I just sat in the dark dining area with my head on my book. Everything was dark and quiet when she said, in a smaller voice, “I’m sorry, Jim,” and “I hate this,” and “I love you, but. I laid my head on the table, on my math book. Her voice got madder and louder until at last she was yelling when she said, “If you can’t handle the bills right now, could you maybe at least handle the dishes?”Įven though it was pitch-black in the room, I squeezed my eyes shut. She went on and on, and none of it made much sense to me. She kept going on about how she was “sick of it all.” She said she was too tired to even talk about it anymore, but then she kept talking. He does that sometimes, tunes out, though I can never tell if he’s daydreaming or just pretending not to hear her. So, really, we were all in one long, dark room together when Mom snapped, “Jim! You didn’t pay the power bill again?”ĭad didn’t answer her.
That was how a lot of row houses were in Baltimore, like tunnels. Then you were out of the living room and into the front room when the blue carpet changed to brown. You knew you were out of the kitchen/dining room and into the living room when the fake-brick linoleum stopped and the pale blue carpet started. The flooring just changed color every ten feet or so. There weren’t doors or walls between the downstairs rooms in our row house. He’s just taking a break for a little while.Īnyway, I couldn’t see either of them because of the lights being off, but I could hear everything they said. But the accident wasn’t his fault, and he’ll get another job soon. Ever since he wrecked his cab, he’s been winding down a lot. As far as I could tell, he was just sitting on the couch, drinking a beer and watching TV, like he usually does after dinner. Then my mom, over in the living room, started picking on my dad for no good reason. The fridge stopped making the wheezy noise it usually makes. The numbers on the microwave’s clock disappeared. Everything else in the house stopped working too.
I was in the dining room part of the kitchen doing my math homework at the table when the lights suddenly blinked off.
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