"Coming Home"

"I won't be coming home anymore."

"Okay Jason, if that's your decision, okay." Aubrey said.

Jason set the phone down and walked to his bookshelf. In between Webster's Dictionary and a world atlas was a small packet of papers he had written seven years ago. He pulled out the papers and sat on his bed next to his suitcase. He unfolded the wide-ruled notebook paper, and the words of his childhood came flowing back to him.

Harold said we're going out to lunch today. I didn't enjoy it; we only eat out when he wants to. I wish I could go back to my grandparents' house. I spend every summer with them in Northwood. My mom used to send Casey and me to daycare because she had to work and Harold didn't want to watch us when he was home. So my grandparents decided to take care of us. Casey and I are always sad when we have to leave them and go back to school and home in August.

My mother had me when she was eighteen, the summer before she was supposed to go to college to study journalism. The pregnancy was unexpected, but my grandparents didn't really care because their other children were a lot older and had already had their children. My mother wasn't worried, she was confident that Daniel would ask her to marry him. When she told him she was pregnant, his reaction had been unclear. Janie kept hoping they'd get married when the baby came.

But as my mother got bigger, Daniel grew weary of her and wore a terrified expression when they went out in public. He left sometime during Janie's seventh month of pregnancy. She had been calling his house for two weeks, and finally got the news of his whereabouts from a friend of his. The story was that Daniel had been accepted to a prestigious school on the East Coast and had to go out there right away. Daniel didn't even have a GED; he wasn't accepted to any school.

So Janie's parents were with her when she had her baby, and they took care of me when my mom went to school to become a registered nurse. She told me once that she never wanted to be a nurse but had to do it for the money. It is because of me that Janie didn't get to go to journalism school. It's not my fault; I'd take it all back if I could.

When Janie became an RN, she took me from my grandparents' house to go and live with her. I remember the same routine would happen everyday when I would get off the bus from daycare.

"Hi Jason," said my mother.

"Hi Janet."

And then the screaming would start.

"Why don't you call me mother? I am your mother!"

A mother is someone who raises a child. You didn't raise me I have no mother.

Janie started dating once she got a good job. There was always one man or another living with us and taking my mother out at night. Thing were getting pretty chaotic, until Harold arrived and took over. Janie told me she was getting married and I was confused because no man had been living with us for some time. I welcomed the idea because I thought it meant that my mom and I would continue to live alone together. I soon found out how wrong I was. Harold took Janie away on a really long honeymoon. When they got back, Harold tried to force my grandparents to legally adopt me and take me in. He never liked me, and didn't want a bastard child roaming around the house that was now his.

I was starting the first grade when Harold moved us into a different house, farther away from my grandparents. I noticed that my mom had been getting fat, and Harold seemed to grow happier as she got bigger. I remember sitting up at night and listening to their arguments. Harold wanted a child of his own, but my mother didn't want to have any more children. She kept saying that she didn't want to quit work for another child and she was concerned about my grades in school. Harold didn't listen; he put Casey in my mother's stomach and forced her to have the baby.

While Harold grew happier and Janie kept taking more and more pills, I got sick. My mother blamed it on the dirty water at school. Harold just said it was food poisoning that would be gone in day or so. The doctor said I had chronic influenza. However I got it; it kept me bedridden for ten-and-a-half weeks.

It was during this time that Casey came. My grandma came over to watch me while my parents went to the hospital. My grandpa called me from the hospital and asked me what I wanted to name the baby. Janie and Harold didn't have a name for her because Harold had been confident that he would get a boy. I told Grandpa to name my sister Casey, the name of a nice lady at my daycare that was the only one who didn't make me stand in the corner.

Casey brought a new liveliness to our dingy house. I was glad to have her and my mother home with me during the day. I remember little Casey would sit in the doorway of my room and play with her bear while I would wretch off the side of my bed. She would watch me with those enormous blue eyes while I sweated through my sheets and coughed up blood. It was a great comfort just to look at her until the heaving started up again.

Casey got older. We grew very close because of all the things we had to endure because of Harold. She used to cry when he would holler at me and force me to do things and my mother wouldn't do anything to stop him. But now Casey doesn't cry anymore. She has experienced the horror too many times to continue to fight against it. I would have taken Casey with me had she not remained loyal to her parents. I had made my plans to escape with her, but she refused to leave Janie and still called Harold her father. I hope that someday she will break free, but by then I will be far away.

Jason folded the papers back and stuffed them in his suitcase. "Wow, a lot has changed since then," he thought. "Janet and Harold finally got a divorce and now mom's married to Tom." Jason didn't run away when he was seven because he ultimately couldn't bear to leave his mother and sister alone with Harold. He stayed at home and was in his last year of high school when he got his first girlfriend.

"Aubrey."

Jason walked to his desk and picked up her picture taken at the senior prom. "She's changed everything for me," he thought. "She's made me feel happy and loved. She convinced me to give my mother another chance, but after yesterday I don't have any more chances to give her."

Tom and Jason had gotten in a fight the day before and it finally came down to Jason telling Janie to choose between her son and her current husband. When Janie said nothing, Jason had walked out, despite Casey's wailing and tears. All of his life he had tried to protect his mother from herself, and she had always sided against him.

"I'll still come up from college to see Aubrey though, just never back here," Jason thought. He took one last look around the house that held so many sad memories, picked up his suitcase and shut the door behind him.

He called Aubrey on his cell phone while he was driving back to the university.

"Hello?"

"Hey Aubrey it's me."

"Oh, hey Jason, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm ok."

"Are you headed back to school?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Oh," she said. Her voice sounded sad and worried.

"Are you ok Aubrey?"

"Yeah, it's just that I had something to tell you. I had hoped you would stop by before heading back to your dorm."

"Oh, I'm sorry. What did you need to tell me?"

"Jason, I'm pregnant, and I'm only eighteen years old."

Jason paused for a long time. He looked at the lush green trees whizzing past him on the highway. He looked at the clear blue sky up ahead. He looked down at his left hand holding the steering wheel and felt his right hand grasping his cell phone to his ear.

"You're not going to have it though, are you?"

There was a sickening silence on the other end of the phone.

"No, I hadn't wanted to, but," Aubrey hesitated, knowing that the silence on the other line already answered the question she was going to ask. "No, I'm not, I just wanted to tell you that that's what was happening." Her voice was shaking and now it sounded like she was really crying.

"Ok, Aubrey, well I've got to go. I'll talk to you later, ok? Love you."

"Oh, you have to go now?" The girl was surprised. She knew that there was no way he could already be at the university; there was no reason he should need to get off the phone. She wiped her eyes and drew herself up. "Well, have a good week Jason."

"Ok, bye."

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