3 6 T H E T U S C A R O R A R E V I E W 2 0 2 3 I can tell that he’s uncomfortable with my coldness, and I can feel his eyes on my back as I head up the stairs to my old room. It’s not like I want to tell him about the kids who keep picking on me for my bright orange hair that he passed down to me, or how geometry has been putting me through the wringer. He never made an effort to help me through my issues before. That was always my mom and my sister, so why should he get to care now? As I lie in my old twin sized bed staring at the hockey posters that my sister got me a long time ago on the pastel yellow walls, I can’t help but feel a pit in my stomach. I’m realizing that any positive memories of this place are associated with people who are no longer here, and I find myself all alone with someone who might as well be a stranger to me. This house is no longer a home, but a prison of old memories that I’ll never be able to live through again. So I decide to bide my time rereading old novels from my younger days, anxiously awaiting the moment my mother pulls into the driveway to pick me up. But unfortunately, I know that I won’t be able to spend my whole weekend alone without having to confront my father at all. I still have to go on a scavenger hunt for my mom. If she and my father weren’t on such bad terms, she would have taken all of these things back herself years ago. But I guess she was more comfortable with never seeing her belongings again than she was with stepping foot in this house again. I can’t say that I blame her. I would prefer it if I didn’t have to approach my father for help in finding anything, so I decided to do a little stealth work. The first thing I have to find is a box of my mom’s old CDs. I tiptoe into my father’s room, which of course happens is the only room that leads into the attic. I pull the door down from the hanging string, and the ladder comes slamming down way louder than I intended. I scramble up the ladder in hopes that I can find and grab the box before he notices what I’m up to. But to my dismay, I hear him walking up the steps before I’m even able to get the lights on. Unable to come up with a decent excuse by the time he makes his way up the ladder, I’m forced to come clean. “What are you doing up here? And what is that?” My father asks while staring at the list in my hand. “Mom wants me to bring some things home for her,” I reply. “I thought her CDs might have been up here.” I can tell by the look on his face that this bothered my father, he seemed more annoyed than anything.
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