“Time to prepare dinner!,” Jennifer says as she walks into the house. She sets her bag down, dusts her hands off and then looks at the house. She smiles with pleasure and reaches into her bag while yelling by the stairwell, “Kids we’re having macaroni for dinner, I’ll call you down when it’s ready.”
“I know you kids love macaroni, I’m making it with parmesan and extra cheddar cheese, just how you guys like it!” She hums a bright tune and rummages through her materials , grabs some plates, and sets them up. “You know I never make a full batch for you all not to finish it.” As she begins to empty out the macaroni bag,her husband walks in slowly.
“There you are….I tried finding you after work but I could not reach you,” he says in an annoyed, frustrated tone, while looking around.
“Sweetie, I told you we can’t be here,” he says carefully, while reaching towards her hand. He walks carefully towards her, as though he is trying to lure her in.
“Whatever do you mean, this is our home of course we can be here,” she looks up at him with confusion, then looks down.
“You know it’s not safe here, we may have a lot of memories but we have to let it go. We have to move on,” he says as he looks into her caramel colored eyes, desperately trying to convince her.
She looks him in the eyes with annoyance and opens a second box of macaroni with force and slams it down.
“Well the kids love it here, they have been here their whole life , they have made friends and they enjoy their school so why make them leave, Why!” She begins to pace the room and she looks at him with a fire in her eyes , she takes a deep breath , then continues to work on the macaroni.
“Besides, it’s three against one,” she says in an undertone as she tends to the food pushing the wooden spoon with anger into the pot.
He blankly looks at her for a second and rubs his forehead in frustration. He then sighs and looks back up at her. “Honey,” he walks towards her and puts his hand on her shoulder. She then turns around and their eyes lock. “You’re going to have to understand your way of thinking, it-it just isn’t healthy.
A blank look comes across her face and she smiles with a look of confusion. “What are you talking about, our way of living is great, I love what we have in this house, and because of that I’m crazy?” She throws the pot on the ground and attempts to storm away.
He grabs her arm with tears in his eyes looking down. “JENNIFER! They’re gone. They’re...gone,” he slams his hand against the wall and looks at it with anger. “Jennifer, Hurricane Katrina,the storm...it took everything away from us, our house and our-” he holds back tears and softly speaks again saying “kids, sweet amayah and Christ and-and-now it’s taking you. Your sanity is being taken away,please just hold on so we can have something...something to hold on to.”
She looks at him with a dead stare,no emotion. Not anger nor happiness, just an empty stare. “I do not know what you are talking about,the kids are upstairs what’s wrong with you?,”she says with concern.
The husband looks around the place that was once called home and thinks of all the memories that took place where he is standing. The rubble and broken wood where the playroom was, and the boulder that now blocks the stairway. The empty picture frames of broken glass shattered, where the children’s pictures once stood.
He looks at the rubble that caught his children and killed them. Thier screams that were the last sound that he learned from them, and the deathly silence that ended their pain.
Where she calls “home” now looks like construction site. He slowly turns his head toward the macaroni filled with rocks and dirt. Then he picks up his head to look at his wife who is distraught and hurt by what happened, to the point where she has gone mad in denial.
He closes his eyes and remembers the real home. He thinks back on a time where sweet lavender filled the house and children ran around with their laughter filling the air. All he has left is her, and even though she is mentally gone, he cannot let go.
He opens his eyes and uses these memories to fuel a temporary smirk on his face.
“Okay honey, let’s go on a vacation,” he says with a fake smile. “I can bring the kids to Uncle Laurence’s house and we can take a vacation.” She smiles in agreement and they walk out of the rubble.
