July 1, 2020
Smoke rose from his window, dissipating into the air. Isaac sucked in on the cigarette once more and puffed it out of the window. He didn't much like its taste but he needed to get a fix on nicotine somehow. His friends were several hours away so he wasn't going to have access to vape anytime soon. The cigarettes his mother kept in her room would suffice for the time being.
"Isaac, honey, I'm going to work now!" He heard his mother's voice call from downstairs.
Covering his mouth with his arm, to cover the cough from sucking in on the cigarette, he quickly threw the cigarette out the window and sprayed his room with the scent of huckleberry. Whether it was the actual smell of huckleberry, he didn't know.
The handle to his door twisted open and his mother walked through the door. She smiled at him and she walked into his room, smelling the air with her nose pointed up.
"Smells like berries," She said. "And..." She continued to smell the air. Her smile faded away into a more disappointed look.
"Do you have something to tell me, Isaac?" She said, tapping her foot to the ground.
Isaac looked out the window, keep his mouth shut. The smell of smoke overcame the huckleberry scent and left Isaac awkwardly laughing. His mother knew that he smoked. Stealing cigarettes and alcohol from his parents was nothing new. Only his father was much more harsh with his punishments if he caught Isaac stealing beer from him. His mother tried the alternative approach of explaining to him why he shouldn't do it, why it was bad for him, blah blah blah.
"Isaac, I've explained to you dozens of times, you've got to quit stealing these. I -"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, mom. They're bad for me; they're going to give me cancer; they're not cool; they're addictive. I get it," Isaac said.
His mother stared at him, her expression more saddened. She sat on his bed - the sheets drooping over the side, pillow cases half falling off, and stains from blood that he tried to clean. He looked down at his wrist, feeling a tear slide down his cheek.
"Honey, you know that I love you," His mother said to him. "And so I only want what is best for you."
Isaac stared out his window, looking at Lucy in the backyard trying to bite the water coming from the sprinkler.
"That's why I'm trying to help you. Your aunt is addicted to nicotine and spends half, if not more, of all her money buying numerous cases a week and the other half gambling it away. I'm addicted to nicotine and some days feel like I can't think straight. I feel miserable and just wish I could just totally stop, only to be picking up another one an hour later. Your father..." She paused and looked to Isaac. She hated talking about his father. Talking about him always made her uncomfortable; he could hear it in her voice. "Your father is an alcoholic. He lost his job because of it and now he's a completely different man."
Isaac turned to his mother now. "Because of you."
She looked at him, her expression turning from empathetic to anger. "Excuse me?" She said.
"He's a different man because of you," Isaac said.
His mother didn't say anything. In her mind, Isaac knew that she placed the blame on herself as well. However, hearing it from her son only reinforced her guilt. It was true though.
His mother was laid off of her job as a receptionist and soon became accustomed to a life of living at home. She would cook; she would clean; she would wait at home until it was time to pick up Isaac from school and until it was time for her husband to return from his job as a teacher.
That life quickly became boring to her though. A few months of being unemployed led her to going out to bars, flirting with other guys. Not long after, she cheated on her husband and had a child with the man whom she cheated with. After she became pregnant with the man's child, Isaac's father was ecstatic; he was fully ready to have another child. It wasn't until several months later that guilt overwhelmed his mother.
She confessed to everything - the partying, the affair, the child, everything. She promised that she never meant to hurt him, that she only met up with him a few times and hadn't seen him since she got pregnant. Of course, his father was a wreck afterwards. His trust had been betrayed, his happiness snuffed out, his anger manifesting into something new. His father would cry himself to sleep on the couch some nights, not knowing how to cope with his wife's betrayal. He wouldn't talk to Isaac, only telling him that everything was alright and to go to his room. Most certainly, he wouldn't talk to his wife.
Somehow, the two stayed together, despite everything she did to betray him. His father stayed married to his mother, Lillian became a Porter, and life continued on as normal, temporarily. What his father tried to forgive only filled him with more rage. The church couldn't soothe him, friends couldn't reassure him, and his job only began weighing him down. A man that use to be jolly and loving soon resorted to the only thing that brought his release, alcohol. From then to now, drinking himself to sleep was his father's only way of coping. Isaac loved his father but even his father's love for him was a sliver of what it use be. All because his mother betrayed him.
Isaac didn't know what happened to Lillian's father. His mother never talked about him to Isaac and bringing it up to his father would only send him into a depressive rage. For all he knew, he was having a child with another married woman but Isaac would likely never find out.
His mother still sat across from him, looking at him with a look he could only describe as misery. "Your sister and I will be back tonight. Your aunt Mabel is still asleep down in the basement so try not to wake her or..." She paused and sighed. "...steal her cigarettes."
Isaac chuckled and returned his gaze to out of his window, this time looking out to the forest. It stretched out for miles, all the way to the mountains that lied on the horizon. It hid its beauty and its secrets from the eye. He wanted to go explore it but, at the same time, he just wanted to stay inside. What he would give for just a little bit of weed.
He heard his mother get up and walk to his door. "I love you honey," He heard her say before she closed the door. Looking back down at his wrist, he felt the need to hit himself in the head. He shouldn't have said that to her. His mother and father cared so much for him and would do anything to ensure he was happy. Making his mother feel guilty was not a good way to return her love.
Isaac picked up a guitar that laid next to his dresser and brought it back to his chair in front of the window. Gently gliding his finger through its strings, he began singing. His voice soothed the forest as the birds began singing along with him.
A faint smile came across his face along with a tear down his cheek. He looked up out the window, the sun glimmering against his eyes. The forest would sing with him.
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