Sunlight poured in through my window, warming up the pages as images formed beneath my fingertips. The drawing helped ebb the dread and the odd sense I was forgetting something that had plagued me since I woke up this morning, and I found myself relaxing more with each stroke of the pencil. With a final flourish, I finished off the dark feathers of the rook and cast my pencil to the side. I lifted the sheet, holding it up next to the computer screen, where I'd pulled up a picture of a rook from the game to use as a reference. My sketch wasn't perfect, but I was beginning to realize it didn't have to be. I slid it into my desk drawer atop the growing pile of familiar faces and places, satisfied. The drawer shut softly, weighed down by the many pages it contained. The wheels of my chair slid against the floor as I rolled back, leisurely laying my head along the back of the chair, looking up at the ceiling. Today, I planned to read.
A familiar patterned knock sounded on my front door, echoing through my apartment and shattering my peaceful morning.
Frankly, I was surprised she'd even bothered to knock. I pulled my robe tighter over my sweats, preemptively blocking out the rush of cool air as I drifted to the door. Ember stood bundled up on the other side, her arms crossed.
"Sorry, Hay. Not letting you forget this one," she said, emphasizing 'forget' with finger quotes as though she suspected I'd lie.
I blinked and tried to remember.
Ember's face went slack with disbelief. "I told you about it months ago! So much for your 'fantastic' memory. I even reminded you at Ava's earlier this week!"
It was my turn to doubt. Ember sighed, shoving past me to enter my warm apartment and slamming the door shut behind her. "Dinner with mom and dad?"
Oh. While I really had forgotten–months for her had been much longer for me–I hated going to that dreary and dull home. Dinner with our parents was much more enjoyable and went much smoother without the pressing weight of memories hanging over our heads.
"I know you'd rather cook–and I'd rather eat your cooking, to be honest," she mumbled, "but they're really looking forward to seeing us."
With a weary sigh, I said farewell to my plans for the day and threw on my usual khakis, topping them with a neutral gray sweater that matched my stormy mood. Less than a half hour later, we were pulling into our parent's driveway and parking my rarely used car. Up in the top left corner, I saw my old bedroom window where I'd sit for hours reading, absorbed in the worlds of the books and blind to reality. Such an escape wouldn't happen today.
Ember knocked firmly but politely on the heavy red door. Our mother, dressed in an airy floral shirt and wearing the matching pearl earrings and necklace combo Ember and I had gotten her one Christmas, opened the door with a bright smile that reached her green eyes. Her thin and graying blonde hair whipped behind her head as the cold air gushed in. She ushered us inside and we stood, shivering, in the doorway as it smacked hard against the doorframe behind us. The vent at our feet rushed to our rescue, quickly restoring our lost warmth. It blew the usual odd mixture of perfume and dust into my airways. I wrinkled my nose, noting the thick layer of dust that hung over every disposed surface with a frown.
Cheering from the TV drifted in through the hallway, and the floor squeaked and groaned as my father lifted his hefty weight from the couch and greeted us at our mother's insistence.
"Ember, Hayden." His breath, when he spoke, was free of the scent of alcohol, and his face was pale and unflushed. It had been years since I'd noted either from him, but the habit was hard to break inside this house. A tiny bit of tension broke. Dinner would be as awkward and annoying to deal with as always, but it would stay comparatively civil.
Ember let go of our mother to envelop our father in a tight hug, her strawberry blonde strands mixing with the bright ginger of his beard while mother and I awkwardly wrapped our arms around each other. When she let go, Father held out his hand. I shook it, leaking a bit of my new strength into my grip.
Father's amber eyes, when I met them, were the warmest I'd ever seen them. For the first time in years, he looked approving when he glanced at me. "I see you've finally decided to man up, Hayden."
I hardly noticed his calluses as I pulled my now equally callused hand away. Catching a glimpse of Ember's slight shake of her head out of the corner of my eye, I bit back the comment that crawled up my throat. "I got a new job," I explained as Ember and I hung our coats. We all migrated across the carefully kept wooden floor into the dining room, where Mother's reheated "home-cooked" dinner sat, growing cold on the table.
Our parents exchanged a look. "Ember was telling us that," Mother said, the padded feet of her chair gliding silently across the floor as she dropped down. Worry crinkled her brow, and her arms shifted as she fidgeted with her hands in her lap. "What do you do now? You had such a good job….Ember says you travel a lot?"
Guilt nagged at me. She'd always wanted Ember and me to get and keep corporate jobs in well-paying fields, working many extra hours a week to purchase the books and materials she thought Ember and I needed to get far in life. The dangers of my new job would suffocate her with worry.
The feet of my chair scraped hard against my father's wooden floor, causing him to wince as I sat down. His eyes darted to the floor, ensuring there were no scratches. Focusing on mother–but keeping an eye and an ear on father, as was a habit in this house, I joked, "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."
The worry cleared from her face as she laughed. Father huffed out a hearty chuckle, his fists banging against the table, rattling the dishes. "Your mom worries too much."
"He won't tell me, either. His own sister…" Ember pouted, stabbing me in the side with her elbow.
"Where's your boyfriend?" I asked, diverting the subject.
"Mark?" she asked as though I'd be speaking of anyone else. "He's been picking up extra shifts." Ember leaned forward like she was letting us in on a huge secret. "I think he's saving up to propose!"
Mother and father both exclaimed and fawned. It wasn't a surprise, but I was happy for her. When the ruckus died down, Mother turned to me.
"What about you, Hayden? You found a nice girl yet?"
"I bet you have ladies fawning all over you now! I know I had my pick when I was your age," Father joined in. "Of course, your mother was the cream of the crop," he hastily tacked on.
I picked at my food. Father's newfound respect was unsettling. After I'd gotten a job as a programmer and he'd seen the income I was making, his jabs at my masculinity had died down a bit. Once he'd stopped drinking, they'd never been cruel–but comments here and there about how I should learn to fix cars, like him. Exercise, like him. Learn to wire electricity. Woodworking. Sports. In his eyes, those were what made a 'man.'
Of course, I, who'd focused on developing my intellect rather than any physical pursuits, was disappointed in his eyes, though he hadn't said it outright in ages. Now that I'd been forced into a role with more physical labor than I'd ever wanted–and worse, enjoying my new strength and the ease of movement–his approval was almost more crushing than his silence.
Ember had never truly understood why it was so difficult to have family dinners here. She'd attributed everything to that one specific incident, but if that had been the case, I wouldn't have wanted to see our parents at all. No. It was that at home, father's comments felt like they meant something. Out there, in a restaurant or at my apartment when I cooked, I had the wealth I'd garnered from my programming job backing me, bolstering me. It said, 'look how far I got without you.' Home said, 'look how disappointing you are.'
I forced the cold food down my throat and found myself missing the easy conversation and the warmth of my recent dinners with the friends I'd made in the different worlds.