Reaching into the drawer, I fumble through my assortment of underwear and inch my fingers toward the bottom. I graze my fingertips over a smooth flat object. My journal. I retrieve it and set it on top of my dresser. Another year. Another birthday. Keeping track of all of my birthdays is something I’ve done for ages. In fact, I’ve got about twenty crates in our attic reminding me of how many birthdays have accrued over the years.
We left Greece five-thousand years ago and have never looked back.
“Why are we leaving?” I’d once asked.
My mother didn’t elaborate. “Don’t ask questions. Just gather your things.”
I have it on good authority that my mother had a reason for making me flee the only home I knew. But I never asked her any questions about why we were leaving after that. I simply did as I was told.
Flipping through the pages of my journal, I found the spot where I’d written in it last. Three more pages to go. Two more birthdays, then I’ll need a new one.
“Hurry up in there!” Mom’s voice has a nagging tone to it. “You’re going to be late!”
“I’m coming!”
; I pick up a pen off my dresser and write down the same thing I write every seventeen years.
My Seventeenth Birthday-April 25, 2011
Location-Klamath Falls, Oregon.
The voice came again.
The first time I heard the voice was shortly after we had left Greece. Back then, when it came to me, it was a soft, rhythmic, seductive voice that wrapped around me like crushed velvet, a deep tone that caressed me, making my spine tingle. I felt drawn to it. Curiosity plagued me. I knew it was a man. The all-around over-powering, voice didn’t belong to a woman.
For centuries, the whole complexity of this situation puzzled me. Who exactly was this person? Why was he trying to reach out to me? What did he want from me?
After hearing the voice for five seventeenth birthdays in a row, I went to my mother and told her about it. I don’t really know what I had expected from her but, it wasn’t laughter. After she contained herself, she had me convinced that I was dreaming this voice up. Until seventeen years later, it came again. And after mentioning it to her once well, her reaction made me never mention it again.
****
I enter the kitchen. An incessant plunking noise echoes from the sink as droplets of water from the faucet drip into the metal basin. Other than that, it’s silent. My eyes dart around the empty, organized room. “Mom, where are you?”
No answer.
In the middle of the kitchen table is a bowl of fruit. A loud, rolling rumble escapes my belly. I stare at the fruit, thinking it looks vaguely familiar. The round reddish fruit resembles a plum, but slightly larger. I’m starving and it looks delicious. Pulling out a chair I plop down in front of the bowl. Buried in the center, tucked between the balls of round deliciousness is a white card. “Hmm.” I pick the card up and scan it.
Happy Birthday.
Love,
H
“H? Who is H?”
I shrug and toss the card aside. Maybe he knows my mother. It has to be someone she knows and I think that them sending me a bowl of fruit for my birthday is an awfully kind gesture.
After grabbing the biggest piece, I bring the plump, fruit to my lips. I open my mouth to take a bite when I hear my mom scream. I face her, my mouth still hanging open, the fruit still in my hand.
“What are you doing?” she shrieks, races toward me, and slaps the fruit out of my hand. It hits the floor with a thud and rolls under the kitchen table. “What were you thinking?” She’s panicking, fumbling as she tries to move a chair, and mumbling incoherent words under her breath. Her face twitches and she scrambles to pick the fruit up off the floor.
I’ve never seen her like this. I’ve never seen her so unglued. “What’s wrong with you?” I’m so confused and concerned. Why is she freaking out over a piece of fruit?
She palms the fruit and waves it my face. “What were you trying to do with this?”
“Trying to do with it? I was gonna eat it. I’m hungry.”