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Last week, Natalie’s life was at a constant speed of 100mph. Mom was bouncing off the walls- she accidentally broke the stove while dancing on the counter.
This week, she’s just exhausted. And sad.
They’re at the market, getting food that you don’t need the stove to make since they can’t get anyone to fix it yet. Mom’s pushing the cart. Very slowly- she’s barely even looking where she’s going. Dad’s trying to interact with her, but not she’s not responding.
They usually don’t go to the store all together. It’s usually just Gabe and dad, but on a good week (very very rare) they go together.
This was not a good week. Dad had insisted it’d be good for them (Diana). His crippling optimism is bound to get the best of this doomed family soon enough.
———
Natalie definitely spoke too soon there.
As she turned the corner into the drink isle, she noticed they had the Capri Sun flavor Gabe likes.
“Hey,” she looks around for her brother. Where is he? She looks at her parents, dad waving about happily, and mom staring into space.
“Gabe…?” she speaks quietly, turning in a circle, as if he’d magically appear.
Maybe he was still in the other isle. She retraced her steps, not bothering to inform her parents. Like they’d notice.
“Gabe?” she asked again, turning into the last isle they were in- canned foods. Gabe was curled up against the shelves, knees against his chest, and hands on the side of his head. It was obvious he was in pain, but also trying not to cause a scene.
“Oh, hey.” Natalie crouches down next to him. “What hurts?”
“Literally everything.”
“Okay… at least you’re honest.”
There’s literally nothing she can do to help the pain right now other than just be there, so she just starts talking about a new piece her piano teacher assigned her. She’s found Gabe likes to listen to people talk when he gets like this (she’s not sure if he actually listens to what she says, or if he just focuses on her voice to ignore everything else). They need to ride out the worst of it before they can ask to go home.
Natalie can still hear her parents-well, her dad- in the next isle over if she listens hard enough, so they can probably hear her too.
She keeps talking, moving on to explaining the plot of a book she read, knowing full well Gabe had read the book too (she stole it from him). She loses her train of thought when she hears a very loud crash, and a panicked yelp from the other side of the shelf.
“Oh! Di, are you okay?!” she hears her father yell. Natalie guess mom had tripped and crashed with the cart. Nice one. She tries to listen to what’s happening, but it just sounds like nonsense. Her parents are speaking over each other in rushed, panicked voices.
“Where are our children?!” she hears over her dad’s consistent blabbering. Uh oh. Mom’s gonna freak out, isn’t she? Natalie tries to prepare herself for the worst.
Obviously, no amount of preparation will ever actually make you ready, so she’s still terrified when she starts hearing her mom yell about being an awful parent, and screaming their names. Gabe starts crying, covering his ears. Natalie puts her hands over Gabe’s ears, too.
“We’re over here!” she yells. Her parents come barreling into the isle.
“There you are!” she has a relieved smile, and Natalie lets herself think that that’s the end. Until mom realizes Gabe’s hurting.
“Gabe, sweetie? What’s wrong?” She runs up to them, and pushes Natalie off him.
Mom is a lot stronger than she thinks she is. Especially when she’s a 33 year old woman who’s high on adrenaline pushing a 9 year old. Natalie’s back hits the concrete floor pretty hard, but she didn’t hit her head, so she doesn’t say anything. Her ears are ringing though, and she’s finding it pretty hard to breathe. She sits up so she isn’t staring at the bright, fluorescent lights.
She can’t hear over the ringing in her ears, and her vision is blurry. Her body is frozen. She watches the blurry scene unfold. It feels like she’s watching a movie on a really old television.
A figure wearing a blue vest runs into the isle. Natalie assumes they’re asking if everything’s okay, but why would you ask that if it’s very obviously not okay? Pretty sure people don’t act like this in public.
Mom turns, grabs a can of black beans, and hurls it at the worker. She misses, but it busts open when it lands. She starts yelling at the guy.
Dad gets Gabe on his back (Natalie has no idea how he managed that, but hooray, she guesses), and grabs Natalie’s hand. He pulls her out of the market and to the car. He places Gabe in the backseat and tells Natalie to get in too. Then, he goes back into the store.
Natalie climbs into the front seat. She knows there is some Tylenol in the glovebox. She grabs it, and a water bottle from the cup holder- probably dad’s.
“Here.” she says, handing him two pills (Natalie thinks he’s aloud to take two) and the water. He swallows them very quickly, and chugs, like, half of the water. Natalie goes back to talking nonsense. Gabe goes back to listening.
Their parents come back out of the store about 10 minutes later, and no one says anything. The car ride home was silent. Not even the radio was on. When they got home, Natalie and Gabe immediately went to their room. Gabe took a nap, and Natalie stared at the wall.
Everything had gone back to the way it was earlier by dinner. Gabe was feeling better, dad was overbearingly happy, and mom was just a shell of herself. It wasn’t anywhere close to normal, but it was a what Natalie lived with.
Dad made them watch the Outsiders (Natalie didn’t really pay attention), and play Candy Land (Natalie lost).
This was probably going to be the thing she remembers most from this summer. While other kids remember trips to Disney or pool parties, Natalie will remember the time her mom freaked out at the market, and the stove being broken. Those are some great summer-fun memories!
———
A couple weeks later, Natalie finds out that the market incident made it into the paper!
“Lady Freaks Out At Store Employee for Seemingly No Reason”
Yay! How fun!
Natalie had always known her mom was crazy, but that was probably when she actually realized it.