Elijah opened up a can of potted meat and green beans and put them on the ground in front of him side-by-side. He produced two beat up tin plates and two plastic spoons.
"It might not be four-star restaurant quality, but it will take the hunger pangs away," he said sheepishly.
"I'm definitely grateful that you have this out here,” I told him. “I turn into a real bear when I'm hungry. I wouldn't want you to see that."
"Trust me, I've seen some things that are worse than anything that you could ever imagine."
The way that he said that chilled my bones. It was almost as if a dark cloud had descended down over his head. Whatever it was, it was enough for him to feel like he needed to go out into a cave to try to forget about it.
He heaped a few spoonfuls from each can onto a tin plate and handed it to me. I took the food graciously and began eating it. It was cold and didn't taste all that great. But, I smiled and thanked him anyway. I wanted him to know that I really did appreciate the effort he was making.
"So, tell me about these nightmares," said Elijah, wiping gravy away from his mouth with his sleeve.
I stared down at my plate, trying to figure out how exactly to begin.
"It's a long story..." I said, turning my head and looking away from him.
"It's okay," he said, winking. "We've got a little time."
I laughed. He put his hand on mine, encouraging me to continue.
"To understand my nightmares, you would have to know the situation between my parents..."
As I began to tell him the story, my mind went back to what I’d always thought of as the day that changed my life.
I had just gotten home from the shopping mall where I’d gone to pick up new headphones so that I could listen to music on my phone. I had found some really nice ones. I was excited because they were on sale, so I was able to get them, plus a new pair of tennis shoes that I really liked, on the rather meager spending money budget I kept based off my nannying salary.
I walked in all proud of myself. I went to my parents’ bedroom, eager to tell my mother about my shopping win, and found her running around the room stuffing clothes into a giant suitcase that was becoming fuller as she gathered up handfuls of items and threw them on top of the suitcase. She looked frantic, like she was afraid of something.
"Mom! What's going on? What's wrong?"
She stopped dead in her tracks, hung her head, and turned to face me.
"What's wrong?" I asked again.
My mother had always been the glue that held out family together. She was soft spoken and accommodating. Even though I knew she wasn’t happy with my father, I couldn't remember them ever even having so much as a fight in front of me. I couldn't fathom what was happening and I needed for her to help me understand.
"Honey, I'm leaving your father."
The words seeped into my brain like venom. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I hadn’t seen this coming at all. I felt completely blindsided.
She sighed deeply, walked over to me, and held my face in her hands.
"This might be too much for you to understand right now. Maybe once you get older, you might understand. Your father and I have not been happy for a very long time. Your father doesn't care, either. He is fine with us just coexisting with each other, and with not paying any attention to me or downright scoffing at my ideas when I try to talk to him about them. Me, I want passion. I want the same things that he talked about when we were dating. I want that exciting man back that I dated all those years ago. I can't remember when life stopped being fun."
I looked at my mother: a nervous, frail woman. She had gotten thinner in the last few years. She was really beginning to show her age. I hadn't ever looked at her before the same way that I did that day.
I saw a tired woman, a woman so desperate that she would be willing to do anything for a tiny corner of happiness. I guess I had been too caught up in my own world to notice that she wasn't happy.
Things were just so normal at home that I hadn't thought about my mother as a woman with needs and I couldn't quite comprehend yet, since I have never been with a man. I thought that my throat was going to close up as I told Elijah the story.
"It's okay," he said softly, reassuring me to continue.
My tongue felt thick in my mouth and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to keep talking. I tried to talk and choked on sobs that I didn't know were about to come out.
"It's all my fault!" I said remorsefully.
"What is?" said Elijah, confused.
So, I told him the rest of the story.