We had only visited our cabin in the woods once before that summer. My dad was always working, and my mother would not take us alone. The first time we went I was six, this was ten years after.
Mother had eloped with her lover so father wanted to get away from the public eye for a bit, while figuring out the lie he would tell us to explain the situation and preserve the family bond. I never understood why he saw the need to lie to us about it. We might have been young, but we weren’t stupid. Maybe he was too busy to understand just how much mother gave his lies away when he was not around.
The woods were not as fun as I remembered. The cell service was terrible, the place was crawling with bugs, and I didn’t realise how lonely that silence could make you feel. My siblings are more artistic than I, so they found the beauty in nature, I found that terribly boring. My father was indoors mostly, he only came out when we needed his help with something. I felt very alone on our bonding trip.
He called us into the living room on our third day there to explain the rumor making the rounds that our mom ran away with a man –like we didn't witness it first hand.
“Your mother just went on a soul searching mission; you guys know how she’s so into yoga, fengshui and all that funny stuff now. She’s on her way to Asia in search of her spirit animal or whatever. She didn’t leave us. You should know by now that people like to twist stories. Whatever you heard about your mother is not true.”
It was laughable. Mother was making her way to Asia alright, but not to meet with monks and find a higher purpose, she was going on a boat cruise with her new man. Did he think we were still clueless? He had been away working most of our lives; maybe that’s why he hadn’t noticed how much we had grown. We were no longer children who would fall for such lies.
I thought to bring him up to speed but then I looked more properly at the man, he was in pain. He was not just lying to us, but to himself as well. I couldn’t bring myself to burst his bubble. My siblings probably already had the same thoughts, they were always better at deciphering emotion.
We left the woods a week after, and my mom leaving remained a rumor in our house for month.
Thank you for reading my entry for the marvelous tales contest. If you enjoyed it do UPVOTE, RESTEEM and COMMENT.
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