And not to pull your halo down,

Around your neck and tug you off your cloud.

The dinner table was silent, the no noise only broken occasionally by the scrape of a fork or the clink of a glass against a plate. Patrick and Gloria were both at a friend’s house for dinner. Holden missed their jokes and chatter that covered the heavy tension that existed between him and his mother. Neither of them said a word, he thought it better this way.

His mother cleared her throat, here it comes, he thought in his mind, scolding himself for even trying to believe that they could go through the whole meal without saying a word to each other.

“How was school?” she asked still moving her fork around her plate.

What a painfully predictable thing to say. He hated her for saying it; she never would have said a thing like that two years ago, back when she didn’t care. But now she had to ask it, it was part of being a “good mother.”

“Fine...” he replied drudgingly.

“I...uh...got a call from you counselor the other day. She said she had a little talk with you about...”

“It was nothing, okay?” he cut her off.

“Holden...if there’s anything...anything you want to tell me...” she half pleaded.

“I said, it’s nothing,” he confirmed, not looking up from his plate.

They sat there quietly for a little while, but Holden knew by they way she wasn’t eating that there was more she had to say, and it came soon enough.

“I just want to help you, Holden... I’ve been trying my hardest to be a better mother for you...”

“I think it’s a little late for that,” he said before getting up and leaving the table, the last bits of food abandoned on his plate.

He began his way up the stairs, trying to keep his rage subsided.

His mother followed him, “How can you say such things to me...as if I haven’t been through as much pain as you have,” she said, both angry and sad at the same time. “You can’t blame me for this Holden, as much as you may want to.”

He starred at her for a few seconds, his hard gaze piercing her as a response to her last statement, then made his way up the last few steps and around the corner to his room.

Once confined within the silent walls, he collapsed on his bed with mental and physical exhaustion. He sighed and closed his eyes in a deep rest...

“Holden! Holden!!” screamed his mother, an intensely realistic image in his dreams of memory.

“What?” he yelled back, only bothering to go half way down the stairs.

“I told you yesterday to cut the lawn! Why isn’t it done?” she commanded.

He cringed at the question, they both knew he didn’t have and answer.

“Go do it now!” she pointed towards the door, and Holden obediently followed her directioning, not daring to disobey.

Soon enough, he found himself struggling to lug the lawn mower across the weed ridden front lawn grass. Not long into his work, his brother came hopping down the steps, pulling on a jacket as he went.

“Where are you going?” Holden asked, pausing in his work.

“Out. Meeting some friends,” his brother replied, stopping at the side walk and looking down the street for his friend’s car.

“But...mom said-” Holden began.

“I don’t give a shit what mom says,” he replied quite bluntly as his ride approached the curb.

“See ya Hold!” he said with a smile and a wave as he hoped into the cars cracked front seat.

“See ya...” Holden mumbled back, shoving the mower across a particularly stubborn patch of grass.

Holden awoke with a start; someone had closed a door hard next door, the noise disturbing his rest because of an open window just above his head. He got up and closed the window, then huddled up on his bed, arms wrapped around his knees in false comfort.

A tear slid down his cheek without him knowing it. If only I had said something, if only I had done something...anything, he thought to himself with sorrow.

He remembered it so much it made him was to scream. The smell of fresh cut grass...his mother’s yelling...the car pulling away from their house... All of it seeming to intertwine, conspiring against him to bring disaster upon his brother and himself. Joseph died that day.