My Fields of Everything

By Angelika Crescenzi

A poignant story of survivorship. A dark story of pain. A beautiful story of unrelenting love. A story of what lies in her fields of everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9780993878701

Book preview

Crescenzi

Chapter 1

Being

Have you ever felt different? Felt like a shadow that has been cast into the world; a soul floating like a thin, delicate bubble ready to disappear with one prick of your own reality? I sat in the school bus and gazed out of the dirty window. The window reminded me of how I saw the world, imperfect with affected clarity. The road was bumpy and the bus was hot, humid and fetid. I felt the dampness beneath my armpits and my pants were sticking to the vinyl seat. Vinyl is probably one of my least favourite things in the world, it just feels vile and horrible and most likely my subconscious connects it to something of my childhood. I watched the scenery and saw the house with the long driveway. I always sat up a little bit straighter when I saw it. There was something about what it represented to me. The trees were orderly, lush and lined up both sides of the extended laneway. There was a rolling, emerald green field that permeated even the shitty dirty window and I felt like that place, that house, would have happy children running around inside and parents that laughed. It whisked past my sightline as quickly as it appeared and I settled back into my seat. The bus came to a halt and I left with my bag. Standing in front of my own home I tried to find reasons why I should go inside. There was no happiness running within the veins of my home. There were no parents that laughed. We were perhaps on what others would call an upswing. My father had once again recently checked himself into a psychiatric hospital and was probably knitting or crocheting something therapeutic that professionals thought would help to ‘fix’ him. He couldn’t be fixed. His meandering existence in my life didn’t matter to me anymore. I didn’t care, I really didn’t. There was a sort of healthy detachment I had developed from my family, probably because I didn’t live at home very often. I came and went, that fragile bubble, but today I had to come. No one was home when I opened the door but the air smelled of stale alcohol and old cigarettes. The house was filthy and I wondered where my mom was. My mom is a whore...probably not a gracious word, but the only word I can find that would accurately describe her. My younger sister, Lily, older brother Ryan and I are all fathered by different men. The man who I refer to as ‘father’ has been a passing guest since the time of my birth. Lily and Ryan don’t know who their fathers are and I’m not sure my mother knows who their fathers are. Some things are best left a mystery given the stellar existence of my own dysfunctional biological father. Lily was kept in the hospital extensively after her birth and named by one of the nurses that attended to her arrival into the world. My mom was too high, too detached, too mentally absent to make decisions. It is inscrutable that people like my mom are allowed to have children. They have licenses to drive a car and to catch fish, but not to create life. I don’t understand. Lily is in grade nine and is quiet and withdrawn. Despite her life born into addiction she is a very bright girl and has a heart that has been far more forgiving towards my mother than mine. She goes to a different high school in the city and even as a spry young adult she began making very independent and mature decisions that best suited her. Decisions that were far beyond her years. She is an old soul, a survivor and I love her because she represents that there can be goodness that comes from ugliness. She was placed in a foster home until my mother was deemed capable to raise her. Her capabilities were limited and it was just a matter of time until our home returned to the perilous place we all knew it to be. Lily wanted a separate start, a place where no one knew her family. She has a boyfriend who is actually a decent person and his decent family allows her to run to their house when the going gets tough. I don’t worry about Lily too much because Lily survived her beginnings and I know she will survive all the rest. My older brother Ryan has always been more of a concern to me. He disappeared after he dropped out of high school. He is consumed by anger and it became so engrained in him that I don’t think he knew anything else; I don’t blame him for his careless rebellion. I love and like him and he is a fascinating person. He could have gifted the world with his charisma. He has an infectious laugh and beautiful copper hair that fell beautifully around a face that was decorated with the most brilliant sky blue eyes and full lips. He had a presence about him but as the time passed he perished into the sadness that was our life. I don’t think Ryan would survive and I miss him. I miss him terribly. Then there is me, Charlotte, the girl who stands in this hell hole trying to figure out if she is going to run or stay. Sometimes I find it perplexing to think of how I have managed to survive my beginnings and my own story, but I have. Perhaps it is my wit but I know a lot of it is necessity. My beginnings are clouded with memories of my father, Jack, entering my room at night. His feet always shuffled along the dirty carpet and I would lie in bed pressing my eyes shut and pray for him to leave. Then I would think of Lily and know that if he didn’t shuffle in through my room, he would turn around and shuffle into hers and I couldn’t bear the thought. He smelt of everything acrid and ugly and because he smoked so much he gasped as he would sit down on the side of my bed. I don’t think anyone can really comprehend how those experiences frame how you view the world. I think my strength comes from mere happenstance, like being thrown into a torrent river and having the instinct to swim. Some people just can’t and some people can. I don’t know if it has anything to do with strength or will. Ryan didn’t have more or less will or strength than I do. I just think some rivers are too big for us to swim out of and it depends what current you get caught in. I shake my head for a moment realizing that I am still standing in my living room. It’s quiet and I wonder where Lily is, where my mother is. I see a cockroach crawl over some food that has been left on the floor. I hear the meow of a cat and realize that we never had a cat. The smell resonating from the kitchen is pungent and revolting. I peer inside and see cat feces all over the floor. Covering my mouth and almost gagging I make my way to what was my room. It looks like the bed has been slept in but I don’t know by whom. I open my drawers and empty out some tops, underwear, a few pairs of pants. I don’t really have a lot of clothes, but I have been tired of hunting around in the school’s lost and found. Someone inevitably recognizes their clothes once I walk around school with them. I wonder if there is anything else I should bring because this is the last time I want to return to this house. Although it has been a long time since Jack has visited this room, there is a sickening layer that covers me every time I step over the threshold. When I leave, no one will come looking for me and the thought leaves me liberated and shaken all at once. I hadn’t exactly thought of a plan past a few days but all I knew is that I had to go. The river was going to swallow me and I already felt the water enveloping my spirit. I felt as if I was clawing at the shore trying to crawl into the wide open space, the field of my dreams and a brighter spot to call a memory. As I left I stopped at my mom’s room....a room that had been shared by many and I felt saddened by a woman that could have been so many things and wasn’t. I smile because I remember a birthday party she had put together for me when I turned seven. She had baked a cake and dropped coins in the batter. I think she was supposed to cover them with foil but she was so high she just threw all kinds of dirty coins in the cake and baked it. With a cigarette hanging out of the side of her mouth she tried to coordinate the basics of party hosting while three of my friends sat horrified at the sight of her cursing in the kitchen while she lit a tea towel on fire. I don’t feel sad for myself when I remember this moment but feel deeply heartbroken for her. Strange how things work sometimes. No matter what, we still all want to love our parents, even if they have been horrible. I shut the door behind me and begin to walk into the diffused dusk. It’s a long way back to town, the solitude of the straight road is methodical and I gaze across the fields that stretch along into the sunset. The weather is mellow and welcoming and I can smell the imminent spring weaving through the air. I will be graduating in shy of four months’ time and will be the first of my family to do so. Nothing has given me more focus than trying to chase this dream and to go to university. I haven’t much idea of how to pay for it, but I was hungry for the reality of starting fresh. My return address for applications was Mr. Cheung’s store where I have a part-time job. I couldn’t risk paperwork arriving at home only to be discarded or misplaced. The Cheungs have become family and they often allow me to stay in their storage room so as to hide me from his mother-in-law’s meddlesome inquisition. They give me food and Mr. Cheung will add more money to my pay saying that I must have miscalculated my hours when I know he is just trying to give me more money. They are kind people and I think to myself that I may have to sleep in their storage room because it might be too late to hide in the school and sleep in the science lab. It’s getting dark and I inhale deeply to smell the freshness of the world. I am walking away, saying good bye, not knowing exactly what was waiting from me.

Chapter 2

Path Interrupted

I step aside and walk on the gravel as headlights begin to pass and I know I am close to town. Behind me there is a car slowing and I walk further to the side but the lights illuminate my body and I turn.

Heh I hear someone call out but I don’t answer. An unexpected spike of panic ripples through my body like a stealth reptile and I keep walking.

I said heh!, so I stop. Turning I cover my eyes to the extreme headlights that flood both me and the road ahead. The headlights pave a daunting runway and I see three figures exit the car. I smell alcohol and the bitter, sugary smell of weed. I squint to narrow my vision and something inside of me feels sick. All I want to do is move and keep walking but my legs abandon me and I find myself begging my limbs to produce something that they are simply not capable of.

Well look who we have here.... One voice trails off into another.

My head feels dizzy and I stare at the ground. I recognize them from school. One of the boys lives in the big house; the one that I envision has happiness woven throughout it.

What are you doing all the way out here? You’re way too pretty to be walking all by yourself the other snorts while taking a drag of a joint.

I whirl around as another grabs at my top. My feet still won’t move and I can’t speak. The sick feeling in my stomach rises to my throat.

Maybe you’re waiting for us another one slurs as he rests himself against his car. It’s an expensive car and I can’t quite make out the colour. Part of me wonders why I’m even concerned about the colour of a car. I knot my fingers together nervously.

I’m just on my way home I manage to stutter out.

I begin to walk and one of them blocks my way.

I shake my head and my knuckles turn white as I project all my anxiety into my hands. My eyes shoot up and I look at him, one of them, directly in the eye. He flinches and looks away. I want to see them.

You need to leave and I turn and begin to walk, the wrong way, but I’m walking.

I hear shuffling behind me and the crunching of