My Response:
The blocks fell over and Tommy pouted. He had just spent the last hour working on that castle, and now it was nothing more than a pile on the ground. It wasn’t supposed to work that way. It was supposed to stay upright forever after all of that time.
Of course, he knew that nothing lasted forever. He had known that for a while now. Even things that he thought would never end, were.
Somewhere in the house his brother Jamie was getting ready for his graduation. Tommy had seen him putting on his suit, fixing his hair, and staring at the black gown the Tommy would have never worn in a million years.
He wouldn’t have thought that Jamie would either. He had been wrong.
His mother had been crying her eyes out the last time he had seen her, as if she was never going to see her son again, and his father kept going out to the garage to ‘finish his project’ before they left, but which Tommy knew meant he was probably crying just as hard as mom.
It wasn’t like Jamie was leaving! He was just graduating!
“What are you doing squirt?” Jamie’s voice sounded from the door, and Tommy glared up at him.
“You made my blocks fall.”
“I wasn’t even in here!”
“It’s your fault!”
Like Jamie needed this from his little brother right then. It was his graduation day. His mother kept crying and forcing him to stand still for pictures and his father kept disappearing as if whatever project he was working on outside was more important than his oldest son graduating from high school.
Now his seven year old brother was playing with blocks way too young for him, and Jamie didn’t want to deal with it. “Whatever, squirt. Just clean it up before we go, got it?”
He received nothing more than a glare from his baby brother as he walked away, his black robes floating behind him.
It was amazing to think that he had made it. That he was going to be walking across that stage and getting handed a diploma.
“There’s my baby!” His mother’s voice broke through his thoughts, and he forced a smile onto his face.
“Mom, I’m not your baby.”
“Come on, I want a picture.”
“You already have ten!”
As if that would ever be enough. Meaghan could still remember when she had held Jamie in her arms. When the doctors had laughed at his loud wail and told her that she wasn’t going to get any sleep for the next eighteen years. He had been right, but she had certainly never regretted it. And she wasn’t going to let him take away her pleasure in documenting every moment of his life.
“Jamie, I don’t like to use this, but I am your mother and I did…”
“Spend twenty-seven hours in labour with me,” He finished sourly, “Alright, take another one. But this is the last one!”
She lifted the camera gleefully, adjusting it until it was just right, then snapped the photo. As she had known he would do, Jamie disappeared before she could pull the camera away from her face, but she didn’t mind. This was the day that her first baby, the boy that she had spent countless hours thinking that she was doing something wrong with. And he was graduating!
“How many pictures have you taken so far?” Her husband asked as he walked up the stairs.
“Not nearly enough.” She told him, barely looking up at him as she scrolled through the pictures.
He was alright with that. He didn’t want her to know what he knew. He didn’t want her to realize that maybe he wasn’t disappearing to the garage for fun.
This was his son’s graduation day. They were supposed to be happy and celebrating. Instead he had a secret that he hadn’t been able to share with anyone. Not even the love of his life.
“What are you doing out in that garage, anyway? We have to go soon?”
Sean pasted a smile on his face, “I know, hun. I’m almost done. We can go soon.”
Actually, he wasn’t almost done. He would never been done. All he had been doing was trying to figure out a way to replace the money, but so far he hadn’t managed to come up with anything.
It had seemed to unimportant the first time he had dipped into the college fund set aside for Jamie. And, honestly, he hadn’t even thought that his son would use it. A few bad bets and suddenly it had gone from a few hundred dollars, to tends of thousands.
How was he supposed to tell his son that he wouldn’t go to college on his graduation day?
As always, I would love to hear what you thought of my response. Or, if you'd like, what you came up with for it. Post in the comments below!
All assignments are taken from The 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley
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