In the bitter winter of my 4th-grade year, my teachers and friends changed left and right,
but my home and family were always constants I could hold onto. Tedious five-day weeks and
weekends flew by, occasionally broken with visits to extended family, usually my grandma.
There, I knew a breath of fresh air from the monotony of elementary school life could be taken.
Granted, my time at my grandma’s miniscule apartment wasn’t riveting by any means, but it was
something different and that was enough for me.
One Saturday, I was playing with my American Girl Dolls in my room, slowly brushing
the long black hair of the retired Josephine doll. I braided the signature, over-the-shoulder plait
she came with, and tucked a fake yellow flower behind her ear. I was calmly admiring my work
when my mom called out to the family.
“Kids? Can you come to sit down at the table?” The sound echoed in the open-concept
house my parents always disliked. My brother and I raced to the table, curious as to what the
matter was.
“What is it, Mom?” My brother inquired; hesitancy filled his voice at what would be in
answer to his question.
“Sit down, kids,” my mom instructed. Her eyes flitted to my dad’s for a brief second, a subtle display of her unease; other than that, she was a statue. “Your Grandma,” she didn’t have
to specify which one, for my other had died several years prior. “She has cancer, stage 4.”
“Is that bad?” I questioned. I knew what cancer was, and its sometimes deadly
consequences, but I never imagined it would happen to someone I knew, so why wouldn’t she be okay?
“It isn’t the best, but I’m sure she’ll be fine,” my mom reassured my brother and me. “She is going to start chemotherapy soon. It is supposed to get rid of the cancer.” My young mind couldn’t pick up on the slight deflection and lie in Mom’s words. I didn’t cry; my brother didn’t either because my mom said that my grandma would be okay.
Over the next few months, my grandma got sicker and weaker, but I assumed that was
normal. After all, my dad had told me that chemotherapy tries to target only cancer cells, but it
can kill others also, so it would all be fine once she stopped. In the meantime, my mom and her
sister visited often. It was a two-hour drive to the hospice house, but that never stopped her from making it.
By this point, I should have accepted the truth that my grandma was going to die, but I
was incapable of thinking that way. My undying optimism completely shunned the potential fate
that lay in store for my grandma. Nobody in my family that I knew closely had died, so it was
nearly impossible for me to imagine a world in which someone had. Therefore, life moved on as normal for me. I never visited my grandma frequently anyway, but I had not seen her since she was in her little apartment, crocheting blankets and slippers at the speed of light. I had no idea of the changes that had occurred in my absence.
We went camping in the summer. For four days we were going to have an RV and the time of our lives. Campfires became an evening tradition and on the third night, we were sitting around in big green chairs, all aligned in a little circle. Then, my mom got a phone call; it was from the hospice house my grandma resided in.
“Hello, do you have a minute?” The modulated voice asked, just audible enough for me
to make out the words.
“Yes, I do.” My mom answered. She left the circle of chairs and walked inside. Through
the windows, we could see her pace back and forth, the embodiment of stress. Eventually, she set down the phone and motioned for us to join her inside. Her features were taut, and even though no tears fell, they were not needed to show the extent of her sadness.
“I’m sorry kids, but your grandma is not doing well. I think it would be best for us to visit
her.” My mom told us. The words “for the last time” were not said, but everyone could still hear
them. My optimistic self, however, thought there was still no way she would die, not that I had
even grasped what that truly meant, but why would she? She had cancer, but she’d been doing
chemo, something that gets rid of it, right? So why wasn’t it gone? Why would she die?
These thoughts plagued my mind as I sat in the backseat of the 2014 Chevy Tahoe my
dad had recently gotten. The slight squeak of the brakes and the wind rushing by as we zoomed
down the highway were the only sounds that filled the car. Activities to keep us children
entertained—notebooks, puzzles, and an array of Twistable crayons—were hastily shoved in a bag and thrown back in the seats.
When we arrived at the hospice house we were ushered to a large room with nothing but
a folding table, two folding chairs, and the hospital bed with my grandma on it. She was sleeping
when we arrived, so my brother and I were instructed to keep quiet and play with our toys. A
half-finished puzzle already sat on the bumpy gray surface of the table. Decadent desserts in the form of cakes, sundaes, and eclairs were photographed in the 500-piece puzzle. The bright pink frosting that lathered each of these desserts was painful to look at in comparison to the brown walls and somber mood.
There was one window in the corner where flowers and grass could be seen. A
hummingbird zoomed by and I thought of how much my grandma loved hummingbirds. With
their bright colors and constant energy, it seemed almost impossible not to. But her eyes were
closed and she couldn’t enjoy the sight she once loved so much. Eventually, a nurse came into
the room and tilted my grandma’s bed up. The nurse wiped her eyes and helped her open them, a
common task so simple I had never even thought about it before, never considered that it could
be so challenging for someone.
The old woman who sat on that bed was unrecognizable. She was removed from the
familiar apartment, the kitchen with white appliances, and the floral perfume she always wore,
and was reduced to a person completely reliant on others. Her eyes seemed to see nothing of the world in front of her. If the hummingbird flew by again, it would go unnoticed by her once more.
My mom told my brother and I to greet her, but it seemed there was nothing left to greet.
Nonetheless, we tiptoed over to the side of the bed and held her hands, shaking like paper in the wind, as we told her how much she meant to us. The same hands that used to crochet and knit endlessly, now seemed like somebody else’s entirely. No sign of recognition was ever shown in her eyes as we spoke.
Eventually, we retreated to the bright pink puzzle and put it together slowly as my mom
greeted my grandma too. But I think at that moment it was really a goodbye. Soon, the puzzle
was finished, and I pulled out my 30-page sketchbook with an ugly watercolor butterfly on the front and wondered what to draw. I sat there for minutes, pondering what I could possibly draw at a time like this. The beautiful terrain outside the window could never truly be captured; one must be in it to grasp the experience. But I wasn’t in it. I was inside a desolate hospice house watching my grandma die. Still, flowers were drawn and hummingbirds were too, by dusty crayons with childish dexterity.
After a couple hours my dad, brother, and I left, but my mom stayed. Her sister joined
and would give her a ride back to the campsite after everything was over. The car ride back
seemed even colder and more somber than the house.
I woke up on a Thursday morning and my mom was there, crying. I hated to see her cry
and had no idea how to comfort her, so I didn’t. I stayed in my little bunk and thought of all the
memories I had with my grandma. Baking brownies, going to butterfly houses, museums. My
face became hot and my throat felt like it was closing, but no tears came.
Soon after, the funeral was held. As everyone piled out of the car, I didn’t. I stayed in the
car with my dad. My stomach hurt so badly, for a reason that I couldn’t place my finger on, so I
just sat in the car for hours. I think I knew that if I went in there, I would start crying, and I
despised crying in front of people. So, I sat in the car with the guilt of my dad missing his
mother-in-law’s funeral stewing away, not helping my stomach ache at all.
The car door opened suddenly and I climbed into the backseat to let my mom take the
passenger’s.
“It was a beautiful funeral,” my mom lamented. “She would have been so happy.”
It seemed all my parents could talk about was the funeral. She was talking on the phone
with her sister about headstones, ashes, and memorials. It was a lot, but I never cried.
A month later, my family and my mom’s siblings gathered for a memorial in the
cemetery. In the middle of August, the heat was suffocating me; I was wearing black, my mom
wouldn’t stop hugging me, and it was all too much.
My breathing shortened and quickened, my hands tingled, my vision blurred and I
couldn’t feel anything except the heat. I felt my knees weaken and my mom tightened her grip on me. I tried to push away, to get away from the heat.
I ended up in the back of the car, the AC blowing on my face, a plastic water bottle in
hand, and my dad beside me. He told me, “It’s not good to keep your emotions bottled up like that, you have to let other people know what you’re feeling.”
I just nodded and breathed in and out. In and out. I unscrewed the lid to the water and
took a long sip. The metallic tang of the water, warmed from the sun, didn’t make me feel any
better. My mind was flashing through all of the memories, and it was hard not to become
overwhelmed. I tried to think of all the good memories, the baking and crocheting. I tried to
remember the smell of the brownies, and her laugh as I tried to taste the batter. I wanted to
remember the soft pink wool that I knew would become the afghan I keep in my room to this
day. I really did try, but the flashback of her in the hospice house played front and center, over
and over.
In that moment I truly grasped the concept of death. The irrevocable and unavoidable fate that someday everyone I know will face, including me. Even with all the signs, death always
strikes the revelation that one second a person could be alive and the next they aren’t, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Flowers and grass surrounded the car, and finally, I was in them. But unlike in the
hospice house, I could see the imperfections. No hummingbirds or butterflies danced around the
sky, and the flowers were brown and dead, lying on a bed of yellowed grass. The tulips placed on the headstone had already wilted from the unrelenting sun, and soon they too would die and turn to dust, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Behind Closed Doors by Elyana Marschner, 12th Grade
Second Place Winner: Nonfiction
Content Warning: Child Abuse, Suicide
Growing up, I didn’t think much about how my family wasn’t like other families. I grew up in Kingsley, Michigan in a three-story house that was white with green shutters. From the outside, my family looked just like a new other family.
My parents fought a lot; I could hear it from my room. I’d sit on the first step of the stairs, out of sight, hoping they wouldn’t notice me. One time I saw my dad grab my mom and pin her against the wall. He yelled at her: she looked terrified and had a look of not knowing what would happen next. My parents mostly thought about three things: my dad’s drinking, how his drinking affected the family, and how he needed to be a better father.
Until I was three, my dad was my favorite parent. I loved him more than anything. We’d go for adventures outdoors or go on family trips together. Around four, he started becoming distant. By the time I was six, he started abusing me.
It all got worse when my stepmom, Jennifer, moved in. She was his high school girlfriend who had recently gotten divorced and was moving back to Michigan.
My dad used to say, “The dogs are part of the family, treat them like family.” He stopped saying that when Jennifer moved in. She was allergic to every furry animal.
She constantly complained about them, saying things like, “I can’t sleep with them here,” or “They need to get out.” My dad did whatever he could to make her happy, even if it meant hurting the dogs. My father locked away the dogs in the garage. I only saw them when I was sent to the garage to fetch a beer for him. They were always shaking, and I never saw food or water for them. I still remember the last time I saw them. It was an overcast day, and Jayger, one of the dogs, licked my hand. It was something he’d never done before.
My father says they died of old age, but I believe it was because of neglect.
My dad had a short temper, especially when he was drunk, and he often took it out on me. There were times he’d send me to my room without dinner, making me stay there until the next day. He took the back of my neck so hard it felt like I couldn’t breathe, or he’d grab my arms with such force so I have marks from his fingers.
I remember the first time Child Protective Services came to the house. I was in my Hello
Kitty pajamas, watching “Chowder” on Cartoon Network. My stepmom was putting my sister to
sleep and my father was in his room when there was a knock on the door. I looked out to see a
police car and a white car in our driveway. “There’s police here,” I exclaimed.
My father and stepmom rushed down to the front door, refusing to let them in. The CPS
worker, Ashley, was taking notes as I peeked through the window and locked eyes with the
officer. After forcing their way through, they searched the house and found things that became
usual notes taken in the CPS reports over the years.
The notes always said this: “Cabinets full of alcohol, fridge full of beer in garage,
garbage can filled with cans of beer, plastic water bottle covered with electric tape filled with
tobacco, and father of the house is slurring words.”
The police decided it was best that my mom picked us up and we stayed with her. My
father tried to protest and say people hated him and were making up lies about him. As my
step-mom took me back to my room where my sister was sleeping, she made a comment about
how it was finally good that we weren’t sleeping on a blow up mattress anymore and that we
finally got on a bed. After we had gotten changed, we waited in the driveway for our mom. I was
looking down the driveway, red and blue lights flashing, standing next to my sister, the CPS
worker behind us, watching the police officer talk to my mom. He gave her something to breathe
into at the end of the driveway while my dad and stepmom stood behind the storm door. My step
mom had a slight smirk on her face. They told the authorities my mom was a heavy drinker
hoping to get her in trouble as well.
Going to my father’s house after that day was terrifying. I didn’t want to go, but the court
wouldn’t let me decide where to live until I was 18. Even though CPS had been called a number
of times, the court didn’t think there was enough evidence to do anything about it. The situation
didn’t change until I tried to take my life when I was eleven.
The last time I saw my dad was five years ago. I was twelve when we had a big
argument. I said everything I could possibly say to hurt him. I’ve seen him cry a lot but it was
because he thought everyone made him out to be a bad guy to me or because he was just drunk. This time, he cried because I called him a joke of a dad and a horrible father.
“I WOULD RATHER DIE THAN BE IN THIS HELL HOUSE ANYMORE!” I yelled at
him, “YOU’RE A HORRIBLE PARENT, YOU DON’T DESERVE KIDS!”
He looked shocked to see those words come out of my mouth. I wanted to stop. I knew
my punishment would be severe, but the words kept rolling off my tongue. I was letting all my
anger and hatred onto him.
“Just call my mom to come pick me up please,” I said as more tears started to form in my
eyes.
“NO, YOU’RE STAYING HERE AND YOU WILL NOT LEAVE THIS ROOM UNTIL TOMORROW,” he yelled back.
“FINE,” I said, gaining some energy, “I’LL WALK!”
“WAIT TILL YOUR MOTHER GETS HOME!” he said angrily walking out of the doorway of my room.
She’s not my mom and this is not my home,’ I thought to myself. I knew not to say anything else because everything I had already said, I would be severely punished for. I stared out of the window in the room waiting for my stepmom to arrive. I thought I was ready to face her anger and my punishments, but as soon as I saw her drive up the driveway I was crippled with fear. I had never felt this kind of fear as I was paralyzed and started to have a severe panic attack. He told her everything. She came into the room and dragged me out and made me apologize to him.
“We’ll deal with your punishments later, go back to your room, and don’t come out
unless I say you can,” she said to me. It had been two hours of sitting alone in silence when Jenifer came into my room again.
“We need to go Your father got in a car accident,” she said while rushing in through the
door.
We were almost to where he had crashed when we saw the car: the whole front half of the car had been totaled. I wondered what had made him crash and what the other car looked like.
We stopped in front of the middle school where we saw the police car and that’s when I
saw what he hit.
A parked car.
This is so embarrassing for him, I thought.
I couldn’t believe it. Could that day have gotten more chaotic?
It did.
“LOOK WHAT YOU CAUSED,” she yelled at me.
You’ve got to be kidding me, what I caused, she’s gotta be kidding, I thought.
My stepmom got out of the car and helped my dad into the car. As she was talking to the
police officer, I wanted to jump out of the car and beg the police officer for help. I stopped
myself, though. I knew it would create more problems, and he most likely wouldn’t do anything.
As soon as Jenifer got back into the car she started yelling at me, “LOOK WHAT YOU
CAUSED YOUR FATHER TO DO, YOU PUT SO MUCH STRESS ON HIM, YOU’RE LUCKY HE’S OKAY.”
Guess she wasn’t joking.
We got back to the house and I was sent right back to the room. The next time my
stepmom had come into the room, the sun had gone down and she was putting my sister to bed. “Come down to apologize to your father and we will talk about your punishment,” she said.
I didn’t want to apologize but I knew I had to. I climbed down the bunk and walked out
of the room she followed behind me. I looked around the house.
The house was in lockdown.
There was a curtain rod in the sliding door of the sun room so I couldn’t get out that way.
I walked down the stairs and saw heavy objects in front of the front door and garage door. They
put chairs, a bag of golf clubs, boxes, and totes so I couldn’t get out. The only places that weren’t in lockdown were the basement and my room. There was a rock in the room I could throw to get the screen door out. I would have to jump out the window if I wanted to escape.
“Keep going down the stairs, he’s on the couch in the game room,” she said, still close
behind me.
I walked down the stairs into the game room. I saw him sitting there, but I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. He was looking at me blankly as Jenifer sat next to him.
“It hurts me and your father that you acted that way. You were rude and disrespectful to
him and he has done so much good for you. People tell you bad things about him,” she said to
me.
I was just standing there awkwardly not knowing what to say. All I could think about was going home and telling my mom everything, remembering things so I could write them down to tell her everything. My dad started crying; he definitely had drank more.
“It just hurts me so much,” he said to me. It wasn’t the first time I heard him say that while crying, “You cause so many problems and I don’t know why.”
“Your mother—” I didn’t let my stepmom finish.
“You have no reason to talk about my mom the way you do, and neither does your mom.
You and your family, especially your mom, act like my mom ruined this family and that she
brainwashes me. SHE’S DONE NOTHING WRONG. I’m so sick of everyone acting like it’s her
fault, when most of it was you, YOU’Re A HOMEWRECKER. YOU DIDN’T EVEN CARE
THAT HE HAD KIDS, and then you cry when we don’t say I love you back. Ever think it’s
because we don’t love you?”
Shoot, I shouldn’t have said that last part. Now I’m in even more trouble, I thought to
myself.
A few minutes later I was walking back up the stairs to my room. Tears were starting to
form in my eyes, but I refused to cry.
I lay awake all that night waiting for morning to come. I was paralyzed by fear of what
would happen if I fell asleep. It felt like hours before I drifted asleep.
The morning came, and I was still filled with fear. The car ride to Culvers was completely
silent. He had cut off the door lock so I couldn’t pull it up and get out anymore. As soon as he
parked, I grabbed my things and jumped out of the car as fast as possible.
I got in the car and told my mom everything.
