Henry
I'm playing with legos in Bailey's and Zola's playroom. It's fun but I miss my old friends… I like my new ones too... Bailey is cool… he shares all his toys with me and Zola is kinda girly but that's okay because she comes up with the greatest make believe stories when we're playing. It's just… they're not Lucas and Georgia and Caroline and Rachel… We used to play with each other all the time… since like… forever and we used to hang out when I went to work with Mommy and Daddy. Now everything's different… We don't even live in the same house anymore. I heard mommy talking to her friends saying that we're leaving and probably not coming back. She told them that she'd probably have people come pack up the house and send our things to us in the mail. I don't think I like that idea… I want to go back home. I haven't told my mommy because she's been really sad. I think it's because of Daddy. She says that he's not coming home and that made me sad too. When I asked her where he was, she said that he was in the sky now but I really don't understand how he got there. My dad is a doctor, not an astronaut. I don't think she's telling me everything. I'm thinking about asking Auntie Melia… I remember my mommy saying that Auntie doesn't know when to not tell the truth so maybe she'll tell me.
I get up off the floor and I make my way down the hallway to the living room where Auntie Melia and Mommy's friends are talking and playing with the babies. They're all dressed up for my auntie's special dinner tonight. Even the babies… Baby Ellis has on a dress and my baby brother has on a suit like mine that my mommy makes me wear when we go to special places. She says it's classy or something like that. I was about to ask Auntie Melia about Daddy when I hear my mommy coming down the stairs.
"Okay, the twins are dressed for dinner and now it's your turn Henry," she says leading my sisters down the stairs in pink dresses. It's funny cause they don't even like pink. Parker's favorite color is yellow and Peggy's favorite color is purple.
She picks me up off the floor and takes me upstairs to the room where she dresses me in a black suit with a pink tie. My mommy says this is formal/business wear. She always says that when I wear this kind of stuff, I look like a "little man." She calls me her little man all the time though. I want to ask her about Daddy but I don't want her to get sad again so I wait to ask my auntie later. Mommy gives me my dress shoes to put on while she goes to get dressed. After I finish tying my shoes, she tells me to brush my teeth again then she combs out my curls. She says it's to make them fuller… whatever that means. When she's done, we both go back downstairs to everybody and they tell me that I look handsome. My daddy told me that that means I look nice and like a young man. It's because I have on my special suit.
I grab my Magic Treehouse book before we all go outside to the cars. I see Bailey and Zola get in the car with their mommy and I tap on my mommy's leg. She looks down at me, "Yes, sweetie?"
"May I ride with Bailey and Zola?" I ask and she looks over to their mommy. I see her nod 'yes' and I smile running over to their truck.
The twins and Everett ride with Mommy and Auntie Melia while the rest of us get into Bailey's mom's truck. I sit in the back row with Bailey and Zola while they strap their baby sister into her car seat in the middle row. We start driving and I open up my book. I'm at the part when Annie and Jack go back in time to the Civil War where they have to find a special kind of writing to help Morgan the enchantress save Camelot. It's the twenty-first book in the series. I finished the other one yesterday. I wonder if Teddy, their dog that was under a spell but was really a little boy, will be in this book. I wonder has Zola read these books before since she's a whole year older than me. She'd probably know if Teddy will be in this book. She'd probably know about my daddy too.
"Hey Zola," I ask and she looks at me.
She smiles, "Yes?"
"Do you know about the sky people?" I ask and she looks at me funny. I look up to see her mommy and auntie looking at me funny from the front seat too. It makes me feel a little funny.
Zola then asks, "What do you mean?"
"Well," I shrug. I don't know if I want to ask anymore but I have to know. I want my daddy back. Maybe if I knew more about the sky people, I could find a way to get my daddy back from them? "My mommy told me that my daddy wasn't coming home because he was in the sky now."
"Have you ever had a fish?" she finally asks after a long pause.
Yeah I had a fish before but he died… I don't know what a fish has to do with sky people but I answer anyway, "Yeah, I used to have one back at my old house."
"What happened to it?" she asks me.
I look at her confused. What does this have to do with my daddy? I answer her anyway, "Um, it died…"
"So, now your fish lives in the sky… with your daddy and my daddy too," she said then she goes back to playing with her dolls.
Did she just say that my daddy lives with her daddy and my fish in the sky? My fish died… Does that mean my daddy and her daddy died too? Is that what she's saying? I don't understand. I look up at her mommy and auntie and I see them looking sadly at me through the mirror and now I feel like I want to cry. Is my daddy dead? I don't want my daddy to be dead… I have to figure out how to rescue him from the sky people. I'll ask Zola about that later… Right now, I think I'm just going to read my book because I feel too sad to talk.
She pulled a piece of paper from her apron pocket and handed it to Annie. Annie read the list to Jack: Be cheerful. Lessen sorrow and give hope. Be brave. Put aside your own feelings. Don't give up. It's the last thing I get to read before we park at the church and get out of the car. I walk over to my auntie Melia's car where she, my mom and the rest of my siblings get out of the car. I reach up to my auntie wanting to be picked up. I still feel a little sad. I miss my daddy… When she picks me up, I wrap my arms around her neck and lay down on her chest.
My mommy walks over to us and brushes hair out of my face then kisses me on my head, "You alright, sweetheart?"
"Yeah," I say not moving from my auntie's chest.
We all walk into the church and there are a bunch of people waiting on us. I guess they're my auntie's friends. She introduced me to them as her godson and ring bearer. To be ring bearer means that I have the most important job at the wedding tomorrow. I have to walk down the aisle with the rings that Auntie Melia and my new uncle are going to wear on their fingers forever. I smile and wave then I lay back down on her chest. I just don't feel so good anymore.
Auntie Melia walks over to where all of the other kids and my siblings are then sat me down with them. She kneels down to look at me, "Hey big guy, we're about to get started, okay? Could you sit right here for a little bit for me? We're going to need you in a second."
I just nod and look back down to my feet. She gently lifts my face and looked me in the eyes, "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah," I say with a smile. She nods then kisses my head just like my mommy did earlier then walks back over to all the adults.
All of the other kids are talking but I don't join in. I can see my siblings, Zola, Bailey and Ellis but I don't know the other two. One of them has hair like my sisters but theirs is browner than hers is, and the other one of them is older and has curly hair like mine… I wish I brought my book inside… Peggy walks over and sits down beside me. She's sucking her thumb which means she's sad about something.
"What's the matter?" I ask her, she just shrugs then lays down on my lap. I wonder if she's sad about Daddy too.
"I thought this was supposed to be a dinner," the little girl beside me says.
"It's a rehearsal dinner," the older boy says, "that means that they have to rehearse for the wedding then we can have dinner."
"But I'm not even in the wedding. My mommy is," the girl responds.
The boy chuckled, "Well, you're here with your mom just like I'm here with my step-dad. I think my mom is coming to the dinner though."
"I don't think my mama is coming to the dinner though," she says.
He looks at her, "Why not?"
"Because my mommas aren't friends anymore… I think it's because Mama's upset that I live with Mommy now," she shrugs.
Before they finish, my mommy comes over to get Zola, Parker, Peggy and me for the line up. They are the flower girls and are put in line behind me, I'm in line after my mommy. After all the adults walk down the aisle, the lady who is over the wedding tells me to start walking and I try my best to walk to the beat of the song like we practiced. When I got to the top, I stand in front of this red-headed lady… I think her name is April and she's my new Uncle's best man. I don't get it though, cause she's a lady.
After the rehearsal, we all walk across the street to the restaurant where we're going to eat dinner. All the adults sit together and they put all of us kids at one table except the babies who get to sit in the high chair with them. I order chicken fingers and fries and so do the twins…
When the waiter walks away, the little girl with the long wavy hair looks at me and smiles, "Are you shy?"
"No," I answer shrugging.
She just nods, "Oh okay, because you're really quiet. My name is Sofia. What's yours?"
"My name is Henry," I say.
She smiles, "Did you just move here?"
"I came here with my mom," I shrug and I point over to her then I point to the twins, "and my sisters."
"That's your mom?" she asks turning back around from where I pointed and I nod, "Wow, she's my mama's best friend! And she's my one of my God-moms! She says that she delivered me when I was a baby and she helped save my mama and me's life."
"Yeah, my mommy is a baby doctor," I say proudly.
She smiles, "My mama is a bone doctor and my mommy is a baby doctor. She takes care of kids my age too. And Tuck's," she says pointing over to the same older boy she was talking to earlier then she points at the twins, "Those are your sisters?"
"Yeah," I nod.
She looks surprised, "Oh, you guys don't look alike."
"That's because they're from India and I'm mixed… We were all adopted. My mommy says that we're all different because we all bring something special to the family. That's our little brother over there next to my mom," I tried to explain.
She turns back from looking at my mommy with a huge smile, "That's really cool! You really are special. I wish I had more brothers and sisters but I can just play with you guys and Zola. She's my best friend."
"Zola is my friend too!" I smile back. We have a lot in common.
We didn't get to finish our talk right away because we had to listen to a speech before we could start eating. But after, all of us kids got to talk a lot before we had to go home. Sofia told me that she'd see me tomorrow at the wedding and maybe after, she could come over to Zola's and we could all play. I really hope so. I like Sofia. She's nice and smart and pretty. I can't wait until tomorrow.
We get back into our cars and drive back to Zola's house where we all get ready for bed except the grown ups. They said the babysitter is on the way and they're going out to celebrate my auntie's wedding tomorrow.
When the sitter gets here, all of the adults leave and I grab my mom's iPad before joining Zola and Bailey in the living room. Parker, Peggy, Ellis and Everett are already asleep upstairs and I've been meaning to look up a word that I saw in my book. I didn't know what it meant. I go to Google and I type in the word: sorrow and the definition I get is a feeling of deep distress caused by loss, disappointment, or other misfortune suffered by oneself or others. I don't really know what that means so I look at the synonyms. My mommy says that synonyms are words or phrases that mean the exact same thing as the word I'm trying to look up so when I don't understand what the word means, I can look at the synonyms. The synonyms for sorrow are sadness, unhappiness, misery, despondency, regret, depression, despair, desolation, dejection, wretchedness, gloom, dolefulness, melancholy, woe, heartache and grief. I don't know what many of these words mean but I definitely know what sadness, unhappiness and heartache are… I guess that's how I feel… sad… unhappy… I feel sorrow… My heart really is aching… I can feel it… I don't like feeling like this. It doesn't feel good.
I close the iPad and I lay my head down on the couch. Zola and Bailey are watching some cartoons but I'm not interested… I just want my daddy back. I wish he was here. I wonder if there is a way to rescue him from the sky people… I'll just ask Auntie Melia when she gets home. Whenever that will be… I grab my book from beside me and I continue reading from where I left off.
I read until I wake up the next morning with the book on my lap and Bailey still asleep on the couch beside me. I don't know where Zola is. I guess she went to her room. I go upstairs to where my mommy is sleeping and I try to wake her. She smiles not fully awake yet and pulls me up onto the bed with her and holds me in her arms. For some reason this makes me sad and I start to cry… This wakes my mommy up and she sits up with me on her lap.
"See, I knew you weren't okay…" she sits me up so she can see my face, "What's the matter, baby boy?"
"I feel sorrow," I say and she smiles softly at me then chuckles a little. I frown, "It's not funny, Mommy."
"Oh, I know. I'm sorry sweetie," she pulls me close to her, "Did you just learn that word?"
"I looked it up," I say nodding against her chest, "It was in my book."
"Hum," she just nods, "Do you understand the sorrow, baby?"
"I think it's because I miss Daddy," I answer.
She nods against my head, "What you're feeling is grief… That's what happens when you lose someone, sweetie. I don't know how to actually fix it though because that's how I feel too. We'll have to learn together, right?"
I notice that there are tears in her eyes and it makes me want to cry more but she speaks up again, "I guess we just have to be brave. Stay hopeful that things will get better… that we'll feel better. We just can't give up."
"That's what my book said too," I answer with a small smile as I hold on tightly to her.
It's quiet for a moment before my aunt Melia walks into the room, "Guys! I'm getting married today!"