Jen Saunders

Truth

Chapter 1
 
July 7
 
 
 
“Hi Sunshine”, my mother proudly chirped at me. I was to go to my uncle and aunts house for the summer.
 
“G’ morning”, I spoke back with merriment.
 
“After you get dressed, you can go pack your attire and possessions into the car”, she calmly suggested. “Ok”, I agreed back.
 
When I turned to see what time it was, my alarm clock said eight thirty. I was going to be late if we were leaving at quarter past nine. Quickly I put on my clothes and ran to get my breakfast.
 
“Hurry we’re running behind the clock!” acoustically cried my mother. I was in the middle of eating my Salamander Crunch, which was my preferred cereal.
 
“Is everything in the car?” asked my mother behind her coffee mug.
 
“Justin’s, taking care of that, right now”, I answered back, while I was still chewing my cereal.
 
“Ok”, she came back with a sigh. I could tell that she misses my father this morning, because she could use his help. My father died when I was three and I don’t remember him that well. I only remember him from mom’s wedding pictures and other pictures that have him in them. I was told that he had died in a trucking accident, when he we was driving one night, in Detroit. From what I could see in the pictures, of him, he was a handsome man, dark brown hair and dark blue eyes. He had slight freckles on his face. He weighed somewhere around two hundred and forty pounds. Mom says that Justin looks a lot like him, but I disagree. 
 
Justin, my only brother is seventeen. He got to know father before, he was killed in the trucking accident. He was only five and a half and I was three. Justin is a nice-looking student at school, because of his looks. His blond hair made him look like he was a freshman attending college, like he was soon to be. He has an extremely skinny, muscle build and very athletic. My mother, Melinda was thirty nine, had attended Harvard Law School, and very alert for her age. She was very depressed and on antidepressant pills, for it. She was still looking like she was a beauty school dropout. Her coal black and hair was now starting to turn silver. Today she was wearing her purple contact lenses, instead of showing her color of her eyes, which were hazel. This was her fifteenth years as a lawyer at Madlock and Lions Law Inc.
 
In Rogersville, Maine, which is where, we live the population is over six hundred. We usually have nice summer weather and people come from Massachusetts or Rhode Island, to enjoy the summer weather or in the fall to come see the leaves change their color. They also enjoy the breathtaking mountains and to look for land to buy camps, or homes, or to go swim in the local lakes. Even though, we aren’t anywhere near the ocean, watching for sea turtles is considered a popular activity in our community, especially in the summer. Today when we left Rogersville, it was a perfect day to have a cookout in the backyard, go to the local amusement park, where Justin works, or hangout at the beach.    
 
It was nine twenty when we left our log cabin, by the lake. Everything that was packed had been in the bed of mom’s 1984 Ford Taurus. We were going to be traveling over six hours in the truck, until we reached my aunt and uncle’s house in Saint Christopher, Maine. It was poignant that I could not stay with my brother over the summer, even though he was staying at our house all summer long. He was only staying there, because he was old enough to stay in a house alone, and he had a summer job, but he was saving up his money to attend Santa Cruz College, in the fall.
 
While we were in the truck listening to the oldies station, I had a hunch that we were going to stop and see breathtaking mountains, waterfalls and other sightseeing places, so I had brought my digital camera. We stopped in Herminie, which was three and a half hours away from Rogersville, for our first sightseeing location was Erkin Mountain. The trees were turning their orange and yellow, for the autumn season.
 
“It was used as an Indian hideaway,” my mother told us.
 
“If we had time, I would take you on it, so you could see the Indian caves that are there”, my mother told us almost in a half whisper. It was the mountain, on which mom and my father had met.
 
“Well, we better get going soon”, Justin spoke up. I could tell that mom agreed because she was in the truck first. We were all in the vehicle in less then two minutes. Mom continued driving until we stopped at Mississippi Waters, which was a very gorgeous waterfall. No one really knows how it got its’ name.
 
Mom and Justin told me that it was where a scene in the movie, The Last of the Mochians, had a scene filmed. But surreptitiously, I doubt it. We also stopped in Hobbs, to see Ramsdell Pond. This is where Captain Peter Ramsdell, had a throng bayoneted, by a tribe of Indian’s in the eighteen hundreds. They say late at night, on the anniversary of the event, you can hear the drummer boys’ drum, beating in the wind, and the sound of footsteps, by the lake. That’s how the story had been told. After we had stopped and ate our picnic and admired the awe-inspiring views of the fall, and I had taken some pictures of the family and scenery, we got back in the truck and traveled for another hour and a half, until we switched lanes at intersection 78, where we turned to get to my aunt and uncles house, it started to downpour with ripping rain and loud monstrous sounds of thunder, that you couldn’t block out, even if you had the profound bass on. There was no point of trying to see spectacular views in this kind of weather.           
 
About two thirty we turned into the town of Saint Christopher, it was partly cloudy and had a moderate breeze. One of the bank signs said that it was seventy two degrees. It was amazing how quickly the weather could change in a matter of seconds. But best of all was that Saint Christopher was right on the coast, so it never got much snow in the winter, but in the autumn when the leaves started to change it was such a beautiful view.
 
It was about three o’clock, according to the radio DJ, when we had reached the coast. The sun was shying behind the clouds when we had pulled onto Lighthouse View Lane, for about fifteen minutes and then turned onto another road, where you could see a very attractive view of a lighthouse.
 
It looked pretty when it was in mid afternoon and with the sun, the way it was. From what I could see of it, it was an old one that was probably built in the late eighteen hundreds. The paint had been retiring and some of the windows had been busted, as well as boarded up. It was an old lighthouse that had been standing out there for boaters and fishermen to see as they were passing by. When we had come to the end of the road, mom turned the truck onto Golden Street. On the steps, a man was smoking a cigarette, and was unappealing. The house was painted yellow and ugly gray. I was quite certain that it wasn’t my uncle and aunt’s house. Finally we pulled into a driveway of a log cabin house that was kind of like our house. I was assuming that it was my aunt and uncle’s house. The logs were freshly painted and glossed. The windows were new and shiny. It had to be the new house that they had been saying that they were going to get last winter when they called us at Christmas. There was a basement, as well as an attic. The porch was all screened and the new porch swing was still swinging, from where someone had just gotten off from it. My mom stopped the truck and got out.
 
  My uncle Peter came off from the porch first and gave my mother a great big hug. He just said hello to Justin, who was still sitting in the car listening to a song by Def Leppard. He also gave me a welcome hug and then invited us into the house. Peter had gained some weight since the last time we had seen him, it was obvious that he had shaved quickly before we arrived, because he was showing a few missed hairs. He told us that he recently retired from the Marines and was looking for another job. A half an hour after we arrived my aunt Anjelica had arrived home from the nursing home where she worked. This was also the time that Justin came in. Anjelica had still looked the same. Her hair was still the same luxuriant brown and her eyes were still the same bold blue. She was still the same weight that she was last time we saw them. She looked a lot like mom because; she was mom’s fraternal twin.
 
“It’s good to see you again”, Anjelica told my mom.
 
“It’s good to see you to, sis”, my mother told her sister.
 
“So what’s everyone up to, these days?” asked my uncle.
 
“I’ve been accepted into Santa Cruz College”, Justin announced.
 
“Well that’s good. What course are you taking there?”
 
“I’m taking English”, Justin said with high encouragement.
 
“What have you been up to, Lin?” asked my aunt.
 
“I’m a freshman and a volunteer for a mentoring program. I’m, getting a free job at the local horse camp next year,” I told them with arrogance.  I guess mom was even taken aback because she had that look on her face. Justin just stood there with his arms folded staring out the window at nothing. At this time Justin and I left the house and went to the truck and brought in my stuff.
 
“Would you like a cup of tea?” asked my uncle, as he kind of already knew the answer. “No. Justin and I should be getting back home, so I can leave early tomorrow to catch my flight to England”, said my mother in a jubilant voice to Peter.
 
“Well ok”, Peter said quickly. After, mom and Justin, and the rest of us walked out to the truck, mom and Justin got in. My mom put her arm on the frame of the window and gave me a quick mother daughter kiss.
 
“Bye sweetie I’ll see when the summer is over”, said my mother.
 
“Yeah, see you when school starts up again!” Justin leaned over and said to me in a mockery voice.
 
“I’ll e-mail you and call you”, I foretold the both of them, even though I was talking more to my brother. I quickly went over to my brothers’ side of the truck and opened the door and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. I waved to them as they backed out of the driveway and drove out of sight.   
 
I entered the house again. I entered in the door by the den. The walls had now been changed to a patriotic theme, which I was assuming was from when Peter had been in the Marines and the chairs and furniture had been new and the floor was wood, and was flooded with rug flooring. In the kitchen, the refrigerator was now a slate white and the kitchen looked great. It was like one of those fancy kitchens that you would see in a cooking show, with the island and dishwasher. Peter came into the kitchen and told me that he would show me the attic, where I was going to spend my summer.
 
So my uncle and I walked to the end of the hallway, where there was a door by where the laundry room was. It was a door that lead its’ up to the attic. When I saw the attic walls, were naked. The cabinets, cupboards and drawers had recently been put up there, but they had been abandoned years ago. There was no bed for me to sleep on in the attic, just a mattress that had been leaning lazily for a short while, that and an old camping sleeping bag were to be what my bed was. There wasn’t even a TV or any lights up there, until I set my stuff up.
 
At about 3:30 I heard a vehicle pull into the driveway. My cousins were home from their last day of school. I heard no door shut, so I knew it was one of those jeeps that could put the roof down. I saw them walk upon to the porch and enter the house. I heard them talk to each other as they walked up the stairs and entered their separate rooms. I wondered if they could have the sense of hearing me coughing above them. A few moments later, I heard, the footsteps of one of my cousins, they were coming my way. The door opened and my cousin Chas spoke to me.
 
 “Hello Lin,” my cousin Chas said.
 
“Oh hi”, I replied back.
 
“Did I scare you?” he asked in a good natured type of voice.
 
“No”, I softly told him.  Chas was the oldest of my cousins. His real name was Charles, but we all call him Chas. He is a junior in high school and would have been a senior if he hadn’t stayed back in second grade. He stood five foot seven. He was a skinny person for his age, and weighed two hundred pounds, mostly in muscle. I had always known Chas for his concentration in horseback riding, as well as races and competitions. His blond hair had now started looking monotonous and unattractive. His once blue eyes had been transformed to brown contact lenses. His old interest had now been changed to football and girls. I could tell from his heavy coughing that he had picked up smoking and perhaps drinking.
 
“What have you been up to?” he asked me.
 
“I’m a freshman this year. You know, doing summer stuff and playing soccer”, I told him without looking at him.
 
“Oh”, he softly replied with no passion. Without noticing, he and Mordecai had entered the attic.
 
“Hello Mordecai”, I said to him when I noticed him. He had asked me the same matter that his brother had.
 
 “Not much”, I replied.
 
Out of all of my cousin’s Mordecai was my much loved one. That was mostly because he was mostly there when I needed him to be. He had always been like a second brother to me.
 
“I’ve been racing the shackled up GTO”, he said indiscriminately.
 
“Really how long?” I asked quite flabbergasted.
 
“A couple of months”, he said with high equal spirits, I saw him look at Chas, as though he was lying, and taking the fall for Chas. 
 
“That’s cool” I forced myself to tell him. The last time I saw the GTO was when the family went to New Jersey. I couldn’t believe that it didn’t have even one spot of rust on it. The indigo and ginger colors shined as if it were new. “Want to go see it?” Chas asked me.
 
 “No”, I replied. “I still have to set my new room up,” I added whiningly.
 
“Want us to help?” both of them asked. “Yeah sure”, I answered back.
 
“Don’t you want to start unpacking tonight?” Chas asked me rationally.
 
“Yeah sure”, I answered back quickly as I was already headed to my bags and boxes.
 
“We need to hook you up with a job tomorrow”, Mordecai told me. It went quiet for an hour; until Chas announced that he was going downstairs to work on his canoe.  I told him that it was fine by Mordecai and me, because all of us had it pretty much all set up.
 
It was somewhere around eight thirty when I realized that I had not had anything to supper yet. I went downstairs to the kitchen and made myself some chicken noodle soup and hotdogs. Sara, my youngest cousin, was in the living room watching some classic movie on TV. I didn’t bother talking to her because; she and I never really did get along with her.  I could see that she had dyed her hair from blond to black. But that was I could see of her, which was all I cared to see of her. After I made my soup and hotdogs, I took them back to my room and ate there. I turned my TV to MTV and watched some queer show on the channel and then I watched the Cartoon Network and watched some little kid cartoons. I missed mom and Justin already.    
 
The new room had been made now to look somewhat of a dormitory. My nightstand was flooded with pictures of Justin and mom, my friends and animals, such as my chocolate retriever, Caramel. My bedside light was being a statue of light on the stand. My TV was in the corner closest to the window and my movies were in a box beside it. The walls were already covered with posters of my favorite music stars and movies. My famous, poster of Gone with the Wind was posted by the TV.
 
I just remembered that Mordecai and I were to go job hunting tomorrow after he got done with his race. I had then looked over at my clock it had now read eleven fifteen; I was watching my movie of Teen Fugitive. “Bloody hell, time to turn off my movie and go to bed!” I examined when I read the time on my clock. I quickly turned off my movie and rolled over and fell asleep.
 
 
 
 
 

All rights belong to its author. It was published on e-Stories.org by demand of Jen Saunders.
Published on e-Stories.org on 03/28/2005.

 
 

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