A Short Story: The Last Entry
The Quiet Echoes of a Fractured Family.
Leroy opened up his journal and clicked the pen open. The nib glided across the lined paper as each memory came to him in waves of pain. He wrote:
We grew up without a mother. She died after I turned nine years old, leaving me, my six-year-old brother Levi and our father as a family of three. “Cancer,” Dad had said that day when he broke the news to us. I’ve remembered that word ever since. Cancer.
Before he left for the first time, Dad had called it a poison that ate at you from the inside. The poison of cancer spread throughout the body until, eventually, everything was poisoned, and there was nothing anyone could do. Mom had refused chemotherapy and instead chose to allow God to do as he saw fit. Did God truly work with poison? Whatever. Did God really want a six-year-old kid to be raised by a nine-year-old? Whatever. I raised Levi anyway.
Dad had come and gone ever since mum passed. I remember when I was small, a time I saw Dad smiling and happy, laughing as he walked through the park with Mom and me. Levi hadn’t been born then, so he had never seen Dad happy the way I had. He probably never will. I guess you could say I’m desirous at this point, and I mean, I’m at the point of actually wishing every night that Dad would just come home. He doesn’t have to stay, but I wish that he’d just visit, not for me, but for Levi. If you can hear me writing this somehow, Dad, please, come home…
I’m nineteen now… Levi just turned sixteen. He’s becoming a man, and he’s taller than me. It’s been five years since either of us saw Dad. He walked out that day, and he never came back. Whenever Levi mentions it, whether it's about Mom or Dad, I just snap. Levi says whenever he mentions either of them, my forehead gets all creased, and my eyebrows furrow, but I don’t think that’s true. I defend Dad because that’s what a son should do. Telling my little brother that he’ll probably never see his dad ever again is too much for me to be able to handle.
Levi’s got a girl now. He’s done great in school, and he’s ready to move out of Bakersfield and over to Wisconsin. I gotta admit…I’m a little jealous. Not only has he managed to get a spot in a top college, but, unlike me, the guy can hold down a girlfriend. She’s hot, too!
Me? I’ve bounced from job to job since I was sixteen, and the money dad left dried up much faster than I’d thought it would. It's been tough, but I got through it. At least it's been enough to get Levi into college and put food on the table. But maybe now he’s not gonna need me, what with his girlfriend and fancy college.
Being a big brother ain’t something I ever thought I was good at. I don’t have it together. I don’t have a plan. Hell, I don’t even know what I’m doing next week. So, really, what kind of big brother am I?
This will be my last entry before I leave…I feel the poison in my own veins. Mom’s poison. When she chose not to fight, she poisoned me, and she poisoned Dad. It’s not a poison in the body. It’s in the mind. I think Levi and I are probably mangled-up versions of what we could have been. But nevermind. If there’s anything I wish for in life, it's that my family are happy. I hope you’re happy, Dad, wherever you are.
Leroy closed the journal and hid it in the safe place their dad taught them as kids, behind the cupboard under the floorboard. Outside, Leroy stared out ahead of him before turning the ignition to his motorcycle. The engine purred to life. After took one final look at his family home, Levi accelerated away from all he had ever known.
That was the first and the last time Leroy left home.
This has been a short story by me, Tyler Woden. You can follow By The Hearth for more stories like this one in the future.
