DEPARTED
by
Samantha Romero
Copyright © 2014 Samantha Romero
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, events, brands and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
1
David
“Dearly beloved, family and friends, we are gathered here today to bid farewell to a kind and generous man who believed in protecting others—right up to the very end. He was a loving and devoted husband, son, and brother. Today, we celebrate the life of Alexander du Toit. In our darkest days of grief, let us be comforted that a better place is coming for us all.”
How can we go through so many moments in life where nothing really stands out? Day after day, year after year, we meet one person after another, and everything blurs into a black haze, where sometimes the monotony of it all finds us struggling to remember what we did the week before, let alone who we saw.
Yet out of nowhere on some random Tuesday, a day you thought would just blend into all the others—neither good, nor bad—something happens in the blink of an eye, and your entire life changes. Forever.
No matter how hard you try to get your life back to the way it was, deep down, you know things will never be the same. And unlike the blurry past where events and people neither interesting nor memorable gravitated into a vacuum of oblivion, now you can remember everything in crystal-clear detail: What you were wearing, where you were, and what the weather was doing that day. You can remember everything about the moment that you first heard the devastating news and your life was ripped apart at the seams.
No one else hears the explosion. It doesn’t affect others—or at least, they don’t care. And so, the nebulous around you continues. People laugh and casually chat on the street while your brain is exploding with the pain, horror, and confusion of it all. Nothing else stops per se—just your world. And had you not gotten the news, your normal, formless state of day-to-day living would have carried on also, and you never would have appreciated the “simplicity” of what you had.
How could he leave me to face this world alone? To face them alone for the first time in my life? How could a fight turn into this? It gave an obvious full stop to a part of me that would now be perpetually lost.
Why couldn’t I have stopped the fight and calmed him down before he took off in the car? He had taken it upon himself to face the constant pressures and expectations with me. He’d been the shoulder I could—and did—lean on.
I wish I could somehow be more like him: loving, feeling—normal. Without the “blessing” of a gift, somehow he had a “normal” life with relationships and even a kid on the way. Instead, I was always away at competitions, in concert halls; travelling a million miles away from normality and living in hotel rooms, enduring fake friendliness and endless compliments about my brilliance.
Money gave me no happiness. I would have preferred to live in a box on the street and have my freedom than deal with the constant guilt and pressure shoved down my throat day after day.
It’s not a gift when you don’t want it. It’s a curse, a burden. Constant, unrelenting pressure—something I had lived with my entire life.
It was who I was.
It was what I did.
It was the only thing I was good at.
It was what “the people” wanted.
But what about me? What about what I wanted? No one had ever asked me that; everything was decided for me from day one. As far as they were concerned, I was brilliant, gifted, and just needed to shut up and smile, be gracious and grateful. After all, I gave hope to the people. I lit up their lives by transporting them into another word from the moment my fingers touched the keys.
And the one person in my life who understood my pain and loved me unconditionally—the one person who would visit just to see me for a chat without demanding I play the latest concerto or questioning my opinions on Scriabin’s idiosyncratic tonal language was gone.
He never labeled me by what I did, unlike everyone else, who confused the gift with who I was. And now he was now dead. All because of my “gift.” All because of my fucking talent.
The worst thing was that they were all convinced it was my passion. My love, even. I was good at it—let’s be honest, I was fucking brilliant—talented without effort, but so what?
I started playing at the age of three, and was pushed on stage for my first public performance at five. I remember that day; they dressed me in white, highlighting my innocence. Playing the “isn’t he darling?” card. People in the front row wept as they watched me play. I had no idea why.
I never had a choice. I was virtually chained to the piano, forced to play day in and day out because I gave “joy” to people and brought “blessings” to my local church. Do you have any idea what it’s like as a child to have so many people come at you, saying such things? I found it so overwhelming that often I would go home and cry, rocking myself on the floor until I fell asleep from emotional exhaustion. Relatives thought I might have been autistic. I wasn’t. I was just really sad.
By the time I hit my twenties I was numb to it all.
I felt nothing when I played.
Nothing when I performed.
Nothing when everyone told me how great I was.
I tried to tell them how I felt, but they said I was talking nonsense. I had an obligation to society, and if I stopped, I would be letting “the people” down.
Fucking bullshit.
Strangely, I found it more nerve-racking to go to the supermarket or visit the local post office. Normality freaked me out. I didn’t know what normal was.
The other issue was trying to relate to another human being. I didn’t know how to react, or what to say, and because of that, I really struggled. Half the time, if I’m totally honest, I truly believed everyone else was just fucking stupid.
The only person I “got” was Alexander, and he was the only person who “got” me. Having to face the world without him—well, I didn’t see the point.
“May your soul, forever young, rest in peace. Amen.”
As the rain fell, they threw the dirt on his coffin and lowered the box into the ground. People wept and huddled together for comfort and support, tears streaming down their faces.
No one bothered to hug me or ask how I was doing. I stood there alone, head bowed, my priceless hands stuffed in my pockets. My twin brother’s funeral was no different than any other day. If I wasn’t sitting at the piano, no one noticed me.
Maybe it was one last message from him, a parting gift to keep me sane, like a bright light, I suddenly realized I didn’t have to put up with this bullshit anymore. Turning on my heels, I ran from his gravesite.
For the first time in many years, I felt an emotion. I actually felt my heart ache. How could he be dead? Why couldn’t God, in all His infinite wisdom, have taken me? Alexander loved life with every breath of his body. He was happy, making a difference in others’ lives; he had a beautiful wife, a baby on the way —love.
I had none of that.
I wanted out—freedom, peace.
An existence devoid of “gifts.”
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
– from “Stop All the Clocks” by W.H. Auden
2
Estelle
Six years later…
“What do you do?”
&n
bsp; Jesus, I hate that question. Why the fuck does it matter? It’s like the person is trying to sum you up in one fell swoop—box you, judge you, nail you down.
Then comes the next one: “Where do you live?” What are you—the fucking FBI?
Why do people want to label and box everything? It’s almost as if any potential friendship depends on the answers you give. Most of the time, I don’t want to be friends anyway. Friends, I’ve found, are overrated.
Family. Also overrated and romanticized in books and ads to look much better than what it actually is. We’re not all Hallmark, and we shouldn’t all be left feeling so goddamn guilty and sad about the skeletons we keep in our closets.
My family life was like a long trail of skeletal dominos, all of us just hanging in there, wondering when someone or something would push us enough for the whole shitty trail to take a zigzagging crash and fall. When it came to the ideal family, what we were supposed to be, we weren’t even in the ballpark.
That’s why, on my twenty-second birthday, I realized I only had two options: to stay and be miserable or just leave. Some may have seen it as running away, you know, taking the easy way out. But, I didn’t. It had been six years since my mom had died and six years of his sexual crap. I felt like I had done my time.
To this day, I don’t know why I stuck around for that long. To finish school, I guess, is as good an excuse as any. I went to college but chose stupid, pointless subjects that I enjoyed but didn’t help much in the real world. Art and English. What was I thinking?
So, I left. No forwarding address, no connections, no judgment from the people who knew me… just freedom. From my small island life in Cape May, NJ, I flew far away, across the ocean to a whole new world with endless opportunities! I put over three and a half thousand miles between me, my demons, and the past, instantly solving every problem I ever had. Or so I thought.
My mother always said, “You pay a price for every decision you make, Estelle.”
She was right; I should have listened.
3
Dancing was always the one thing that made me happy. I couldn’t help but smile every time I started to move my body to the rhythm of the music. It freed my mind, took me into another world, and filled my soul with pure joy. It always has and always will.
I wanted to be a ballerina when I grew up. I desperately wanted to twirl around gracefully on the stage wearing one of those fluffy, sparkly, sticky-out things I later found out were called “tutus.” One afternoon, I decided to get super inventive and made my very own. I decided cardboard would be the best and easiest thing to get a hold of; it wasn’t as soft or whimsical as tulle, but it did stick straight out and about.
Slowly but surely, I cut the cardboard into a donut shape with a slit down the back of the circle, perfect for squeezing my little body through. Then I sat on the floor, deep in concentration as I carefully and painstakingly glued lost and lonely sequins in every imaginable color and size, all over my ingenious design.
A few hours later, after creating a sticky, sparkly mess on my poor mother’s carpet, I was fairly satisfied that the end result sparkled almost as much as the Sugar Plum Fairy. She was the one who first inspired and mesmerized me. It was my nana’s fault. She took me to see The Nutcracker as a special treat one Christmas Eve. From then on, I knew that I needed a tutu in my life.
After that, most afternoons after school, you would see me spinning and twirling in my cardboard cutout. I was off in my own little world of beauty and magic, and it was wonderful. I was allowed to begin ballet lessons at the ripe old age of eight. From that day forward I was hooked and danced almost every day up until my sixteenth birthday.
Sometimes—most times—childlike dreams and aspirations don’t pan out unless you are really willing to fight tooth and nail to get them. The day after my mother died, my dream was cut short when my father, who had always considered my dancing and the money we dropped into it as a pointless waste, made the decision that enough was enough.
I not only lost my mother, but I also lost my escape—my dream—and I was devastated. Like a porcelain vase knocked off a high shelf, I was broken into many pieces. I knew within my heart even if one day I was lucky enough to find all the shards and glue them back together, like the vase, I would never be the same again.
I realize I never would have been a principle ballerina; I wasn’t naturally talented, although, I did have an undying passion and dedication. But once Mom was gone, my dad’s behavior spiraled out of control, and dancing slipped farther and farther away from me. If I hadn’t left when I did, I hate to think what would have happened.
4
Walking off the floodlit stage and stepping into my dressing room, I felt so alive: the music, the rush of adrenalin pumping through my veins, the warmth of the stage lights lingering on my skin. I smiled to myself. There was a lot more money in it than I had thought. Dad was wrong to have made me stop dancing; I loved it, and so did the audience. Now I was a dancer, and I was making a living from it! A bloody great one, depending on the night, and more than anything—finally—I was fulfilling my dream!
I turned, hearing the familiar shuffling footsteps as they approached the door of my dressing room. Without even so much as a knock, a round, heavily scarred face peered around the flaky, green door.
He smiled widely, as he clapped his chubby hands together, ogling at my reflection in the oversized mirror adorned with tiny flashing bulbs. “Jesus, bella, you were amazing tonight!” His strong Italian accent was slurred. I was sure the glass of vino in his hand was at least his fourth of the evening.
I smiled, shrugging as I leaned forward to check my makeup in the mirror. “What can I say? I love it.”
“We had some new clients at the show tonight, and they were very happy indeed. They were fixated!”
I smirked, primping my hair, totally unable to camouflage the glowing happiness that sparkled back at me in the mirror. “I’m glad they liked my dancing.”
He laughed, lingering in the doorway as he took a drag from a self-rolled cigarette. “Principessa, don’t kid yourself—it’s your body they like. Those tits of yours are fucking amazing. They could turn a gay man straight—I’m almost certain of it. Your body equals instant erection.”
I crossed my arms, suddenly feeling the urge to cover myself. He made me feel so cheap, the exact way my father had made me feel many years before when he got his creep on. “But, I’m a dancer—it’s about the performance.”
He laughed, leaning up against the door as he gazed across to my body. “If it makes you feel better to think of it that way, then do. But at the end of the day you know, just as much as I do, that you’re a talented stripper with an amazing body. A body that all those men out there want to fuck,” he laughed as he took another drag from his cigarette, running his hand through his short, outdated, peroxided hair. He was the strangest Italian I had ever seen.
“You should consider it, you know…”
Trying to ignore his pornographic stares, I began wiping off the thick layers of makeup that covered my face. “Consider what?”
He smirked and blew out smoke from his thin, creased lips.
“You know you’re not supposed to be smoking inside!” I coughed. “Yuck! It’s disgusting, Mick. Stop it!”
He slyly smiled, still eying my bronzed cleavage in the mirror. “Don’t change the subject, bella. I’ll smoke if I want to. And you know exactly what I’m talking about, Estelle; don’t bother playing dumb. I’m talking about taking it one step further—fulfilling their fantasies on and off the stage.”
In disgust, I slammed my hand down on the dresser, dropping the oversized wet wipe, which was now covered in black eye makeup, pink lipstick and enough sparkling bronzer to sponsor the local Mardi Gras parade. I walked to the door, clutching my body, so he wouldn’t see what he knew like the back of his hand. “Get the fuck out, Mick! I’m not a prostitute!”
He laughed and took a step backwards as he put his hands up. “Shhh, Estell
e—bella, of course you’re not a whore. I wouldn’t want you to ever think of yourself that way. But… you’re very talented at what you do, and you could get paid a whole lot more. Think about the difference that sort of money could make in your life.”
“Get out!” I screamed, waving my arms around like I was Italian too.
“Just think about it for me, bella, okay? It’s not like you have a lover, so you wouldn’t be hurting anyone.”
“I would be hurting myself! I may be messed up, but I’m not going to sleep with a guy for money, ever…”
“But the money would set you up, principessa.”
I’d had enough of this conversation. I grabbed my bag and coat from the hook behind the door and yanked it wide to step past him. “I’m going home, Mick. Please stop harassing me about this. It’s not going to happen. I’m a dancer, that’s what I do.”
He looked down at my breasts and gave an exaggerated groan when I had no choice but to rub against him as I slipped by. “You’re a fucking stripper, Estelle! Stop kidding yourself. Sooner or later you’ll give in and give the clients what they really want.”
Departed (Unbearably Gifted Book 1) Page 1
