, but she only really relaxed when the consequences overwhelmed her.
Mum. Mum was the glue that held all of us together. She was the one that gave us this sense of oneness because when it came to her, we all felt something in our hearts. It was love. The love a child has for its mother.
I loved my mum so much. She made my world go round. I never missed any excursions or school programs because she made sure to work extra hard for the money. She made me join the best clubs no matter how expensive and she did the same for Nate and Alicia.
Her love for us never faltered. It was like a light that only shone brighter with each passing second. Whenever I thought of my mother, I felt warm. There was no way for me to express myself to her in a way that was going to really convey what I felt. It was physically impossible.
I thought about myself. Sometimes I wished I could see myself from another person's perspective. I did not want to be described or explained, I wanted to spend time with myself and take note of all my flaws.
Alicia said I was too careful and I paid an irritable amount of attention to detail. I did not see the qualities as flaws but maybe they were disturbing to her. Details were what made art beautiful.
I liked to sit down and understand why one stroke went over another. I liked to listen to a song just so I could hear the lyrics and feel what the singer felt. I liked to smell everything, it made me feel alive.
I liked to count my steps. I knew how many there were from my bed to the window and from the front door to the gate. There was this feeling that came with paying attention. It had saved me a lot of times and I was not planning to stop it.
I thought about my future. It was like a magician's hat, there were so many hidden items in it even though it appeared really small. Each day had more thrill than the last. It was just as exciting as it was tiring. It made me stop to wonder if my marriage was going to fail like my parents'.
I could never be as strong as my mum was nor was I planning to, but I knew the road was not going to be smooth all the time and yet I had hope.
Whenever I thought about Nate, I used a green pen to draw. He loved the color and when I was little, he influenced me so much, I wanted everything around me in green. He always protected me when I was younger. He made me laugh all the time. He was a very bright student.
He always had straight A's and mum always made sure to put it on the refrigerator. He did not see it as something worth celebrating because he did it time and time again, it was his thing to come out top in his class. He was the person I spent most of my time with.
Mum was always at work and Alicia was barely home. She was not as bright as Nate so she had to put in extra effort. She stayed late nights at the library and always went for one reading group session or the other.
Nate was my best bud but that all changed when he refused to go to college. He said he could not stand watching mum stress so much. Nothing anyone said changed his mind so he started taking minimal job offers. It was hard on mum the most. She said she wanted a better life for Nate.
After a while of being so helpful, he started stealing. My brother stopped looking or acting like himself. He did not tell me where he was going anymore and I stopped asking at one point. I watched him yell at mum almost every night.
I watched him steal from the jar of money on the fridge to buy cigarettes. I watched him come home drunk most nights. My brother changed and because of his selfish nature, he dragged innocent women and their families into his madness.
Nate stopped thinking of anyone but himself. He asked me to accompany him to the grocery store occasionally and those were the only times we really bonded.
He and Alicia's relationship never faltered during all of that. They even seemed to be closer than ever. I loved my brother, but I just could not forgive his crime no matter how much I tried.
It was because of him I had a bad prom experience. It was because of him I missed being with Lily when her time was up. I had to go in search of Hannah to clean his mess. I could not forgive him. He was dead to me because the Nate in prison was a complete stranger.
My brother would never blame mum for his faults, he adored her. The stranger in prison however did not share that view.
When I got tired of drawing, I laid on my bed and thought happy thoughts. The only thing that made me happy was the dressmaker that made my prom dress.
He sounded like someone who loved his daughter more than himself. He reminded me of Albert. Albert loved Lily so much and he made sure she knew it.
At that moment, I wished my dad never left. I wished I got to know him at the very least. I wanted to feel a little of what Lily felt whenever Albert came home from his months of travel.
I wanted to have that fatherly love but I knew it was impossible for me. It was something I could only feel whenever I went to bed but the moment I wake up, it was gone.