Introduction: -10 In The Shade
Black. Black. Black.
It was everywhere. All around me. My hair, my clothes, my mood.
I stared out of the airplane window, watching the ground get closer and closer as the aircraft began to descend on Richmond, Virginia. I hadn’t left New York in all of my 20 years, and in the last 5, I'd barely even left my bedroom. It felt strange to be this far away from home and to be looking down upon a city that looked so unlike the one that I was used to. There were no skyscrapers or heavily congested blocks, no parade of yellow taxi cabs filling the noisy streets, just a whole lot of greenery.
We landed on the tarmac of Richmond International Airport and the Virginian heat engulfed me the moment I stepped off the plane. I navigated through the busy airport, head down, dragging my suitcase behind me, while Lana Del Rey agonized over her Million Dollar Man in my ears. I liked Lana Del Rey. I admired her vulnerability, her submissiveness, her delicacy. I loved that she was an open book, unashamed, that she’d let it all out and she didn’t care who knew about it. We were nothing alike, though. She was the tragic beauty queen and I was the dark, angsty twenty-year-old. She wanted to be saved and I… well. I didn’t know what I wanted. A little reprieve, maybe. A little less darkness. A little more light. Some rest, too. I was tired of it all.
The nervousness I felt at the prospect of spending my summer here in Virginia was already bubbling up inside of me. It was so easy to melt into the shadows of fast-paced New York. There was no such thing as being out of place there; everything was so weird and wonderful that nobody paid any mind to the dark-haired girl with tattooed arms that hardly ever spoke, they were too wound up in their busy lives. To say that I was concerned about sticking out like a sore thumb in a place so placid was an understatement.
***
I hardly took in any of my surroundings as my Aunt and Uncle drove me from the airport to their home. The scenery from the car window I sat beside was nothing but a blur. The sky outside the vehicle was already sinking into the horizon on this July evening and the roads weren't particularly busy; it seemed as though most folks had already retired for the night, so I simply sat in the backseat, immersed in my thoughts.
I had been startled, to say the least, at the arrivals lounge. Although I hadn’t seen my Aunt Jodie or my Uncle Clarke since I was a newborn, I’d recognized the latter straight away due to how much he resembled my Dad. They looked so alike that they could have passed for twins. They’d both embraced me warmly and Uncle Clark had carried my case for me as they led me to their car. The couple, to my relief, seemed nice, though it’d probably take me some time to get used to my Aunts thick accent - I’d already had to ask her to repeat herself a number of times and we hadn’t even reached the house yet.
“I can’t believe how much you look like Danny,” Uncle Clarke commented disbelievingly as he glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. I smiled at the reference to my Dad; it was nice to hear his name said aloud. “How old are you now, Erin?”
“Twenty,” I responded shyly. I hated telling people my age, it always reminded me of how little I'd achieved and that I no longer had the excuse of still being a teenager to fall back on. I was now in my twenties.
“You’re right in the middle of your cousins,” Aunt Jodie looked back at me with a smile, “Jason is twenty-one and Paris is nineteen.” I nodded, hoping that they were as nice as their parents. “We’re so glad you could come and visit, sweetheart.” Aunt Jodie continued, “We had tried to contact you for a while but lost contact after your Dad died, and Paris said she couldn’t find you or your sister on Facebook.”
“Yeah, I don’t have a Facebook and I moved house, so…” I shrugged. “But yeah, when I spoke to Mom – “ I glanced in the rear-view and could have sworn I saw my Uncle’s jaw tighten at the mention of my Mother. “- she said you’d managed to get hold of her… Thanks for inviting me out here.”
“It’s our pleasure. Your Dad was meant to bring you girls out here years ago, but I guess life just gets in the way sometimes...” His voice trailed off and I understood it instantly. It’s the recognition of loss, of regret, of wasted time. He snapped out of it a moment later and smiled, “You’re here now, anyway. It really is such a shame Leanna couldn’t make it too.”
I almost rolled my eyes at the mention of my sister. I could only imagine what excuse she gave for not coming out here. In reality she was probably just too busy sniffing coke and hanging out at Planned Parenthood to bother. Not that I wanted her to come; my life was better the further apart she and I were.
“Yeah.” I breathed half-heartedly, and then leaned back on the seat to resume my thinking.
My memory of the day my Dad died was vague, but for me that was the beginning of the end. I remember my Mom sitting there, at the table where we'd usually have our family meals, a blank look on her face and no emotion in her voice as she said words like "knife" and "murdered".
My sister, former arch nemesis of mine, now simply a sworn enemy, was the complete opposite. She was wailing so loudly that I could barely hear myself think. She'd always been the type that burst with emotions, usually anger that then morphed into sadness, and that day was no different.
Me, I was numb. Empty. I don't remember what had happened before or after that conversation that day, but I felt I hadn’t been the same since. I could barely even remember who I was before then.
Things had crumbled after we lost Dad. My Mom was no longer my Mom. She resigned from the job, it seemed, and reassigned herself to the role of her new mans fiancé and stepmother to his kids. She clothed and fed them, and left my sister and I to fend for ourselves. Up until my Dads inheritance kicked in when I turned 18, my months were littered with days where I had no idea when I'd be able to afford my next meal.
We pulled up in the driveway of a large house just a little while later. I hopped out of the car and stopped for a moment to have a quick look around. The sun had long set upon the peaceful street we were stood on. We were the only people outside in the warm breezeless evening, everybody else seemed to be relaxing inside one of the almost identical houses that lined the street. From what I could see so far it seemed to be pretty peaceful, the complete opposite of what I was used to, I could hear no police sirens, see no drunks, smell no fumes in the air... This was alien to me.
I scanned the street quickly once again before heading into the house, hoping that I’d somehow be able to settle into a city that seemed to be the opposite of everything I was.