The Family Across the Street by Nicole Trope

31

‘I’m asking you one last time,’ she says, interrupting my counting. ‘I’m asking you to leave, just leave.’ Her face is a mess and I have to listen carefully when she speaks because her cheek and lips have puffed and it’s affecting her speech, the way she sounds. I did that. How did I do that? But then again, I’ve done worse than that. I’ve crossed other lines and I can feel myself stepping over another one.

My father’s grey face and staring eyes are there as I count. ‘Don’t trust a woman, boy.’ If I leave, if I don’t finish this, I know it will only be months before those staring eyes are mine. Except I won’t just lie in some bed in a small apartment for a couple of days. I won’t just be there until my son, who loves me, opens the door to the terrible stench of my death. I will lie there undiscovered and alone because at least he had me. However shitty a son I was. At least he had me. As of today, as of the end of this countdown, I will have no one. But I will not be the only one to suffer.

‘No,’ I say to her because she is still hoping to get through to me with her pleading. ‘No, I don’t think I’m going to do that.’

I resume my counting at fifty. Halfway there and it will all be over.