Family?

Brooke was stalking the town, pacing the streets in casual cutoffs, a white t-shirt, and keds. It was 6:30 in the morning, but the sun was covered partially by distant clouds, making the day bright but grey, almost. Her shoes pittered and pattered down the pavement, flying by all the slow pedestrians in her path. She was too excited to sit around her apartment and wait for her father and Silvia to arrive. They had called earlier this week, and promised her they would be coming into town this morning, around 10. But how could she sit still when the 2 people she had missed most in her life would be arriving again? She couldn't wait to her her father say “Bubblebutt” and to hopefully bake cookies with Silvia. She wanted to know all about Russia: how cold it was, the sights, the life, the people, and how it felt to ride in an airplane over the HUGE Pacific Ocean. Brooke had never flown in an airplane before, and it was a dream she sometimes had as a child to become an airline attendent and never touch the Earth again. She also wanted to know how these 2 people had gotten together to come see her, and what Silvia had been doing since her mother and herself cruelly left her when her father went on his business trip. I hope Silvia isn’t mad at us, She thought worriedly.

Veronica, Brooke’s mother, had said nothing about her husband and former maid coming to visit. When Brooke told her of the phone call, she paled and shakily said “How nice of them to find us.” That was all she would say on the matter. Later that day, Brooke’s mind kept tumbling over those words: Find us? Have we been hiding or something? But she pushed those thoughts away and focused on her happiness.

As she walked down Brownstone Boulevard, she saw an older man stumbling down the street in front of her, carrying a shopping bag with 3 cartons of cigarettes and 2 loaves of bread. The birds at his feet flew up twittering in protest when he lumbered through their flock. When she she approached, he tripped and fell. Compassionate as she was, she hurried over to him and helped him up. He slurred “Do you have a father?” Brooke was almost frightened, but it was light outside and there were people walking around. With no need for fearing the man, she said happily, “Yes! I haven’t seen him in a few years and he’s coming into town today and-”

“Don’t listen to his bullshit. Fathers are just life-fuckers.” And with this shocking piece of advice, he bent down, picked up his shopping bag and the whiskey flask engraved with the word “Pink” that had fallen out of his pocket, and continued on down the street. Brooke looked after him with strange look on her face and sinking feeling in her heart. Why did that I run into that guy today, of all days?

Shaking her head, she crossed the street to go sit on the benches in St. Magdelene’s cemetery. The birds chirped and passed each other from the trees and bushes surrounding the graves, speaking only of love in their cheery tones. She wasn’t scared of graves or tombs as normal people were, mostly because when she was little she used to play hide-and-seek with her friends in the graveyard down the street during the afternoon into the night. Brooke always saw these kinds of places as semi-formal playgrounds with interesting stories behind each play structure. As she sat twiddling her thumbs, she noticed a woman in puce scrubs kneeling by a grave, not moving, for several minutes. Brooke’s began to worry that something was wrong when a bird stood right beside her and she did not move, so she got up to go check on the woman, who looked vaguely familiar. As she approached, she recognized her as the nurse called “Ms. Clara” who gave her back-to-school vaccinations at the free clinic. She was crying helplessly in front of a large tombstone that read “Mr. & Mrs. Holloway.” When she gently touched her shoulder, Ms. Clara leapt to her feet. “What do you want?” Cautiously Brooke said “I was just making sure you’re alright.”

Ms. Clara wiped her eyes and said “Lemme ask you something-do you have a family?” Brooke was about to say Yes, I’ve got a mother and my father’s coming into town with our old maid and-

And she realized she didn’t. Have a family, that is. She had parents and a former housekeeper. But families lived together and kept in touch even when they were apart and actually cared about the people they lived with. Brooke had none of this. Her eyes welled up with tears.

Ms. Clara patter her back in the maternal way she learned during her time as a nurse and said “There, there sweetie. Don’t cry. I’ve just come to realize much later in life how important my family was, and they were gone before I could grasp it. Now maybe you can patch your family up before you’re grown.” She smiled and glanced at her phone. “Oh goodness, I’m late for work! Can’t keep the patients waiting!” She quickly darted out of the cemetery and briskly walked out of sight.

Brooke sank into the ground, wishing for a breeze in the still morning air to wash away the heat from her skin. She noticed after several minutes that the tombstone she was now staring at said "To infinity and beyond." How strange. A Buzz Lightyear quote? Then Brooke noticed that the weathered stone had a child's name and age on it. He only lived till he was 6. The two empty plots beside his tomb made her realize that whoever Luke Stanley was, his parents had outlived him. On top of his tomb was a weathered Buzz Lightyear toy, arms stretched towards the grey sky as though he wished to fly again, but was instead keeping the boy safe by protecting him.

She realized she was on her own in the world, at a young age. No one was there to protect her, not even Buzz Lightyear.Unless she reunited her broken “family.”