Homesickness

Through the haziness of strange dreams lingering in my subconscious despite the constant interruption from my morning alarms, I can hear footsteps pitter-patter in the hallway towards me. As I clutch onto my pillow and bury my face into the worn fabric, sleepiness continues to cling to the edges of my reality. I don’t want it to let go either.

I feel the indentation of my mattress as she sits on the edge of my bed. A pause. Her hand brushes my hair out of my face as I reach up to rub my eye with the back of my thumb.

“Wake up sleepyhead.” Another pause, then a sigh. “You shouldn’t keep your hair tied up before you sleep Fifi.”

I mumble my answer, “I know, I just forgot. I was reading my book.”

My eyes focus on the sharpening view of her reaching over me to pick up the still unfolded glasses beside my pillow, next to my headphones, both haphazardly thrown aside the night before. She picks up the copy of The Stranger that fell from my sleep heavy fingers as my eyes struggled to hold onto the words at 2 am. She rests it on my nightstand, placing my glasses on top before I roll over and crush them. Something that has occurred more than I care to admit, but my mom, forever patient, doesn’t mention my bad habit of leaving them around carelessly.

I pull the blankets over my goosebump covered arm, another result of leaving my arms outside my covers before falling asleep.

“It’s 10:30, time to get up.”

“I know, I know. Give me a second.”

She doesn’t push, simply getting up, pushing aside the curtain to let some light in and excusing herself, but not before leaving the door open. I can hear her in the kitchen, washing her hands, opening the fridge to pull out some bacon. I know because we talked about today’s breakfast at dinner last night.

After a minute or two of stretching and peeking outside the window to take in the cloudy sky, I sit on the edge of my bed to yank on my gray zip up hoodie, also randomly tossed to the side of my bed. I ungracefully unfold my glasses to push onto my face as I stumble out the bedroom door, accidentally hitting it on my way out with a thump.

No one but me knows how to make waffles in this family.