Writing Exercise # 3 - Jonathan D. W.

Clay’s father had just come home and already the mood in the house had changed. Why does that happen, Clay wondered, perturbed at the infraction of unbroken calm that pervaded the air as tangibly as the moist air that breezed in through the bay window that his mother habitually opened every morning of good weather. This was done even before his father could start the engine of his old Mazda pick-up. He doubted his father ever took notice of the way she routinely shuffled him out of the door with a pretense of an affectionate kiss, which was more of a feigned peck to Clay, and abruptly shut the door behind him. She would exhale or sigh, so subtly that he wasn’t certain that she actually did this until one day, after a quiet argument the night before about some book that his father had taken to reading and some comments or advice that he made to her brother about a taking his grandmother off of life support; this was evidently meant to escape his and his sister’s notice but children always heard those things that parents most wanted them not to hear. So unlike his father, her anger displayed itself in the trembling backlight of her eyes, and her manner took on a mechanical, decisive quality. He could see them in his mother’s office, which was his sister’s former nursery now converted into a place to make children’s toys, talking past one another like the two men he once saw in an auto wreck who both happened to speak different languages; his father thought that it was hilarious but even then he thought of his parents and wondered why his father didn’t feel sympathy for them. She was sitting in an ornate high-back chair that she designed and built herself, leaning over toward him with her chest almost to her thighs, as if the conversation caused her pain in the abdomen. He stood before her in his non-combative but insular way, looking down at her with a mixture of pity and offense. That next morning, after her ceremonial dismissal, she actually laid her back against the door, held her head back and closed her eyes long enough for the slow eating Clay to finish two pop-tarts. On her face was an even expression of blankness, then, after opening her eyes, the dimmest smile parted her full, womanly lips and gave her a look of sensual triumph. Despite her justifiable indignation, she was rid of faithless man for at least nine hours, it said. She reveled and indulged in this little apocalypse for a few seconds before, to her stunted shock, she saw her only son marveling at his mother’s strange pleasure. Her shame was more evident than sweat. The controlled and unassailable communication that she had always maintained with her son had vanished in a moment of wordless candidness. Also in that moment, there was something that she noticed for the first time in her son’s wide, observant eyes – he was no longer just a child but a discerning, sensitive being who had been exercising his powers of perception for some time. Rendered speechless by her own nine-year-old son, all that she could do was correct her countenance and exit the predicament as graciously as she could. You’re becoming such a big boy now; I shudder that tomorrow I will come down and see a man sitting at my kitchen table. He lowered his head in deference as she walked up to him and touched him sweetly on the shoulder, in a way that she never had before. It made him feel quite like a man, like he was grown enough to understand the lofty subjects of the adult world; and that was truer than even he dared to favor himself with possessing. And then, she was gone; the bay windows were opened wide and the mild fishy air whose freshness was full enough to blow the confusion from his thoughts. His father was gone and no matter how troubling it was the tension in the air was invariably transformed and made pleasant, reassuring, and even uplifting. He wanted to wake his sister so that they could try the east shore of the lake where the waters grew uncooperative but where the little orchard island promised sweet persimmons and wild blackberries. Or he could help his mother make her toys, giving her his fantasies of which ideas would most likely inspire her little clientele to keep her creations out of the closet and the waste bin. He could challenge Maleah to a drawing contest where they would draw as many boats or birds of sunsets over the lake that they could before their mother called them for lunch outside on the patio. Things happened when his father was gone; everyone created or at least felt at peace enough to let their minds wander. That was then; ever since that unconcealed day when he saw his mother’s true attitude toward his father, he questioned why. Was it his father or was it the conflict between his mother and his father? This is a question that he would not answer until it was too late to be relevant.