Rock Solid

by Jenny Morelli

Image credit: Sebastian Huxley on Unsplash

I asked if I could visit so I could see, once more, what Mom and I built so long ago, from beams and sheetrock to the final layer of calm, blue paint. It was our respite. Our sanctuary. Our solid-rock escape. The one place Dad wasn’t allowed, until that fateful day when he tried to get in by tipping and tumbling the damn thing, causing the gun Mom stole from his duct-taped drawer to go off, blowing a hole through the door and his gut and letting his hideous life seep out as he drove away like the coward he is.

I had to see that shed one last time, to see if inside a hidden and hollow panel, the stash of paper-plane letters from me and Mom was still there. Words and warnings with wings; our special communication that saved us in those rock-bottom years of our lives, when I would hide out here and rock myself to some semblance of sleep, until I could wake once more and pretend again that I was steady as a rock and ready to battle the bastard.

On every wall, there are knife-scratched grooves where I sat for hours carving my initials, the words help and hate and why and leave, the blue paint chipping and flaking and falling into small piles on the floor, where they remained among the litter of candy wrappers and pet rocks Mom and I would paint faces onto, and Mom’s favorite old rock-star magazines, everything we’d eat and do to pass the time in this lonely shed we built from scratch until the day our world was rocked and tumbled and topsy-turvied into a tumult that lead to Dad’s death, and a reluctant reprieve from the hell out of which we never thought we’d climb. And now, years later, I had to revisit this memory before they tore it down to start again, to start over, to start better, I hope. But I won’t be around to see it. I don’t plan to ever come back here again because that’s what pasts are best for; staying where they belong. 

I’ve moved on from sheetrock. I’m climbing mountains now and never looking back.

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Jenny Morelli

Jenny Morelli is a high school English teacher who lives in New Jersey with her husband and cat. She is often either inspired by her students or else they're triggering memories in her of when she was young and struggling with her self-confidence. She has been published in a number of literary magazines, including Spare Parts for a novel excerpt, Spillwords for several themed poems, and Bottlecap Press for her own chapbook This is Not a Drill.