covered in lights and sentimental ornaments. February, flowers for mom, and purplepackaged peanut butter chocolates. Every month gave us something new to celebrate. The clock, 1:39 a.m. It’s 2017, Evan’s 19 years old. He loves his cat, his skateboard, and the wind in his hair. So much hair. And sleep, he loves sleep. What could these years have meant to him? In 2008, there’s yelling in the other room. I check on him, he’s sitting on his floor, flipping through a magazine. My room is further from the noise, so we make him a bed out of pillows. Four on the ground and one for his head. We can still hear them in the other room, so we watch Ghostbusters. Movies that would make us laugh, those were our favourite. Now it’s 2010, and there’s yelling again. Evan could always hear them well through the hole in his door, the one that dad made with his fist one night mom wouldn’t stop crying. He’s too old now for pillows on the ground, so he sits on his floor and flips through a magazine. Usually, it’s only mom who yells. Her cries torn up with pain. Dad only taunts from the corner. But, when he hears dad’s voice perk-up above a whisper, he puts down the magazine. He opens the door and peers through the shadows. He’s brave, but when he sees a vase being hurtled at the window, he backs up into his room, confused and terrified. From my own room I can hear as his fist makes a hole in the wall, one to call his own. Then he sprawls out on the floor, exhausted. He’s told me that he often wonders about love and what it means to be a dad. “I don’t really know,” he’d say, “maybe our dad just isn’t sure either.” He would worry when dad would disappear for days on end, so I’d tell him to focus his thoughts on simpler times. Camping with mom, and learning to swim in the shallow parts of the water. His drawings in pre-k of
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knights with swords and shields, surrounded by crayon trees. And May, his birthday, the pizza and bouncy castles and all of his friends. Now he’s in high school and he loves to play music. The guitar, and the piano. And the piano. And the piano. Dun dun di. Dun dun di. Dun dun di. Now it’s 2017, and the clock strikes 2 a.m. There are holes in the walls, and t-shirts with black tear stains. Yet, there are memories that remain of beautiful days, and if we let them, they come creeping out of the shadows and linger with us for a while. Then they’re swept away again, by the hands of time, and all we can do is wait. Wait and wonder. Wonder at the silent strength of time; at its resilience and its vulnerability. At its unremitting effects on life, and on love. So I think, and he plays. He wants to get his timing just right. Dun dun di. Dun dun di. Dun dun di.