Shadows Sing Side-Stories Ch.3 part 1

Ernest Smith’s Slump

 

            I sit in my office chair and stare at my computer screen. I see the line blinking on and off and not a single word is written. I have an open book on my left and two open books to my right, yet not a single word on the pages is engaging with me. What's wrong with me? This is not like me in the slightest. My mind has always been a buzz with wonder and interest in research. Now I’m coming up blank like this computer document. Why? Why now do I have to be in this slump? It’s not like me. This is not me. I can’t and will not let this slump continue.

            Yet the document before me remands blank. 

Not a key touched on the keyboard. 

Oh, come on now brain! Why won't you work already? We finally have peace now to work. For the last ten years, I have had to chase down books taken out of my office by that child. Now I don't have to. We finally have a home where each book is where it should be. On the shelf in alphabetical order categorized by topics and years. Not a thing is wrong with this place. It’s comfortable. It's functional for my work-related needs. Yet I can't seem to get any work done. Why?

Does this have to do with Madeline’s behavior lately? She has not been herself these last five days since Roxanne went missing. I knew that it would be hard for her when the day would come for Roxanne to leave home. But I thought I had worked through all that with her too. That we would be fine. It would be like it was before we took Roxanne in. Back in those good old days when we had ambitions of making brake throughs in science. That we would do what we have always done, by keeping moving forward. It’s not like we did not expect Roxanne to leave us. I honestly expected her to leave us this fall for college like any normal young adult her age would. However, she was stubborn about not leaving. She was doing absolutely nothing. Call me old fashioned but what young adult doesn’t what to leave home. 

Though it does not surprise me that she would defy practical expectations. Always the odd, unsettling child that one. I'm sorry that I am harsh but it's true. Anyone who had to live under the same roof with her would tell you the same thing, except my wife. I went along with being family to her out of Madeline's emotional obligations to her family. I never was unreasonable with her. She was just unnatural. 

Where can I begin to explain? I suppose the day Madeline brought her home. I was around for the phone call, and I heard stories of my wife's family. From what my wife told me back then, her little sister, Aria, was spirited. Neither one of us knew that Aria had a child. Back then we wanted nothing to do with her family and that day we were burdened by Aria's death and daughter. But was Roxanne really her family? I always doubted it. 

When Madeline brought her into the house for the first time, I nearly fainted at the sight of her hair. It was an unnatural shade of red. I thought that the child was bleeding profusely when I saw that hair.

 I remember telling Madeline, “What is wrong with that child? Quickly we need to get her to a hospital?” 

And my Madeline responded with, “She might have been injured when my sister died, but she is fine.”

We still gave her a bath to help see if we could wash out that blood-looking color. Only we ended up discovering it was not blood at all. It was her natural hair color.