By Reese Bunch, Staff Writer
June 5th:
A few days have gone by and I can’t shake the feeling that something is going on here – and that I am the only one who doesn’t know what that something is.
For starters, I have only seen my father two times since losing a limb. I would assume that a father whose child just went through a life-altering ordeal would be more supportive. That’s also overlooking the fact that he is a medical doctor and hasn’t provided any real care to my stump. The most he has done is tell me to “keep my eye on it” since he doesn’t want me “getting any worse.”
My mother, on the other hand, has hardly left me alone. She is constantly crying and apologizing for what happened, and has hardly let me lift a finger. I asked her this morning why Dad hadn’t come to see me and she said that “he is a proud man who doesn’t like to look defeat in the eye.” It hurt to hear how my father could think that I was a failure or defeated. Sure, I had lost my leg, but my life wasn’t over; this was something that I knew I could overcome.
She constantly talked about how brave I was and how important I was to the family. The more she mentioned family, the more I became annoyed. We had always been close, as families go, but I wasn’t sure where this culty love for “The Family” had come from. I assumed it was my mother’s way of coping with our new lot in life.
My brothers have also been suspicious. My two older brothers had become strangely proud of me, going as far as saying, “I’m the most selfless person they have ever met.” Which is odd because I hadn’t done jackshit for them. Even looking back, before my accident, I was friendly to them at best. I certainly hadn’t knowingly done anything selfless for them.
The nicest thing I remember doing for either of them is telling them to shower before they go out on a date the other night. My younger brother was perhaps the strangest of them all; he wasn’t eating. He is 15 and constantly complaining about how hungry he is. The only thing I’ve heard him complain about since Dad lost his license is how bad the food we eat now is. Despite his ‘starving,’ he won’t eat any of the meat that my parents served.
Last night, when my mom tried to force him to eat it, he broke. He all but shouted in her face, “I don’t know how you all can sit together and eat that, I’d rather starve.” Then he pushed his plate off the table and ran to his room, crying.
My mom looked over at me, smiling, and said, “Sorry about that, honey, he just wants to eat less meat.” Then everyone went back to eating like nothing even happened.
I know I said I had seen my father twice since my accident and I haven’t brought up our second meeting yet. I’ve been sitting in my room with the door locked for an hour now, sitting on my bed playing my father’s words back in my head.
This is what put everything into perspective. My father had hardly been out of his office since my accident. He hadn’t eaten any meals with us, hadn’t been going on his normal morning jog, and I hadn’t even seen him drinking coffee in the morning. Tonight he ate dinner with us, though he didn’t say a word for most of the meal. He simply sat, eating the spaghetti and meat sauce with an almost mechanical efficiency.
Dinner was quieter than normal, and almost no one spoke throughout the full meal. My older brothers thanked my mother and me for dinner near the end of the meal. To this thanks, my mom replied, “Of course, you all are more than welcome.” She then looked at my father and said, “Honey, I’m not sure if this is the right time to bring this up, but we are down to just one or two pounds of meat left.”
Rather than responding to my mom, he turned to me and asked, “Are you left-handed or right-handed?” That was when it hit me. I felt as if I were the butt of some evil cosmic joke. My father had not been doctoring the local community; he had not been planning to get back to work. He had spent a long night in his office planning how to feed his family, that much is true. The unfortunate truth is, I was his way of feeding the family.
I looked around, bewildered, to my family staring up at me. All of them but my younger brother were smiling; I could see the predatory gaze in their eyes. I grabbed my crutches and made my way to my room as quickly as I could. I locked and barricaded my door, but I can hear them pacing just outside the slim piece of wood. My options now are a desperate attempt out my second-story window, or waiting for my family to grow hungry enough to get through my door. Neither seems pleasant. Maybe I should start deciding what arm I can live without. Maybe I’ve cracked, and my family isn’t outside my door waiting for me. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
