I.

The first time my mother said the word 'death' in our silent language left me in a temporary case of confusion. Temporary in the way that it did not last forever though it did leave an impact that would charge my life with bitterness for many years to come. For the day the word 'death' held meaning in my world was consequently the day my father died.

Even as the tears welled up in her eyes, her hands were fluttering to explain the how's, the why's. The questions of what to do now with our broken family had yet to surface. Those questions, I would later find, would beg to be answered at a later date. For now I was just a nine-year-old boy, unconcerned with anything past my present despair. I was a just a nine-year-old boy turning away from his mother---shutting his eyes to avoid what she had to say.

I did not cry that day. Nor the day after. Nor the weeks and months to come. Like a basin, I was full of hidden tears that I did not want to share with anyone. Not even my own mother.

So together we sat on the funeral pews. Side by side but infinitely worlds apart. Even surrounded by such sadness, aunts and uncles, cousins and family friends weeping for a man now lost I could not bring myself to cry.

Instead, I kept my head low, bowed in the prayers of my parent's Catholicism but already the words were losing their meaning. If a righteous God could steal a hard-working botanist and leave behind a city full of murderers, then was he truly righteous? I was so young then but in an instant I had begun to question everything. In the years to come, this faltered doubt would give way to emptiness. Even as I grew into a man, I never had the heart to tell my mother of my renounced faith but I think she knew, or at least eventually realized, that I was no longer Catholic.

It was not an entire lost, however. For my faith in religion became replaced by other things. Like science. I found comfort in the facts and solace in my personal discoveries. I kept my bible on my table but in the drawers were piles and piles of biology textbooks. Back then, while other boys were playing baseball I was eagerly calculating the speed at which a fruit fly's larva hatched.

By high school, this interest in science had replaced all other motivating factors in my life. I attended St. John's Academy---sporadically. Despite my later success in college, I was labeled a delinquent by my teachers and a ghost by my classmates. In truth, my chronic habit of skipping was mostly to do with boredom. I had become convinced that the walls of high school were too limiting for my academic pursuits.

But my principal thought differently.

And when he wrote a personal letter describing the situation, so did she.

After spending a day in the downtown library instead of school, I came home to the dead silence and burning gaze of my aging mother. She stalked forward, her petite frame transforming into a daunting anger. So although she was several feet shorter then me, I still felt as though she towered. Her hands jerked in a frustrated matter. 'Where were you today? Your principal wrote a letter to say you have not been going to school! What are you thinking?'

In a flash of insolence I grumbled a reply and turned my back without even signing--which was just as good as ignoring her. It was also just as good as ensuring a severe reprimand. With surprising agility she reached out and snatched my ear in a painful pinch. I yelped, if only out of alarm as she dragged me into the kitchen like a little child, setting me at the breakfast table. I endured two hours of scolding that forever stamped out any compelling notion to lash out with disrespect to this woman.

The next morning I was surprised by the sudden vibration of our front door's buzzer system. Built into the house itself, it registered a dull vibration across the wooden floors that could be felt in most parts of the house. The Grissom household rarely had visitors and even rarer would someone come to their doorstep on a 7 o'clock Thursday morning. This was perhaps why it came to my shock to find the peculiar figure of my next-door neighbor standing outside in the cold morning air.

Charlotte Greene was a girl in my grade whom I had known for many years out of our mothers being close friends. Despite the friendship of our parents, the feelings were never mutual between me and her. She was, as I distinctly recall, the perfect example of the 'wholesome all-American Catholic girl'. There was nothing pretentious about her. But the fact that she was well-liked and highly active in our school's social body was enough to keep me at a wary distance.

But here she was. At my doorstep. Standing in her St. John's uniform with matching book bag. She cocked her head to the side and smiled, "Morning Gil!"

"What are you doing here?" was all I managed to answer with. In defense, I was even more socially awkward then, then I am now. It was not that I ever wanted to be terribly rude to Charlotte; she was a rather okay person even if I didn't know her too well, but speaking with people had never been my forte. It still isn't.

"Nice to see you too," she replied undaunted, slipping past the slightly ajar door to step inside my house.

"Are you ready for school yet? If we leave in the next couple minutes we can make it to the bus stop on time."

I shut the door slightly perturbed, blinking. "We?"

"Yep," she nodded, fashioning her arms across her chest. "Didn't your mom tell you?"

I furrowed my brow, trying to think back if my mother had mentioned anything the night before about Charlotte Green showing up on my doorstep in the morning. I was sure she hadn't but then again, like I said here she was.

When I did not reply nor even move, Charlotte sighed and seated herself daintily on the sofa. Delicately smoothing her pleated skirt, she said, "Well your mom asked my mom if I could, you know, watch over you. Make sure you stay in school and all that jazz. I think she's just kind of worried that you aren't trying hard enough in your classes. But don't worry about it, buddy. Between studying after school and every Saturday, we'll have you back on track in no time."

I winced at her cheery optimism. It seems I had involuntarily become Charlotte's newest charity project and I was worried just what it might entail. When I tried to protest such a plan, she raised her hand and cut me off, "now Gil, whether you like it or not this is the way it's gonna be so get your books and we can get to school on time."

And no amount of grumbling and unfriendly glares could get this girl to waver. As time passed and this became a routine exercise, Charlotte continued to push me down the sidewalk---make sure I got on that bus every morning (as well as making sure I got off it in the afternoon), I only later realized the impression she had made on my life. That there had been many moments in which I should have said 'thank you' and that by the time I came to this epiphany it was already too late.