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The dark gray sky resembles how I feel—angry at the world while filled with a deep melancholy.
But unlike the saddened sky and its tears streaming down my face, I don’t let myself cry. Although no one can tell the tears from the rain, I refuse to show weakness when my mother has been so fucking brave.
Between the three of us, she’s the one who has kept her shit together.
In the beginning, I used to hear dad cry every night in his room.
And hated him for it.
It was so selfish of him to simply cry like that.
Didn’t he know I could hear his wails of misery?
Didn’t he realize his pain would only increase my own?
Every night for two years, he broke down, and I swore to myself that I would never be as selfish as he was and let everyone witness my suffering. I resented him for being so weak when my mom has been nothing but courageous.
But my dad doesn’t cry anymore.
He hasn’t cried in months.
And that has widened the rift between us.
I resented his suffering.
But I resent him for giving up on her even more.
These are the thoughts that filter through my mind as the ferry pulls up to the island I call home. Fifteen minutes later, I walk through the front door of our two-story house and let out an exhausted exhale.
Everything is a mess.
Not that it surprises me anymore.
What can you expect from two guys with no woman around telling them to clean up behind themselves? I let out another groan and walk over to the kitchen so I can clean up before I nuke some leftover takeout in the microwave.
Mom would give us hell if she saw her house this way.
And the smell.
God, the smell.
Fish.
Dad says after all these years that I should be used to the stench already.
I’m not. Nor will I ever be.
When Mom was still living with us, our home always smelled lemony-fresh. I don’t know how she pulled it off or what her secret was, but not once did our place smell this bad. You would never have guessed this was a fisherman’s home when you stepped foot inside of it.
Now it reeks of fish guts.
Fucking nauseating.
Disgruntled that this is the new norm, I start to straighten everything up, knowing it won’t be enough to erase the stink. After the kitchen and living room are somewhat livable again, I bring my dinner upstairs to my room. I crack a book open in an attempt to get some homework done, only to quit ten minutes later.
Fuck this.
It’s not like I’ll need any of this shit anyway. My future has been set in stone since birth. I’m to be a fisherman like my dad and his dad before him. No one gets out of Thatcher’s Bay. We all lead the same lives our parents did and their parents before them.
