Aftermath Book Two Crash Series

Chapter Forty

Aria

            It’s a good thing I had the construction crew install extra sound barriers inside the installation. I don’t feel bad cranking the music enough to shake the walls and rattle the spoons and containers littered around the counters. I do have neighbors and it’s still early enough I don’t doubt the cops would be called, but I needed my music to ground me.

            I didn’t turn it on until I moved all the fragile desserts out of the destruction zone and out to the front case. I needed to set it up anyways, I feel better already knowing it is. Yet I couldn’t push away the further realization, this is real and happening.

            Using my metal tongs with a rubber handle I carefully clamp down on the last of the bagels, pulling it out of the water bath. I’m loving the color and caramelization of the outer crust, it’s still whiter than the final product but they’ve started to bubble in spots and I can tell from experience after they get out of the oven they’ll be golden brown, with a firm but soft center, perfect for toasting or eating as is.

            While the bagels were boiling in the water bath I got out all the spices and toppings I need now to top the different bagel types. To start I’m offering a plain, onion, everything, cinnamon raisin, and jalapeño cheddar. I plan to expand but first I need to get a good feel for supply and demand. See what’s selling, what isn’t, and what should be seasonal or put on a rotating specials list.

            Walk the last tray over to the middle of the room where the rest of the bagels are waiting alongside the egg wash and the toppings I place the tray on the only spot remaining on the counter and go back to the oldest batch of bagels with the egg wash and brush in hand. Dipping the tip of the brush in the orange liquid I work on gently brushing it across each circle of the half-done dough ring.

            With my nerves, the way they are I thought sticking with my 70’s playlist, a playlist full of love songs and upbeat music was my best option. Tie a Yellow Ribbon on the Old Oak Tree by Tony Orlando and Dawn ends transitioning into Imagine by John Lennon. Smiling to myself I drop the brush into the bowl before gently setting them both down on the counter and scooping up the tray of plain bagels so I can take them to the oven, moving my hips there the whole way while I hum along thinking about Grandma.

            It’s been a hard few days. Who am I kidding it’s been a hard few years. Ever since Grandpa passed it’s just been a downward spiral of awfulness and bad luck.

            Grandma’s had to work longer hours to keep up with the bills and groceries, they didn’t have too much before grandpa passed but she sure has less now. I can’t understand why life is so miserable. What was even meant to do? Is there nothing here but chaos? Or is this our hell from another life, forced to come here to try and make our sins right?

            People in school always talk about religion, Mia’s mom even took me to church once. It was stuffy, boring, outdated, and honestly, it was super freaking creepy. They read stories from a book, stories they believe are history and truth yet they’re coated in magic and completely unrealistic. Yet I could look around and see the awe on their faces, they all believed it.

            I didn’t. It didn’t resonate then and it doesn’t now but Mia believed and so did her family. So I never asked the questions that were burning to come out. Instead choosing to see the peace it brought them to have their beliefs and rituals. But the questions were there, I sought answers but found only more questions.

            No matter the religion I researched nothing resonated as I wanted it to, nothing seemed to fit so I didn’t have any God, or Gods to pray to or ask why. Or any answer as to what life’s meaning is. All I saw was the heartbreak and disappointment that this world offered, and I couldn’t help even now at just fourteen wondering why I’m here. Why we must suffer to just die.

            With grandma working more she didn’t have as much time to come get me from Dad’s as she would before. Honestly, I should be over it by now. I mean I know what I need to do to avoid him and if that doesn’t work I know how to go along with whatever his twisted inebriated mind conjures up for me. As long as I do as I say he’ll usually go in search of another bottle giving me some peace until he found something else he wanted me to clean or fix.

            But now I’m older and so is he. His tolerance is increasing, which means he’s drinking more, getting meaner, and still not drunkenly passing out like I would like him to. It’s the only time other than him not being home that I get any peace. And as I get older he expects more from me or maybe he feels like he can be meaner without feeling so bad if he’s ever felt bad at all.

            Mia and Alec have been busy. Alec is in the middle of his hockey season which means long after school ends he has practices he can’t get out of. While Mia has been sucked into yearbook club and student council. I’m happy for both of them, they love it but it means I’m at home hiding in my room praying my father chooses to leave me alone or hiding at the top of the slide at the park around the corner.

            But it’s cold out and Buffalo winters are no joke. Sometimes the wind is so bitter it’ll prick my skin and pierce my lungs from just moments outside. Other times it’s so windy and the lake effect snow is so severe we have storms that lock us inside for days and days. It’s mid-January now, it’s been winter for months and it’ll still be winter for months to come. If I’m lucky we'll have some mild days by the end of March, but sometimes it’ll snow into April.

            I feel stuck and abandoned. Alone and miserable. The days are short and dark and filled with nothing but misery. it’s been harder and harder to smile and pretend like everything is okay or that it will be okay.

            I was surprised when Grandma showed up at school today, parked behind the busses waiting for me in her golden used Subaru. Her smile was big and welcoming and my heart ached with joy and misery. Every time I look at her I remember grandpa in the pain she holds in her eyes and the smaller voice she speaks in. Mostly in the space beside her, that’s achingly opened where it should be filled by his warm presence.

            I miss him so much but I know I have nothing on the way she misses him. So I try my best to fill up her other side. I know I can’t replace or fill the ache she has for Grandpa but I know I can be here in the brief moments we both find happiness still in this miserable world. And out of everyone, my grandma deserves those beautiful moments, not my misery.

            She doesn’t need the reminders of her broken son, or how often he breaks me. Or the constant existential crisis I find myself in. She definitely can never find out about the lowest moments. The times I wonder if it’s even worth sticking around. It’d be so easy to just end it all and get the answers I want. No matter what after I die I’d know if there really is a God or Gods. Maybe there’s just a place or a new life to live. Or maybe there’s nothing at all and we just cease to be.   

            Besides being reincarnated, because really doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of escaping this world by taking my life, I’d take any of those options over staying here. The best I can hope for is going to a community college or finding a good job out of high school that has the potential to turn into a career. I’ll maybe get a good job, afford a nice enough house, find someone decent, and fall in love.

            But then what? I die or he does? I lose my job due to cutbacks and then I lose my house? Life just keeps beating me as it does to my grandma until all she has left is a few hours a week with her granddaughter where we cook and eat together and that’s the highlight of her life until she dies? I don’t want that.

            I want to live. I want to really live but I can look around and see so very few of us get that chance. And I’ve never been lucky, I won’t pretend I’ll ever be.

            “You know what I’ve been craving?” We just walked in the back door straight into the kitchen. It smells like pine sol and clean linens, pulling in a deeper breath I find my smile easier than I have in a while. It feels good to be here, to be in the only place I’ve ever felt at home.

            “Please tell me it isn’t pound cake again!” She was on a kick for a few weeks. It seemed like she wanted to try every variation there is, honestly they were all very good but they’re just not the best and I could really use something a tad different than pound cake.

            “Aria! You ate the last piece of that pound cake two weeks ago!” Her eyes sparkle as she grins in my direction. Her boney hands reach for her apron and mine, they’re old and stained but they work just fine. I grab mine from her, both put ours on before washing our hands in the sink.

            “I didn’t say it wasn’t good,” I grumble as I work on sudsing up my hands.

            “Seems to me you have a craving yourself, what do you want to make?” Already I wish I could go back and re-do this conversation. I don’t need her to ask what I want to make, she already had a plan, a craving. I know her, now she will insist on making whatever I want, no room for arguments about it. I feel selfish and stupid.

            With a wobbling smile, I rake my brain for anything I can think of to make that she enjoys not bothering to fight, knowing how useless it’ll be. She really likes cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting. But they take a while, probably more time than we have tonight.

            She’s always down for brownies or oooooh I know! “What about a cobbler?” She loves fruity desserts I can’t go wrong with that.

            “Perfect I have cherries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries we could do a mixed berry cobbler! Let’s get to it so you can start on your homework while I cook dinner.” She shuffles over to the counter where her little CDadio player sits. Today she chooses the radio, putting on the classic station that plays everything from jazz to alternative rock.

            The DJs are talking right now so nothing exciting plays but we both work as the perfect team, grabbing all the dishes and ingredients we need. I ask her how she’s been and how works going, she starts telling me about her job and the nice ladies there but I only half listen, my mind is still stuck on a negative feedback loop.

            I need to just shut up and let her talk next time. She came and got me the least I could have done was made sure we baked whatever it was she’s been craving. She deserves that, of course, I managed to mess it all up.

            My face must have fallen back into a scowl because all of a sudden grandma is grabbing the sifter out of my hands and forcing my chin up with her eyes soft and understanding. Biting the inside of my cheek I keep from crying like I want to in the face of any kind of kindness or sympathy.

            “What’s wrong darling?” The soft loose skin of her fingers glides easily across the side of my cheek.

            “Nothing Grandma! I was thinking about this math problem on my homework for tonight.” I’m always prepared with a lie to cover for the weird moments I have like this one. I’m good at masking my misery most of the time but sometimes like lately it’s been almost unbearable, too hard to shake while already too exhausted to muster up any kind of mask or to pretend.

             Her hand falls away and her eyes pinch in concentration. Her gaze feels penetrating like she’s trying to see into my soul before she turns her head to the side and her eyes widen. Her crow's feet become more pronounced as her smile grows and my heart warms a little.

            She scoops up my hands so she can pull us weakly into the middle of the room. “Listen to the song Sweet girl. You might not want to talk about it but listen.” And I did listen, I listened as John Lennon sang Imagine, his words full of promise and light.

            Hope.

            And as we danced around that kitchen long past Imagine played my smile grew bigger and my guilt easied. I can imagine a million more moments just like this one and a future I can create that’s much better than anything I can imagine.

            My grandma taught me to dream that day, even during misery and darkness she taught me to never forget to dream and dream big because no matter what there’s always a happiness to be found.

            How ironic for it to play right now when my dreams are bigger than anything I imagined back then and right here in front of me. I can’t stop the tears then or the joy that pierces my heart. I don’t know what’s out there, or what comes next. But I do know my grandma is here right now with me, in spirit or memory she’s here and I’m about to make her proud.