nonFiction
In a Different Room Evelyn Williams lamp in the living room. I park, grab my bag, and make my way to the door. Like I suspect, only my dad is home. I walk in saying, “Hellloooo.” I hear the recliner chair go to a sitting position with a clunk and see my dad half jog toward me with a smile as the TV drones on. “Heyy baby, good to see ya!” We hug as I tell him it’s good to see him too. “Where’s Mom?” I ask. “Gotchya,” I say. I look around the house while he starts to sit down at the dining room table. He puts his reading glasses on and looks down at the mail while I put my shoes by the door. “How was the drive?” he asks. “Uh, not too bad. Icy around Des Moines, but not bad.” “Well good, good,” he says. younger and my two sisters and I were still living in the house, the fridge is bare, with cottage cheese, apples, lots of jams room. “You know when Mom will be home?” I ask. clothes,” he said. “Ya,” he said. It is quiet in the house, so I go upstairs to unpack my clothes. When I hear the clunk of the recliner relaxing again, I head down to watch TV with my dad. I don’t want to watch American Pickers for the one hundredth time, but I have absolutely no desire to do homework, so I go and sit on the couch and scroll through Instagram. By 10:40 my dad is at 12. The next morning, I wake to the smell of bacon. When I get to the kitchen there’s no one in sight, the bacon is cold, sitting on a paper plate. Dad must be working today. I was hoping that I could hang out with Mom and Dad today, but Dad seems always to have work to do. I nuke the bacon in the microwave and make some toast. Afterwards, I walk into Mom and Dad’s room. The door squeaks as I open it, but I try to stay quiet as I slide into the bed next to Mom. I put my I must have been too loud because she starts stretching her body, slowly unrolling from her blankets. “Well good morning, sweet baby,” Mom says. “Morning,” I say. “How are you?” she asks. “Good.” “Dad here?” “No, his truck is gone,” I say. Later in the evening, my dad walks into the house. Mom and I are watching TV as she folds the laundry piled high in the living room. He sits down in the dining room, slowly opening envelopes, reading each one, placing the important ones in a stack separate from the others destined for the trash. Once he is done, he makes his way into the living room, clunking the recliner back. “Honey, can I have the remote?” he asks me. I learned pretty quickly when I was younger just to give him the remote. Don’t question it. Don’t argue that you are in the middle of a show. Just give him the remote. Then you don’t have to hear a lecture on how he’s worked all day while you did nothing. It’s just easier that way. Mom sighs and goes to the kitchen, giving up on the laundry and beginning the dishes. I go back to looking at my phone. I remember when I was in elementary school my parents were closer. My two sisters, my parents, and I would all get
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