I've Been Waiting For You

Intersection of Rodd St. & Indian

Winter passed without any further event, as the eve of summer drew near.  I spent my last day in school trying to catch up on homework I needed to finish, since the week in the hospital put me behind.  My teacher allowed me to work at my own pace to complete the vast amount of homework.  I finished the majority of it during the remaining days of school but still had a few pages left to complete.  I stayed an hour after the school day ended to finish the assignments then walked home.  I moved in a slow pace, enjoying the warmth of the sun as I traveled the five blocks to reach my destination.  A multitude of thoughts filled my head regarding occurring changes that came in the previous months.  My mom ended her relationship the day after I went to the hospital, so that alleviated any worries of being assaulted again.  I thought of all the things I wanted to do during summer vacation.  I imagined the places my brother and I frequented together and pondered the possibilities of returning to them during our time off.  My greatest vices never altered as most interests always remained shared with my brother.  Our multitude of toys, comic books and music became items we collected together.  We basically shared everything we had since no other kids in the neighborhood were in our age group.  Being the last day of school and realizing the hour deficit, it became a safe assumption that my brother chose to cruise somewhere in the neighborhood on his bicycle.

I cut through the connected neighboring backyards and made my way past the northwest side of the house and entered through the front door.  The landlord came weeks earlier and opened the doors to the main floor to help circulate the air.  The rays of sunlight filled the foyer from a window on the northwest side of the room.  It almost felt like I brought the sun home with me. I closed the front door and heard my mom call out for me from the upstairs floor "Tim, is that you?"  "Yeah, it's me" I replied.  "Hurry and come here, I need your help with something" she answered.  I moved to the left side of the room and made my way up the stairs.  When I entered the upstairs landing, I turned to my right and peered into the kitchen to find it empty. I took a few steps forward and looked into the living room and discovered the same.  I moved through the corridor opposite the kitchen and figured she had to be in one of the two bedrooms, but took note that the opened bathroom door didn't reveal the presence of anyone either.  I walked into my mom's bedroom.  Nope, not in here either.  The bedrooms offered an amenity that I really didn't care for.  Each came with a deep walk in closet that felt like the passage of a tomb.  I felt apprehensive about venturing inside them since strange things happened in the closet my brother and I shared.  Battery operated toys we kept inside turned themselves on, and the light in the closet occasionally did the same.  We grabbed whatever toys we chose to play with and immediately shut the door.  Being faced with the inevitable, I looked in my mom's closet and found nothing.  This left one final room to explore, and the likelihood finding her there seemed pretty scant.  With reasoning being the driving force behind me, I searched the bedroom and the closet and still came up with the same results.  I bolted from the upstairs back to the foyer on the main floor, feeling scared and confused.  Out of desperation I yelled "Where did you say you were?"  "I'm in the basement" returned an impatient reply, "Will you hurry up?!!"

I walked from the foyer straight ahead to the hallway with the stairway leading to the basement on my left.  The stairway walls filled with cobwebs, faded from years of being untouched in a dingy white painted brick.  The entire basement offered the same unappealing adornments, with gray painted walls and floors instead.  A dirty horseshoe shaped work bench wrapped with three of the basement walls, while the remaining wall offered a built in root cellar.  The conditions always seemed dank, dark and dungeon like.  I searched the basement with the feeling of being in a crypt.  No one occupied the open floor, which meant the only place she could be was in the root cellar.  I slowly opened the cellar door,  ..then panicked.  It's three-thirty in the afternoon and a bright sunny day outside, and I'm hearing things?  Some kind of logical explanation needed discovered, so I ran from the basement to the main floor and searched every room...  and found nothing.  The only logical conclusion that made sense became the question of an oversight when I originally looked upstairs.
Still feeling shaken and confused, I slowly walked upstairs.  Instinctively, my curiosity drew my attention to the bay window in the living room that overlooked the driveway.  I moved to the window, pulled away the sheer curtains, looked outside .. and watched my mom pull into the driveway.  The entire living room instantly filled with the sound of a strange woman laughing hysterically.  I raced out of the room and down the stairs in time to meet my mom at the front door.  She greeted me and asked "Are you feeling okay, you look like you've just seen a ghost."