Family

“Pomegranate, apple, or bunch of grapes?” Mom asked, just asking out of sheer politeness, as she knew what the answer would be. “Pomegranate, please,” her three daughters said in unison. Mrs. Loft sliced the brilliant red fruit in quarters, passed each girl a quarter and took the remainder of the sphere for herself. The two younger girls picked the seeds from the white, inedible and bitter “meat” of the fruit, but Elsabeth, the eldest of Mrs. Loft’s three children at thirteen, looked down at her slice with distaste and surprised her mother on a sudden whim. “Mom, do you have any leftovers of last night’s blueberry pie, or did Lucille and I finish it this morning?” Mrs. Loft blinked, surprised by her daughter’s sudden inquiry. Shaking her head and regaining her usual calm senses she looked intently about the interior of the hamper. “No,” she said to Elsabeth, “I’m afraid there is none left.” It was then that Mr. Loft turned his head slightly from his driving. “I’ll have Elsa’s quarter of pomegranate if she does not care to eat it,” Pa spoke in a bittersweet, chocolaty voice, which made Mom turn her head the opposite way to hide the scowl that had shattered her usually composed features. She detested her husband’s voice, because in her opinion, it was too fictional. No voice was like that in real life. But she had made up for her disapproval by being known to say that, other than his voice, Mr. Loft had no other visible faults. Elsabeth swore a silent oath that blue would, until her death, be her favorite color Road signs protruded from the cold snow every few feet on either side of the vehicle. The wintry white scenery was like a giant blanket spread over a vast expanse of flat terrain, or an electric blue tarp keeping the plants safe from a harsh frost, the heavy wrinkles forming what makes the continental crust of our Earth land: hills and valleys, mountains and even minute anthills. The Confederation Bridge loomed into sight as Dad plucked a scarlet pomegranate seed shiny in luster and held it up to the light before popping it into his mouth. Elsabeth, slightly paranoid for her thirteen years, looked up in alarm. “Pa, I would watch closer at where I was going, if I were you,” she said irritably, before adding hastily, “I don’t know much about driving of course, as I have only just reached my teens.” Mr. Loft was very particular about what others had to say about his maneuvering abilities. However, he heeded his daughter’s warning, and placed the remaining pomegranate into the cup holder next to him. He grasped the steering wheel tightly, and screwed up his eyes in mock concentration. Eve laughed at her father’s false expression of serious deliberation. A claret red car passed the Lofts’ vehicle, its bright hue reflecting off the colorless, almost transparent shade of mystic silver of the automobile’s exterior. Its speed was impregnable, and the crimson car wobbled back and forth on the smoky gray road, every now and then passing a boundary of brilliant yellow, the line that separated the two obscure lanes. “Well I’ll be!” Mr. Loft said after the clumsy-looking sports car had passed, throwing his hands up momentarily in surprise and causing his knuckles, which were deathly white from clutching the steering wheel, to resume their normal color of rouge. He continued his speech, winking at Elsabeth. “If I hadn’t been watching the roads, I assume that there would have been a horrible accident on this Confederation Bridge.” Something about the tone in her father’s words made Elsabeth think about what would have happened if she hadn’t told her father to watch the roads. Would her corpse be lying upon the frozen icy pavement right now, beside a demolished car lacking in hue, marks of red scattered upon the glistening metal of the vehicle’s surface? Elsabeth shook herself as if to relieve her head of such a burdensome thought. Such a troublesome predicament was almost impossible to fathom, not to mention quite unpleasant. At that moment a car the color of the azure sky slowly lumbered past. Blue, it seemed to whisper to the young Miss Loft. Blue. Elsabeth had always liked that color; there were so many names for its numerous shades. For green there was just lush, viridian, and kelly With red there was claret, scarlet, and crimson. As far as black was concerned there was only the elegant phrasing of the adjective, ebony Brown was perhaps of a wider range of choices, with burnt sienna, chestnut, sepia, etc. Yellow had hardly any names of much consequence. Orange possessed the sole vermilion, unless you intended on pairing it with the crayon color name of marigold. Pink could be known as salmon, rouge, and mauve. But with blue—Ah! There was cerulean, phthalo, and indigo. Azure, cornflower, and periwinkle. There was midnight and sky. Oh, there were so many different shades of blue, and at that very moment Elsabeth swore a silent oath that blue would, until her death, be her favorite color. *          *          * Elsabeth lived in Sacramento, California, with her parents, Richard and Cladissa Loft, and her two sisters, ten-year-old Lucille and four-year-old Eve. Elsabeth was no straight-A student when it came to academics, but she was somewhat of a genius when it came to computers and could even outsmart her high school technology professor. This remarkable gift had been accompanied by a strong desire in her early years to save the rainforests, and to become an environmental lawyer. Elsabeth swept her bushy, rather tangled locks of short auburn hair out of her placid face. Prince Edward Island in the winter seasons looked like a jewel-encrusted pendant, all covered in quartz crystal and zircon. Elsabeth was no favorer of diamonds. Their abrupt transparence made them seem like they were not in existence at all. They seemed like sheets of glass scrubbed clean; so clean that one could

“Swim, Amelia, swim faster,” Star screamed. My hands and feet moved faster and faster towards the ship but the pressure of water was pulling me deeper into the sea. I looked at the ship as it moved farther. “Stop the ship, Jack, please,” I heard Star’s voice. “I can’t, the waves are moving it,” Jack yelled. “You can do this, Amelia; just a little faster.” I knew that it was my mother’s voice. I felt a hand grabbing on my ankle. I swam faster but the hand holding onto my ankle was very strong. I sank deeper and deeper in the salty water. I opened my eyes with horror. I looked around to see who had pulled me in the water. My eyes felt weak but I managed to see the person whose fingers were still around my ankle. I saw a faded image of my father. I screamed, I asked him why, but only bubbles came out of my mouth. “Because you shouldn’t be in that ship,” he said. Although only bubbles came out of his mouth I understood what he was saying. I closed my eyes and screamed once more. I opened my eyes; I was sitting on my bed. I was on the bed in the ship moving across the sea. Star, my sister, was sitting by my bed. “Are you all right?” she asked. “I think so,” I said. “You had a bad dream. You were screaming and you woke everyone on the ship,” she said. “Is Dad still angry?” I asked. “Swim, Amelia, swim fasten” Star screamed “About what?” Star asked. “About me coming with you, coming on the sea voyage,” I said. “I’m not sure. Is that what your dream was about?” Star asked. “Yes, he pulled me deep in the water and . . .” I sighed. “And what? It’s not that important, Amelia. It was just a dream, Dad isn’t that angry. You should go back to sleep.” She left the cabin. I lay on my bed. I tried to forget about the dream. I remembered how Dad had said that I shouldn’t go on the sea voyage; how he had said that it was too dangerous. I had told him that I wasn’t afraid and I wouldn’t change my mind. He had said that he wouldn’t forgive me if I did go on the sea voyage but I had only ignored him. Now I felt the ship’s movement. I wasn’t scared of the sea or the roaring waves. I didn’t feel lonely on the ship. I enjoyed walking on the deck of the ship and staring at the blue water. I only felt miserable when I closed my eyes and heard my father’s voice inside my head. *          *          * I stepped off of my bed, came out of the cabin and went to the deck. My cousin Jack was on watch that night. He saw me and walked towards me. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “I couldn’t go to sleep. I can be on watch for you if you’re tired,” I said. “Nah, I’m OK. I like the sky tonight,” Jack said. “What’s so special about it tonight?” I asked. “Look at it,” was all he said. I stared at the sky It looked so beautiful, the stars were so clear. The moon’s reflection was visible in the water. I had never seen such a beautiful sky in the city which we lived in. I sat on the deck. I didn’t take my eyes off the clear sky Then I started to feel sleepy I rested my head on my lap and closed my eyes. I heard my father’s voice once more inside my head; he was saying that he wouldn’t forgive me. I was afraid and I felt guilty but I didn’t open my eyes. I just sat there with my eyes closed and repeated his words in my head. “Jack?” I opened my eyes now, fearing that I might have the dream again. “Yeah?” he said. “Did you ever have big disagreements with your dad?” I soon bit my lips after saying these words. Jack’s dad, my uncle, had died five years ago when Jack was ten years old and I was only eight years old. Since his mother had died two years before that, he lived with me and my family Asking the question I had asked made me feel terrible. I wanted to start a new conversation and make him forget about the question but it was too late. “Yes, I did. A lot of arguments.” He blinked and quickly looked away to hide his tears. “Oh . . .” I said this and stared at the sky, acting like I hadn’t seen the tears. I was giving him time to wipe his tears away. “But they were never worth it, the arguments I mean. I wish we had only talked about it. When I was angry at him I would talk to your father and he would tell me that the right way to deal with it was to talk about it with my dad. I never did talk about the arguments with him though, and he never talked about them with me. We would just forget about the arguments after a while and would put it aside, without knowing what the other person had been angry or upset about or why they had been upset.” Jack sighed and looked away from me once more. I stared at the sea this time; I didn’t want to start talking with him until I was sure he was ready. In the meantime I thought about my argument with my father. I thought about talking to him, telling him why I had come on this voyage. But then I thought that maybe the way Jack and his father had just put the argument aside was the right way Just then I noticed that it had been silent for a long time. I quickly glanced at

“Pomegranate, apple, or bunch of grapes?” Mom asked, just asking out of sheer politeness, as she knew what the answer would be. “Pomegranate, please,” her three daughters said in unison. Mrs. Loft sliced the brilliant red fruit in quarters, passed each girl a quarter and took the remainder of the sphere for herself. The two younger girls picked the seeds from the white, inedible and bitter “meat” of the fruit, but Elsabeth, the eldest of Mrs. Loft’s three children at thirteen, looked down at her slice with distaste and surprised her mother on a sudden whim. “Mom, do you have any leftovers of last night’s blueberry pie, or did Lucille and I finish it this morning?” Mrs. Loft blinked, surprised by her daughter’s sudden inquiry. Shaking her head and regaining her usual calm senses she looked intently about the interior of the hamper. “No,” she said to Elsabeth, “I’m afraid there is none left.” It was then that Mr. Loft turned his head slightly from his driving. “I’ll have Elsa’s quarter of pomegranate if she does not care to eat it,” Pa spoke in a bittersweet, chocolaty voice, which made Mom turn her head the opposite way to hide the scowl that had shattered her usually composed features. She detested her husband’s voice, because in her opinion, it was too fictional. No voice was like that in real life. But she had made up for her disapproval by being known to say that, other than his voice, Mr. Loft had no other visible faults. Elsabeth swore a silent oath that blue would, until her death, be her favorite color Road signs protruded from the cold snow every few feet on either side of the vehicle. The wintry white scenery was like a giant blanket spread over a vast expanse of flat terrain, or an electric blue tarp keeping the plants safe from a harsh frost, the heavy wrinkles forming what makes the continental crust of our Earth land: hills and valleys, mountains and even minute anthills. The Confederation Bridge loomed into sight as Dad plucked a scarlet pomegranate seed shiny in luster and held it up to the light before popping it into his mouth. Elsabeth, slightly paranoid for her thirteen years, looked up in alarm. “Pa, I would watch closer at where I was going, if I were you,” she said irritably, before adding hastily, “I don’t know much about driving of course, as I have only just reached my teens.” Mr. Loft was very particular about what others had to say about his maneuvering abilities. However, he heeded his daughter’s warning, and placed the remaining pomegranate into the cup holder next to him. He grasped the steering wheel tightly, and screwed up his eyes in mock concentration. Eve laughed at her father’s false expression of serious deliberation. A claret red car passed the Lofts’ vehicle, its bright hue reflecting off the colorless, almost transparent shade of mystic silver of the automobile’s exterior. Its speed was impregnable, and the crimson car wobbled back and forth on the smoky gray road, every now and then passing a boundary of brilliant yellow, the line that separated the two obscure lanes. “Well I’ll be!” Mr. Loft said after the clumsy-looking sports car had passed, throwing his hands up momentarily in surprise and causing his knuckles, which were deathly white from clutching the steering wheel, to resume their normal color of rouge. He continued his speech, winking at Elsabeth. “If I hadn’t been watching the roads, I assume that there would have been a horrible accident on this Confederation Bridge.” Something about the tone in her father’s words made Elsabeth think about what would have happened if she hadn’t told her father to watch the roads. Would her corpse be lying upon the frozen icy pavement right now, beside a demolished car lacking in hue, marks of red scattered upon the glistening metal of the vehicle’s surface? Elsabeth shook herself as if to relieve her head of such a burdensome thought. Such a troublesome predicament was almost impossible to fathom, not to mention quite unpleasant. At that moment a car the color of the azure sky slowly lumbered past. Blue, it seemed to whisper to the young Miss Loft. Blue. Elsabeth had always liked that color; there were so many names for its numerous shades. For green there was just lush, viridian, and kelly With red there was claret, scarlet, and crimson. As far as black was concerned there was only the elegant phrasing of the adjective, ebony Brown was perhaps of a wider range of choices, with burnt sienna, chestnut, sepia, etc. Yellow had hardly any names of much consequence. Orange possessed the sole vermilion, unless you intended on pairing it with the crayon color name of marigold. Pink could be known as salmon, rouge, and mauve. But with blue—Ah! There was cerulean, phthalo, and indigo. Azure, cornflower, and periwinkle. There was midnight and sky. Oh, there were so many different shades of blue, and at that very moment Elsabeth swore a silent oath that blue would, until her death, be her favorite color. *          *          * Elsabeth lived in Sacramento, California, with her parents, Richard and Cladissa Loft, and her two sisters, ten-year-old Lucille and four-year-old Eve. Elsabeth was no straight-A student when it came to academics, but she was somewhat of a genius when it came to computers and could even outsmart her high school technology professor. This remarkable gift had been accompanied by a strong desire in her early years to save the rainforests, and to become an environmental lawyer. Elsabeth swept her bushy, rather tangled locks of short auburn hair out of her placid face. Prince Edward Island in the winter seasons looked like a jewel-encrusted pendant, all covered in quartz crystal and zircon. Elsabeth was no favorer of diamonds. Their abrupt transparence made them seem like they were not in existence at all. They seemed like sheets of glass scrubbed clean; so clean that one could